Marriage Preparation
All preparation must begin at a minimum of six months prior to the wedding date.
Preliminary
Your first meeting is normally held with Don Kruse, the Pastoral Associate at Saint Columban parish. It is a time for gathering information and for explaining to you the process that will follow as you prepare for your wedding. This session will usually take about one and a half hours. If a priest or deacon from another parish is scheduled to officiate at your wedding ceremony, that person may be involved in this initial meeting and in the subsequent portions of your preparation.
F O C C U S
The acronym “F O C C U S” stands for Facilitating Open Couple Communication, Understanding, and Study. This is a pre-marriage questionnaire that we use to help you discover the extent of your sharing and communication of your goals, needs, and expectations. The use of this questionnaire is required by the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. It will be administered during our first meeting. The results will be used as part of our preparation program.
Engaged Encounter or Pre Cana
The Archdiocese of Cincinnati requires that you attend either the Engaged Encounter weekend or the one day Pre Cana conference. We highly recommend the weekend program because of the smaller group size and the more individualized sessions. You should make arrangements to attend a session as soon as possible. Brochures that we will give you will list the dates of each conference.
Sponsor Couples
A sponsor couple will be assigned to aid you in your preparation for marriage. These couples have been fully trained and will be available to you as friends, not as teachers. They will share with you the results of the F O C C U S questionnaire, and will use it as a guide in their meetings with you. They may share some of their experiences with you, but their main desire is to help you in your communications and sharing with each other.
Your sponsor couple will keep in close contact with you during the first two critical years of your marriage. After the honeymoon period, many couples go through the experience of a time of "disillusionment". This may occur after your first big disagreement or argument when you wake up asking yourself, "Who is this jerk I married?" This is a normal process of growth in a relationship. However, many couples never work through this disillusionment.
Forty percent of divorces occur in the first two years of marriage, during which time couples need to develop the skills to negotiate differences. Two issues of special concern for the newly married relate to acceptance and affirmation of behavior from one's family of origin. Should significant issues occur, don't hesitate to seek help.
Other aids
During your time of preparation we may share with you certain books, periodicals, pamphlets, and videos that could be of help to you both during your time of preparation and during your married life together. We highly encourage you to read books on marriage and attend seminars and retreats which will enrich your marriage.
Each diocese in the United States has a formal information paper or questionnaire that is filled out by the person preparing a couple for marriage and kept in the parish archives. In our Archdiocese, it is called the “M-1 Form”. This form contains a series of questions about your canonical, spiritual, and personal readiness for marriage. You will be given a copy of the questions beforehand and asked to make notes as to your responses.
Follow-up
The pastoral associate or other person preparing you for marriage will meet with you two or three times during the course of your preparation in order to assist you and to answer any questions you might have about the ceremony itself and about issues related to marriage and human sexuality.
Wedding License
The wedding license is obtained by the bride and groom at the county court house for the county in which either party lives. It should be obtained approximately one month before the wedding and given to the celebrant no later than the day of the rehearsal.
Baptismal Certificate
You will need to obtain a recently issued baptismal certificate from the Church where you were baptized. Simply contact the Church of your baptism and they will mail the certificate to you. You may elect to have the certificate sent directly to Saint Columban parish. If your fiancée is not Roman Catholic, we will need verification of his/her baptismal and marriage status. This is usually done through the church of his/her baptism and/or through a letter from his/her parents.
Expectations
For a priest or deacon to witness a marriage in the Catholic Church, at least one of the parties must be an active, practicing Roman Catholic. It is our hope that both parties will have a good faith life. If neither party is actively practicing their faith, then we must question their reasons for requesting a marriage ceremony in the Catholic Church. We expect that at least the Roman Catholic party is serious about his/her commitment to participate in the faith community on a regular basis. Both parties must be free to marry in the Roman Catholic Church.
Cohabitating Couples
We realize that many couples have decided to live together before marriage. Statistics tell us that the chance for divorce is 38% higher for couples who cohabitate, than for couples who do not live together before marriage. With this in mind, we ask you to be open to the challenges and ideas we will share with you in order to help you experience a lasting and fulfilling marriage.