mixed religious beliefs

[beergut]

GF is Baptist, wants to be married in a Baptist ceremony by her favorite pastor.

I am Catholic by christening, but do not practice.

I would prefer a secular ceremony in which God is not mentioned. 

GF thinks a wedding needs to be 'blessed'. 

Any of y'all marry a spouse with different religious beliefs?

How did y'all compromise on the ceremony?

[Shooby]

Start your married life right. If mama ain't happy, aint' nobody happy! It's obviously more important to her than to you. Get married in her Church, which is traditional and if that is what she prefers.

[giramomma]

Well, here's what BIL and his now wife did.

BIL doesn't believe in God. SIL's family was pushing for an in-church wedding, I think.

They had an off-site ceremony with a family friend as the religious officiant. Their ceremony was between 10-15 minutes: they had two small quotes read, promised to be faithful, exchanged rings, and kissed. The officiant said "God" once, at the very end.


I don't know that I would do something against a fundamental belief of mine, just to make someone else happy. In my experience, that has always backfired, and I pretty much always end up unhappy, as well as the other person I was trying to make happy.

[swamp]

I'm lapsed catholic. DH is Presbyterian. I wanted to get married in the catholic church. We did. He just wnet with it. 

[Deleted]

DW and I had a great non-religious wedding in good Ole Las Vegas as we are both not religious.

My bro is very jealous, he is close to proposing and knows he is stuck with a very religious wedding, there is no compromise if he wants peace with her family on other fronts and must go through and sit through a bunch of things he finds silly.

[happyhoix]

Is GF a devote Baptist? Because if she is, having the wedding ceremony in her church, with the blessing of her pastor, is something that will be very important to a practising Christian. If you are not religious, I think you go along with what she wants in order to keep her happy. However, keep in mind that this will be the first of many religious issues you guys have - will you baptise the kids? Will the kids go to church and Sunday school? Will your wife expect you to pretend to be Christian while raising the kids?

If GF is not very religious, if she only wants to be married in the Baptist church with a particiular minister because that's the church she grew up in, or the one that her parents attend and she doesn't want to hurt their feelings, then I think you have more room to negotiate. I would go with her to talk to the pastor and see how much you're allowed to customize the wedding ceremony. Maybe you can include secular music, and have someone read secular poetry. You can write your own vows.

Depending on the church and the pastor, you may not be able to alter the ceremony much, or include secular elements (there are some hard line Southern Baptist churches around here who would probably refuse to even marry you, if you aren't a Christian). If that's the case, then I think you have even more room to negotiate with her. My sister was attending a church that wouldn't marry her and her BF because he was divorced, so she switched to a different, less hard line church.

[tcu2003]

I was raised Disciples of Christ, and DH as a Catholic (he also still attends regularly/is "practicing"). I wanted to be married in my home church, so that's what we did. We also attended pre-Cana (Catholic ore marriage classes) so the marriage would be blessed or something like that by the Catholic Church. It worked for us, but it was either that or no church as I was not at all comfortable with a Catholic Church wedding.

[milee]

Many different ways to handle this one and there's no right answer except the one that you can both agree on and live with.

This is less about what type of ceremony and religion you'll practice and more about how you deal with differences, handle things you disagree on and ability to pick and choose what to compromise vs take a stand on.  Not bad practice for actually being married.

And this is also a great time to be talking about all sorts of potential future issues, such as how religion will be handled as a family in the future.  The wedding ceremony is (if you're kind to your friends and family) less than an hour of your life.  Disagreeing over whether or not you have to go to the Easter service or how involved in church the kids should be or whether you would consider an abortion if a future pregnancy is found to have a fetus that has a serious defect are the types of issues that will keep popping up for the rest of your lives if you can't figure out how to come up with a plan you both can live with.

[CarolinaKat]

DH is a lapsed catholic and I am a non-practicing Methodist. We got married in the church I grew up in. It was a pretty venue and very affordable. It was beautiful, convenient and it just made sense. He just went with it. 

Neither of us are active in the church currently. ETA: we did have a discusion about religion + our marriage. We basically decided that organized religion wasn't for us. What's chiver78 's tagline? 'problems arise when you start to carpool?'

[Firebird]

Apr 1, 2015 5:48:33 GMT -5 Shooby said:

Start your married life right. If mama ain't happy, aint' nobody happy! It's obviously more important to her than to you. Get married in her Church, which is traditional and if that is what she prefers.

Goes deeper than that.  How do you really feel about her religion?  Are you okay with raising your children in it, should you have any?  Are you planning to attend religious ceremonies with her in the future (or even just go with her on major holidays like Easter and Christmas) and if not, is she okay with that?

I wouldn't necessarily mind marrying a religious person, but he'd have to be pretty liberal or not that serious about it, because he has to be okay with little or no direct participation in his faith from me, and he would also have to be okay with his/our children not being raised with his faith as the only truth.  For example, I would not allow my daughter to be baptized until she's old enough to decide for herself if that's something she wants. 

I wouldn't mind if he took her to church, but I would absolutely not go just to create some kind of illusion that Mommy and Daddy agree on religion, and once she got old enough to ask why I didn't go, I would tell her the truth.  I wouldn't impugn Daddy's religion, but I would make it very clear that not everyone believes the same thing and I happen not to share Daddy's beliefs. 

That kind of thing - make sure you're very clear about expectations, otherwise it can get ugly fast.  I personally would not have even participated in a religious wedding ceremony. 

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

My mom is Catholic and my dad is Lutheran. Her church expected my dad to convert. She told them to stuff it and they got married in the Lutheran church. She wasn't going to force him to convert just to get church approval for her marriage.

I am an atheist but I was baptized as a Lutheran. DH was baptized Presbyterian.

I didn't care where we got married, honestly I would have preferred to elope. DH suddenly got religious on me and decided anything other than a church wedding blessed by God was unacceptable.

Since it made him happy I went with it. We ended up getting married in my great uncle's church which is Lutheran. We jumped thru all the hoops to become members of MIL's church which is where DH originally wanted to get married, but their land got bought by Google and the new church wasn't built in time.

The kids are baptized Presbyterian. Again DH suddenly got all religious on me. I had no strong feelings about it either way so I agreed.

I don't mind DH being religious, it's the flip flopping that drives me crazy. One moment he's like me, the next minute he's taking pot shots at me for being an atheist. Make up your ever loving mind!

Gwen goes to church with MIL sometimes, she loves it. I'm cool with it as long as nobody is expecting me to go. DH is free to go as well but for all his talk he sure doesn't seem to want to get up and go.

[milee]

Seeing our friends' experiences, what DQ's describing isn't all that unusual.  Lots of people find themselves becoming more or less religious at various points in their lives.

That's why it's important to use this as a test run for how to navigate the issue rather than just focus on getting past this single thing. You could probably find a quick, easy way to get past this single thing and have it be no big deal, but if instead you figure out what system you'll use to navigate things like this you'll be in much better shape in the future as other things arise. Because they will.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

The whole wedding planning process is one giant experiment in navigating relationship problems, IMO.

I am surprised anyone ends up married after planning a wedding.

[thyme4change]

I refuse to support any marriages done in a christian church of any kind.  It is against my non-religious beliefs, and you can't make me bake you a cake.

[Firebird]

That's why it's important to use this as a test run for how to navigate the issue rather than just focus on getting past this single thing. You could probably find a quick, easy way to get past this single thing and have it be no big deal, but if instead you figure out what system you'll use to navigate things like this you'll be in much better shape in the future as other things arise. Because they will.

Well put. Thinking about it a little more, perhaps I wouldn't mind a church wedding if that was the ONLY thing I was asked to compromise on - but my knee-jerk reaction is no because I really can't imagine it would be the only religious compromise I'd ever be asked to make in our marriage. To me, a church wedding implies a whole host of lifestyle decisions I'd be expected to accept or support. If it doesn't - why would it matter to my spouse if we don't do it?

In other words, if he's not a religious person, then whether or not we marry in a church shouldn't be a hill to die on, and if it is I'd wonder why. I'm personally against the concept of doing a church wedding if you're not a religious person/couple - just because the church is pretty or it's traditional or whatever. Others feel differently, but I feel it's kind of hypocritical to ask God to bless your marriage if you don't believe in God or actively practice the religion in question.

And I admit I'm mostly thinking of the Christian religion when I consider how I'd feel about being asked to acquiesce to a religious wedding. My thought immediately goes to "but if we have a church wedding, he'll want to raise the kids Christian" which is a pretty reasonable expectation concerning the Catholic/Christian faith. If my husband-to-be were Pagan or Buddhist, I could probably participate quite happily in a religious ceremony.

[ArchietheDragon]

My wife is a nonpracticing Catholic and I am a non practicing Protestant.     When we got married all I said was that I did not want to get married in a Catholic church.   So we got married in a cute little Congregational church. 

[Deleted]

If you get married in her church, expect to do some faith-based premarital counseling. I would think that would have more potential to bother you than the choice of venue. As some have said, the minister may even refuse to marry you if you are not a practicing Christian.

We got married at the courthouse. It was a second marriage for both of us. We were rather surprised that it was a traditional ceremony with all the traditional words about God, etc. My daughter, the Catholic who goes to mass on Saturday and then a Baptist Sunday School class followed by a Presbyterian church service, was very pleased.  Just the logistics . . . and with four small children in tow . . . makes me dizzy!

See how easy your problem is? You could be marrying my daughter who is so ecumenical that she can't possibly know what she "believes." 

[Cookies Galore]

I am an atheist and hubs is Quaker. He briefly toyed with getting married at meeting, but I did not like that idea at all. Nothing says fun like sitting in deafening silence for an hour! We did get a self-uniting license and we hired a family therapist who also performs weddings, and she wrote an incredible ceremony. I did not want any mention of god since that's not a part of my life and I'd be starting my marriage on a lie. Hubs doesn't necessarily believe in god, but he believes in something and since he would take his Dad to meeting while he was sick and he was raised in a Quaker/Lutheran house, identifying as Quaker is what makes sense to him.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

If you get married in her church, expect to do some faith-based premarital counseling

Depends on the minister I've found. My parents got married in the Lutheran church and had to do counseling, but my mom said it didn't really delve into religion, it was like any other pre-marital counseling session and she actually got some good advice out of it.

Meanwhile when I got married in the Lutheran church the minister told us not to worry about it. He said we'd been together for 5 years by that point, if we didn't know we wanted to get married by now counseling wasn't going to solve anything"

DH's cousin recommended her church to us, she's Methodist. Her minister required we take a 35 minute compatibility quiz and then based on our answers would decide how much counseling we needed and it could take as many as 6 weeks. With a fee per week of course.

I don't think so. We can go on Eharmony for free and take their quiz. If DH doesn't pop up in my recommendations then I know we're not meant to be.

[TheHaitian]

I am a lapsed Catholic and my wife and family are devout Catholics.

We found a middle ground that her priest at the time agreed too: we will not have a ceremony at a church but he officiated the ceremony.

So she was happy and I was happy...

[zibazinski]

DH is a Jew. Not a religious one but one nevertheless. I'm not. Obviously we got married by the water but GOD was mentioned a little since we both believe in GOD. He attends the church I go to up here and in Florida. He does not attend his own. I would have exposed our children, if we'd have had them, to both religions then let them decide for themselves.

[steph08]

I'm Catholic, DH isn't anything, and because he used to love me, he agreed to get married in the Catholic church and go through all that BS.  We had DD baptized Catholic as well. She is free to be whatever religion she wants when she grows up, but I'd at least like to start her at some church while young, and I sometimes attend mass, so it made the most sense.

[kittensaver]

I'm a fallen-away Catholic who was attending a Presbyterian Church when I met DH. He's a Jew. Our families were way more "concerned" about a religious ceremony (and what it meant to THEM) than we were. I've always loved that we've each accepted each other the way we are and have never tried to convert each other. But we knew we wanted some kind of spiritual ceremony that honored both our heritages - not just some 3 minute vow exchange in some hotel or restaurant back room (no offense intended to anyone who had/wanted one!)

It took a little wrangling - because neither my church nor the temple DH grew up in would marry us in an interfaith ceremony. We were pretty sure they wouldn't, but we asked anyway (and got rejected) out of respect to our parents who wanted us to ask. A few other places (churches and temples) said they would marry us, but only according to their guidelines, not an interfaith ceremony. In the end, we got married on a Sunday afternoon, in a Presbyterian church, under a chuppah set up on the altar, co-officiated by a friend of mine who was the pastorial intern there at the time and one of only two "rent-a-rabbi"'s in the city who were not affiliated with denominations and were free to perform ceremonies however they wanted. The rabbi read from the Presbyterian texts. My friend gave the final blessing in Hebrew (which he practiced diligently for hours). It was beautiful and meaningful and perfect for us.

Only AFTER we pulled it off were we told that a true interfaith ceremony done our way was "impossible." (Remember that this was 30+ years ago - I know a lot has changed since then).

That's why I get a little bit of a cynical kick out of the folks who run around proclaiming the sky is going to fall if churches are "forced" to marry gay couples "against their principles." I'm living proof you can be a person of faith and even a dues-paying member of a church and still get rejected for your wedding ceremony. If it (rejection based on religious principles) can happen to someone like me, it most certainly can and will happen to gay couples (sadly for them).

The two of you need to filter out the "noise" of parents, religion, family, culture, peer pressure etc and decide what's important for each of you. If it's the same thing, great; if it's not, then figure out a way to devise a ceremony that accommodates both of your desires. It's doable and you will be better off for choosing to honor your mate's wishes and desires.

ps: out of respect to my IL's, Jesus was not mentioned, but God was mentioned several times. Kinda the whole point to a religious ceremony

[HoneyBBQ]

Apr 1, 2015 9:16:06 GMT -5 steph08 said:

I'm Catholic, DH isn't anything, and because he used to love me, he agreed to get married in the Catholic church and go through all that BS.  We had DD baptized Catholic as well. She is free to be whatever religion she wants when she grows up, but I'd at least like to start her at some church while young, and I sometimes attend mass, so it made the most sense.

??

[mroped]

I was raised Christian Orthodox, my wife was raised...well, we don't know yet what religion
However, now I'm a deist(kinda) and I believe my wife is agnostic(?).
We got married at the courthouse; got there at 4:55 got out at 5:10pm
Present were our son, my father in law and his wife and MIL.

We agreed when our son was born to baptize him in the Orthodox Church-my first born, in a different country, on a different continent mind you and the wife(GF at the time!) agreed.

Now at 16 our son is an atheist while our daughter whom we did not christen/baptize in any church, believes in God!
If that's not confusing, I don't know what it could be.

Somehow, we found a way to coexist and agree to disagree on religion but that was more or less a mutual agreement that faith is something absolutely private and personal and we will not steer the kids towards any faith but we will teach them about all and let them decide.

If faith is that important that would be a non-moving issue, imagine what happens when you buy a house or raise kids together.

[NastyWoman]

Apr 1, 2015 8:10:58 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

I refuse to support any marriages done in a christian church of any kind.  It is against my non-religious beliefs, and you can't make me bake you a cake.

Kind of  . I support most every marriage in church or not between two people who want to be married. And while you can't make me bake a cake, you better darn tootin' believe that I will eat cake if placed in front of me 

[steph08]

Apr 1, 2015 9:52:01 GMT -5 HoneyBBQ said:

Apr 1, 2015 9:16:06 GMT -5 steph08 said:

I'm Catholic, DH isn't anything, and because he used to love me, he agreed to get married in the Catholic church and go through all that BS.  We had DD baptized Catholic as well. She is free to be whatever religion she wants when she grows up, but I'd at least like to start her at some church while young, and I sometimes attend mass, so it made the most sense.

??

Just a joke, you worrywarts.

It is hard to believe he (well, we) went through all that crap - those classes sucked!

[giramomma]

Apr 1, 2015 10:04:21 GMT -5 steph08 said:

Apr 1, 2015 9:52:01 GMT -5 HoneyBBQ said:

??

Just a joke, you worrywarts.

It is hard to believe he (well, we) went through all that crap - those classes sucked!

Yes, we found all those classes to be quite a joke. They did nothing to prepare us for marriage, and we had already talked through most of our potential issues.

[HoneyBBQ]

Ok, sorry. lol. April fools!?

[Phoenix84]

Unless it's a hill you want to die on, do what she wants. It sounds like it's more important to her than to you.