Wedding Ceremony

Image from 2000dollarwedding.com

Because we are getting married in the Catholic Church, we don't get the freedom to come up with our own vows or wedding traditions. I am a little jealous when I see people come up with such meaningful new traditions, like Sara and Matt did (love their wedding quilt--pictured--made from pieces of fabric donated by friends and family). We are stuck with a pretty traditional service--we got a little book with our choices of readings. And we are not necessarily excited with our options. I think we can pick some other bible readings, so if you have any suggestions for something you found that isn't in the Catholic church's booklet, please let me know. On the plus side, it is one aspect of the wedding that is pretty much set (as in, I don't feel any pressure to come up with creative ways to express our love for each other, because, really, I don't think I could do it--how do you meaningfully articulate that feeling and commitment you are undertaking?)

I also don't think we have much freedom to write our own vows. I asked my fiance about it and his opinion was that he was okay with traditional vows. I am too. While we could draft something more personal, I don't think that you can really improve upon the sentiment in traditional vows--for better and for worse, in sickness, and in health--pretty much sums up the commitment we are making to each other. Faith explainedit well here: she and her fiance chose to "stick with the short simple, and old-fashioned words in our ceremony. We wanted to be connected to the longstanding supports of tradition, community, and strength we have available in our personal faiths." I agree. As an alternative, I was thinking that perhaps we could toast each other at the reception as a way to share our more personal feelings about each other and our marriage. Has anyone been to a wedding where a bride and groom have done that? Do you think it would be too much talking (and not enough eating and dancing) when combined with the other toasts?

What's in a name?

As a follow up to my earlier post on our ceremony location, I thought I'd mention a thought about the name of our Church. Our Lady of Sorrows does not exactly convey the joyousness of your wedding day. So, it did give us a moment of pause, but only a moment. The Church is beautiful, the congregation is welcoming, and our priest is great. My fiance's response when I asked him about it was that he could make a little comment about how getting married at Our Lady of Sorrows helps us to remember that, while today is a day of joy, we take each other in marriage to have and to hold in both times of joy and of sorrow. I think he meant it to be funny, but instead it's actually kind of sweet and true. In case you were curious, that's what we are taking away from the name of our Church.

Ceremony Location

Image by Photographer Jeremy Atherton via http://www.ols-chicago.org/

[A little quirk I have noticed about myself is that I have trouble doing things out of order. This causes problems sometimes when I cannot get complete the first thing on a list, I accomplish nothing at all on that list because it is very difficult for me to skip over something and move on to the next one. Anyway, as a result of this quirk, I have started my more detailed posts on wedding decisions completed and in progress in order--starting with our ceremony location.]

We are having our ceremony at Our Lady of Sorrows Basilica in Chicago. It is beautiful as you can tell from the picture above and large (I think it can seat 900, so I am hoping our wedding doesn't look tiny in such a big space). I have to admit, I am a little in love with the long long aisle. If you are a Chicago bride looking for a Catholic church, I would recommend checking it out. They do very many weddings (I think because the location isn't exactly ideal) and are very accomodating when they do. The priest we are working with their is awesome. We had our first official meeting with him on Valentine's Day. We are very excited about our Ceremony location after my mini-panic attack when I first tried to find a Catholic Church in Chicago that wasn't booked over a year in advance.