Wedding Resources

Can a Catholic priest conduct a wedding ceremony in another catholic church?

I am a Catholic and want to have a church wedding at my Parish. However, my parents and some of my relatives do not speak English. I know there are Chinese speaking priest in the Catholic Church in Chinatown. I wonder if it is possible to have my church wedding at my parish and have the priest from Chinatown Parish to conduct our wedding ceremony.

Public Comments

1. This is really stepping on toes big time but you can go to your church and ask if you can have the other priest conduct your wedding. Pehaps you could have two one in english and one in chinese... but do not be surprised if the priest of your church does not want to turn his church over to someone else. Would you lend your home to someone else?
2. Talk to the parish. Some parishes will allow visiting priests to do ceremonies at their churches. You also have to make sure that the priest from the other parish can do it legally at another parish. Sometimes the way the regulations in your state work, they don't allow that.
3. Of course. You have to ask the Priest, though. We go to a Newman Center, and we asked the Priest there to marry us in a more traditional looking church. He declined and said he needed to stay open for the wedding at his church. You have a good reason; I would go ahead ahead and ask him.
4. They are able to. I have an uncle that is a priest. It depends on the church, the government and the diocese. Way it sounds for you, the government is not going to be problem.
5. Yes, as long as you get permission of both the parish and the priest, it happens all the time. Modern Wedding Advice http://navillus99.blogspot.com
6. Yes, this happens quite often. You should politely ask your pastor for permission to have a visiting priest preside at your wedding. Of even better, suggest that they con-celebrate the wedding Mass together. If Chinatown is in a different diocese then the visiting priest may also have to get permission to minister in your diocese from your bishop. But this a formality and should be no problem. With love in Christ.
7. Yes, in most cases. What usually happens is that the 'visiting' priest concelebrates the ceremony with the parish priest - they each do parts of the ceremony. You just need to talk with your parish priest about this, and explain the situation. Most likely, he's had a similar situation before. You could have a bilingual ceremony - with each priest doing specific parts. I'm Ukrainian Catholic, and bilingual ceremonies are done all the time at our church. For our own wedding, we had the ceremony all done in Ukrainian, though. We had three priests concelebrating. Good luck to you!
8. This sort of thing happens all the time. Usually the two priests (pastor of your parish and guest priest) con-celebrate, but it's only the pastor who does your premarital counseling.