Family Refuses to Attend Non-Catholic Wedding: A Bride's Tough Choice

A bride's family is refusing to attend her wedding because it's not in a Catholic church.

The groom wrote in a post on Reddit's "Wedding Planning" forum that the bride is "devastated" about her family's decision. With him also "so upset," he needed to "vent" about the situation, and detailed why the bride's side of the family is intent on skipping the wedding. 

Although the groom was also raised Catholic, it was "not anything like" the bride's family. The bride and her five siblings were raised "in a very Catholic family.. like extremely Catholic." Meanwhile, her fiancé stopped going to Catholic school not long after his parents divorced when he was 7 years old.

"My family strayed farther and farther away from Catholicism as the years went by," the Redditor explained. "My fiancée is a different story, she was raised in an extremely by the book type of Catholic family." In college, the bride began questioning her faith, eventually disagreeing with "multiple aspects" of the religion. Even though she still believes in God, she has stopped going to church. Because the couple are no longer aligned with Catholicism, they agreed to not get married in a Catholic church. Not everyone has been supportive of this decision. "I told her I would get married in the church if she wanted to, but she said she didn't want to," the groom continued. "When she told her parents about this, they were  initially very upset, saying that our souls were not going to go to heaven if two baptized people didn't get married in the church."

The bride asked her parents if they would still be attending her wedding, and after a few weeks of thinking about it, they responded no.

 

"This makes me very upset at her family for hurting her like this," the Redditor said. "Now she would rather elope and have no one attend, rather than [a] wedding with just my side of the family. So not only have they hurt her, they have ruined the wedding for everyone else."

Reddit users in the comments section were sympathetic toward the couple. A few commenters suggested compromising so that the bride's family could still be a part of the wedding.

"My partner is atheist and I am in a position similar to your fiancée's. We are planning a civil ceremony and reception as the main event, however we will be holding a short church blessing (not a full mass) a few days later, which will probably only be attended by my family and a couple of catholic friends," one person wrote in part. "This will allow the marriage to be recognized by the church (important to my parents) without going through a whole church wedding which would not be representative of who we are and what we believe in (important to us)."

"Maybe you two can get convalidated later if they agree to go to your non-religious wedding?" another user suggested.

Other commenters were worried that the family divide will only worsen in the future if the couple chooses to have children because some family members will want them to be raised Catholic.