Marriage and Wedding Preparation
Guidelines
St. Vincent Ferrer Parish,

North & Lathrop
River Forest, Illinois, 60305

(708) 366-7090

(Revised 1 Aug 2006)

Congratulations

These guidelines have been prepared for you, the engaged couple, as you consider God’s call to married life and to make arrangements for your wedding sacrament at St. Vincent Ferrer Church. This is a happy and blessed time in your lives. The staff and the people of St. Vincent Ferrer offer you their congratulations on your engagement and their best wishes for a joy-filled wedding day and a truly happy married life.

 

We hope that this web page will answer some of your questions and relieve all your worries. We offer you our support and assistance in every way possible. Our aim is to enable you to make the most of this important time to grow as a couple in a deeper love for God and for each other. Our prayer is that you will be able to focus on the challenges as well as the joys that lie ahead.

 

Wedding is a day; marriage is a lifetime. We want both to be holy and wonderful. A good rule of thumb is focus your first six months on the relationship/marriage; focus the second six months on the wedding. Even though these overlap, the engagement period does have stages of growth. This is natural order.

 

Weddings in our churches have become secularly orchestrated. Often couples want Hollywood weddings in Catholic Church buildings. Weddings in our culture are Soap opera style. In using these models (who are not exactly Christian heroes) to imitate our clothing choices, lifestyle, and partying manners, we lose our sacramental focus.

 

Beyond the long aisle and stained-glass windows, is a longer aisle of married love in the eternal Bridegroom. Bless this journey of grace in the holy sacrament of matrimony in your Roman Catholic Church. This is God's time and we are honored to be part of it all with you at St Vincent Ferrer Parish.

 

Non-SVF members may get married here with written permission of their pastor. They may do the marriage preparation in their parish. SVF will supply the wedding preparation.