Catholic couples who wish to have a catholic religious wedding in Italy often hesitate to go ahead with their plan because they fear the bureaucratic procedures or communication problems with the clerical authorities.
Arranging a Catholic Church wedding in Italy isn’t actually always easy especially if you do not belong to the chosen parish, but throughout the years we have acquired a lot of experience to guide and help our couples at best for this issue.
These are the important tips to remember:
– if the wedding in church is your priority, once you have chosen the area in Italy that you prefer (Lake Como, Tuscany, Amalfi Coast, Puglia, etc.) it is very important to find with the help of an experienced wedding consultant the church where the Bishop authorizes weddings of foreign couples. It is indeed important to underline that not all churches and not all dioceses in Italy allow to a foreign couple to celebrate their wedding, because some Bishops are very rigid about this.
– the paperwork part required for the religious aspect of the ceremony must be prepared at your local parish. Your priest will have to declare that you are “suitable” for the Catholic wedding and he will also check with you your adequate Catholic preparation for the wedding with for example a premarital course.
– once the documents with your local priest are ready, the Bishop of your parish will give the final written authorization. All this will have to be sent to Italy to the priest who celebrates your wedding or directly to the Curia of reference.
– if the Bride or the Groom is not Catholic, the wedding can still be celebrated subject to approval of the priest.
– priests of the most famous churches in Italy for foreign weddings can celebrate the ceremony in English however if this is not possible the couple can bring their own priest to Italy for the ceremony or ask for the support of their wedding consultant to source a priest who speaks English.
– if further to the religious aspect you also wish your ceremony to have civil validity, in most cases this is possible too. The documents for the civil part follow a different procedure than those for the religious wedding. First of all you need to refer to the registry office of the Town Hall where the selected church is located and send them the Non Impediment Certificate which is required for civil ceremonies in Italy. In this case your wedding planner will be a valid help by assisting you and giving you the right guidelines to follow based on the country where you live. Alternatively you can have your legally-binding ceremony in your country, but this has to take place prior to the church wedding in Italy.
– as for the time of the ceremony, it is important to find a compromise based on the schedule of the Mass at the church you chose. If you wish to get married in the afternoon, it is usually possible but no later than h 4.30 pm because at 6pm (especially at the weekend) there is the Holiday Mass.
Do not hesitate to contact us to arrange your religious wedding in Italy, we will be happy to put our experience at your disposal.
