Do we HAVE to do a pre-marriage course?

hi girls Met with priest last night and he asked had we pre marriage course done. I said, no, not yet but that I was waiting to be told we HAD to do it. He basically said he wasnt going to make us, that he recommended it but that was it. H2bs friend said that we had to have it to be civally married, but I rang wedding registration place today and they said all we need is the form. What u think?? cheers

As far as I know you have to have it for a catholic cermony, you don't need it if you are only having a civil cermony

Hi Marathonbride, It is not a requirement to do a pre marriage course. Some priests will require that you do one, others won't say a thing and some will recommend it but not force you to do it. Our priest suggested it but was not forcing us to do it but we felt that as it was his parish and we were asking him to marry us that we would follow his advice. If your priest has meerly recommended that you do it it is entirely up to yourselves as to whether you choose to do it or not.

hi girls thanks for the replies. I suppose ur right that if he said he would reccomend it we probably should... will see if I can find a handy one around.

Hi marathonbride, Not sure where you are based but we did a handy one day one with Avalon. They do them in Dublin, Cork and Limerick as far as I know. One of the girls on here had a thread a while back with details for getting a discount to do it. My H2B was absolutely dreading it but he even came out of it thinking it was quite good and very bizzarely after it both of us found that we felt much closer.

The courses are nowhere near as bad as people think they are - I did the All Hallows one and there was no holiness at all. If you go in with an open mind you will get something out of it. The only reason you would HAVE to do it would be if the priest absolutely insisted on it, but you will still be legally married if you don't!

[quote="marathonbride":2kqc29nx]hi girls Met with priest last night and he asked had we pre marriage course done. I said, no, not yet but that I was waiting to be told we HAD to do it. He basically said he wasnt going to make us, that he recommended it but that was it. H2bs friend said that we had to have it to be civally married, but I rang wedding registration place today and they said all we need is the form. What u think?? cheers [/quote:2kqc29nx] If the priest that's marrying says you have to then you do I'm pretty sure its up to him to decide HTH Some of them aren't THAT bad.

I think it depends on your priest and by the sounds of it, you will probably get away with not doing it. I know my brother and SIL didnt do one. I assume the priest just fills in the form to say you did do it.

When my fiance contacted the priest in the beginning he told him that we didn't have to do pre marriage course but he recommended that we did... FH really wanted to do it beause the priest 'recommended' we do it! We had meeting with priest to fill out the pre nup forms etc and one of the questions is about what preparations had we done, i.e. pre marriage course... we said we didnt do it yet and he just put 'no' on the form so now we don't have to do it at all.

we have ours tomorrow evening 6.30-10.30 so not too bad and only 100 euro