Wedding Invitations

Wedding Etiquette for Roman Catholic weddings encompasses some specific considerations and customs.

Deb from Beautiful Wedding Invitations offers some basic guidelines:

“Weddings to be performed in the Catholic Church are to be publicly announced three times either from the pulpit or the church bulletin before the wedding,” she writes. “These are called banns.”

She then adds an important point of distinction for Roman Cathlic weddings.

“Catholics can be married in a simple wedding service but most choose to include a Nuptial Mass (or service),” she explains. “If the wedding ceremony will include a Nuptial Mass, that needs to be indicated on the invitation because the mass itself will be around an hour long and your guests need to be aware of that.”

Next, Deb points out a fact that some may not be aware of.

“It used to be that Nuptial Masses were only performed before noon, but now are performed in the afternoon as well,” she writes. ”

But there’s also a time of the season when Roman Catholic weddings are not customary.

“Unless the bishop has granted special permission, Nuptial Masses may not be performed during Lent or Advent,” she emphasizes.

And as to the lucky couple?

“The bride and groom ‘are joined together in holy matrimony’ so ‘and’ is used instead of ‘to,’ ” Deb states.

(Wedding photo via http://www.saintmalo.org/photos/wedding.jpg)