Wedding Ceremony....

Wednesday, August 6, 2008.....

God bless my 86 year old father...The one conversation I was dreading having with him was about my ceremony. Not exactly the ceremony, but where the ceremony was going to take place.

My dad is a devote Catholic and I never really wanted to bring up the subject of the ceremony because of this. When I got married the first time, I was much younger and he was paying, so a church wedding was mandatory. I wanted him to walk me down the aisle, but he refused to walk me down the aisle of the small nondenominational chapel, so I was married in the Catholic church. My parents were thrilled because I was marrying a Methodist and being married in the Catholic church meant I'd have to raise our children Catholic. I wonder. If we had had children and raised them outside the Catholic church, say as Methodists, would they have been guaranteed a spot in hell because I raised them outside the Catholic faith????

I have nothing against the Catholic church, however, it should be noted that the church I was married in, they recently had an incident with embezzlement and the priest was convicted to a prison term and the priest that married me, left the priesthood and married a divorced woman.

Put aside all the gossip,here are my issues: 1) annulments; and 2) a church cermony. The concept that I have to pay the church, in addition to my attorney, to tell me my wedding was invalid, is rather nuts. I hate the fact that the marriage and children are declared "invalid". Never quite understood that when you had kids in the picture. Besides, I had a fairly long first marriage and I don't want to pretend that part of my life didn't exist. That's just crazy talk.

So, being a true coward, I wasn't really planning on telling my dad where the ceremony was. I was going to have just show up and he'd find out once he was there. I know how important the church ceremony is to him, but I'm 42 and wanted a low key JP wedding. He asked and was very cool about the whole thing. He actually told me that "I'm an adult and he recognizes that I have my own opinions. If I wanted his, he knows I would have asked". I know, deep down, he's a little upset, but he REALLY likes my fiance and I know that is far more important to him.

j