Weddings

Congratulations on your engagement! Holy Spirit Parish, New Farm is very happy that you are allowing us to share this exciting time of your life.

The sacrament of Matrimony is a public sign that one gives oneself totally to another person and it establishes a perpetual and exclusive bond between the spouses – which God himself seals the consent of the spouses. Matrimonial consent is given when a man and a woman manifest the will to give themselves to each other irrevocably in order to live a covenant of faithful and fruitful love. This Sacrament of Commitment celebrates the loving union of a couple before God and the Christian Community within a Marriage Service (simple ceremony) or a Nuptial Mass.

The Catholic Church sees marriage as one of the seven Sacraments, which is why we treat every marriage with the utmost respect and reverence. The Church sees your marriage and love for each other as a reflection of what God’s love for us must be like. The following guidelines are designed to help you ensure that your marriage ceremony truly reflects that love.

Steps required to make a booking at Holy Spirit 

To meet the basic requirements to be legally married in the Catholic Church you must be able to answer “yes” to all the following questions.

  • I am over 18 years of age

  • I am legally able to get married under the laws of the Australian Government. (i.e. you are not presently married)

  • I am legally able to get married under the laws of the Catholic Church (i.e. you have never been married before or, if you have, then you have been through the church annulment process and have received an annulment from the Church)

  • You are both prepared to complete a marriage preparation course before you get married.

Steps required to confirm a booking

Below are links to two documents, Wedding Guidelines, which outlines details of the requirements to be married at Holy Spirit and also the bride and groom information sheet, which must be completed and returned to the parish in order to have your tentative booking confirmed.

To summarise;

  1. Enquire with the Parish office about availability of your preferred date in the Contact us form below

  2. Download the Information sheet (available for download here) and once the date has been agreed, pay the booking Fee and priests stipend outlined in the information page.

  3. Download the Bride and Groom Information sheet (available for download here) and complete and return it to the parish office

  4. Arrange a meeting with the parish Priest to allow the required paperwork to be completed;

    • Up to three months before your wedding date, if any the marriage is between two Catholics,

    • Up to four months before if your wedding is between and Catholic and a member of another faith

Resources to support parishes and couples with wedding preparation

Liturgy Brisbane is proud to announce the arrival of LabOra Marriage, a computer program designed to help couples prepare their Catholic wedding liturgy and to answer questions about Church and civil requirements for marriage. This resource contains all the readings, prayers and texts from the new revised marriage rite in an easily searchable format and includes an electronic copy of the complete ritual book The Order of Celebrating Matrimony.

Not only will couples have access to the texts in their latest translation, but LabOra Marriage provides the means to prepare the complete wedding ceremony, helping couples choose readings and prayers, offering guidelines for each element of the liturgy and providing music suggestions. When the liturgy preparation is complete, booklets can be printed in a variety of formats and enhanced with a range of images and formatting features. Alternatively, a prepared wedding liturgy can be exported as a Word document or PDF. For more information or to order your copy of LabOra Marriage go to http://liturgybrisbane.net.au/store/labora-marriage.html/

Please note: for copyright reasons the program is for the use of the purchaser only and must not be passed on to any third party.

 For those who would like to have a hard copy of the liturgical texts, readings and prayers in order to plan their wedding liturgy, Liturgy Brisbane has produced a new revised version of When We Marry. This incorporates all the changes from the new Order of Celebrating Matrimony and is the companion workbook to LabOra Marriage. To order your copy of When We Marry, go to http://liturgybrisbane.net.au/store/when-we-marry-a-practical-planning-guide-for-couples.html

  

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