Marriage Preparation

Please contact the Staff at the Office at least one year in advance.

Ephesians 5
Wives and Husbands

31"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.

Ritual of Marriage

Catholic Encyclopedia Reference Link

The form for the celebration of the Sacrament of Matrimony, as it stands in the "Rituale Romanum" of the present day, is remarkably simple. It consists of the following elements:

A declaration of consent made by both parties and formally ratified by the priest in the words: "Ego conjungo vos in matrimonium in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen" (I unite you in wedlock in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen).
A form for the blessing of the ring which the bridegroom receives back from the hand of the priest to place it upon the ring finger of the bride's left hand.
Certain short versicles and a final benedictory prayer. This ceremony according to the intention of the Church should be followed by
the Nuptial Mass, in which there are Collects for the married couple, as well as a solemn blessing after the Pater Noster and another shorter one before the priest's benediction at the close.

At this Mass also it is recommended that the bride and bride g room should communicate. But although here as elsewhere the "Rituale Romanum" may be regarded as providing the form of the Church's ceremonial, in treating of the Sacrament of Matrimony a special rubric is inserted in the following terms: "If, however, in any provinces, other laudable customs and ceremonies are in use besides the foregoing in the celebration of the Sacrament of Matrimony, the holy Council of Trent desires that they should be retained" (see Decreta Conc. Trid., Sess. XXIV, De Reformatione, cap. 1).

The reason of this exceptional tolerance here shown towards diversity of ritual is not very far to seek. Matrimony being a sacrament in which the contracting parties themselves are the ministers, it is plain that its essential forms must be expressed not in Latin but in the vernacular, and this fact alone at once introduces a certain element of divergence. Moreover, change of established tradition in such matters is always disconcerting to the minds of the imperfectly educated. Hence the Church's wisdom is apparent in refraining from interference in those countries where certain rites and ceremonies, in themselves free from abuse, have been immemorially associated with this solemn contract. The effect of this tolerance is particularly noticeable in the British Isles. Before the Reformation a considerable variety of local usages prevailed in England, as elsewhere, affecting the ceremonial even of the Mass itself, as well as other ecclesiastical functions. The divergences of the "Use" of Sarum, or of York or of Hereford etc., from the practice of Rome or Augsburg or Lyons were not inconsiderable. When however through the Elizabethan persecution the clergy were forced to go abroad for their ecclesiastical training, the distinctively English customs of Sarum or York gradually became unfamiliar. No attempt or hardly any was made to print new Missals or Breviaries according to the English rite, and Roman usages were thus everywhere adopted by the missionary clergy. But in one respect an exception was made. The Catholic laity who lived on at home knew no other marriage service than that of their forefathers. Hence the Sarum form was in substance retained and in 1604 and again in 1610 in the English "Rituale" printed at Douai, under the title "Sacra Institutio Baptizandi, Matrimonium celebrandi etc.", the old Sarum text was reprinted unchanged, though at a later date, e. g. in the book of 1626 (? printed at Antwerp), certain modifications were introduced, The form thus modified remains in force for England, Scotland and Ireland down to the present day. Seeing that the Anglican marriage service has also retained a great deal of the primitive Sarum rite, we find ourselves confronted by the curious anomaly that in the British Isles the Catholic marriage service resembles the Anglican service more nearly than it does the form provided in the "Rituale Romanum".