Although I have never wanted to have a Catholic wedding, I had always known deep inside that I would have one. It was very important for my parents for me to undergo Catholic marriage rites. You see, I was raised in the church as were they. They were willing to look the other way as I slipped away from my religion, as their parents had been willing to look the other way as they moved away from theirs when they were young. Now they are older, however, and have had their faith restored. They never told me it, but I always assumed that having a Catholic wedding was when they started to regain faith in the church. Getting married tends to make you more conservative, and getting married in the church you grew up in is a powerful symbolic statement.
I have become pretty disillusioned with the religion of my birth. At one point, I even said that I would never have a Catholic wedding until they allowed married Catholic priests. In many ways, it was such an old, reactionary, institution. As much as I hate the other religions, most of them seem to be at least a hundred years ahead. Still, there are some great things about the Mother Church. You can’t deny the powerful effect that a Catholic ceremony has. The censers burning, the candles flickering, and all the rest of the ceremonial trappings really bring it home, as does the extravagant architecture of your average Catholic Church. In the end, I agreed to have a Catholic wedding.
The funny thing is, with all the stress I had put into my decision over whether to have the Catholic Church marriage or not, the actual ritual was pretty painless. Catholic weddings are not all bad. As a matter of fact, it was one of the biggest parties I had ever had. An Irish Catholic wedding is like no other, as I am sure you can imagine. There is good food, great music, dancing, and of course lots and lots of drinking. All in all, it was nice to have the wedding in the church. Although I’m not much of a believer, I do believe in tradition. If it didn’t symbolize my commitment to my religion, at least my wedding symbolized my commitment to the values my parents raised me with. That is an important commitment to have when you are getting married.
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