When a baptized Catholic is married, the wedding should take place in a Catholic Church or chapel and be witnessed by a Catholic bishop, priest, or deacon.
Marriage is a sacrament and, with rare and specific exceptions, the sacraments of the Catholic Church are ordinarily celebrated in a church.
The marriage between a man and a woman calls to mind Christ’s marriage to his bride, which is the Church, and which is expressed in the Eucharist celebrated on the altar at each Mass in a Catholic Church.
By being married in a Catholic Church, a baptized Catholic makes a public act of humility, faith, and belief in the presence of God and in front of his Church, the body of Christ.
Historically, including the Catholic Church in the marriage process has also ensured thorough record keeping and maintained good order for strong families and communities.
In extraordinary cases, a Catholic may be married in a location other than a Catholic Church but only after consulting with their parish priest and receiving permission from the local bishop.
Weddings with spiritual, theological, and ecclesiastical implications:
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church and handed Himself over for her to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the Church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. So [also] husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the Church, because we are members of his Body. “For this reason a man shall leave [his] father and [his] mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the Church.
Ephesians 5: 25-32
Participating in the love of Jesus for his Church:
Living out a vocation in the Church:
Sacraments are connected to the altar and to Christ:
In the Latin Rite the celebration of marriage between two Catholic faithful normally takes place during Holy Mass, because of the connection of all the sacraments with the Paschal mystery of Christ. In the Eucharist the memorial of the New Covenant is realized, the New Covenant in which Christ has united himself for ever to the Church, his beloved bride for whom He gave himself up. It is therefore fitting that the spouses should seal their consent to give themselves to each other through the offering of their own lives by uniting it to the offering of Christ for his Church made present in the Eucharistic sacrifice, and by receiving the Eucharist so that, communicating in the same Body and the same Blood of Christ, they may form but “one body” in Christ.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1621
Celebrating a sacred moment in a sacred place:
More than just a commitment between two people:
Marriage involves the whole community:
You will shortly utter the words of the sacramental promise which will make you husband and wife in Christ Jesus before God and the Church. They are concise words (you certainly know them by heart), but their significance, their special importance, their unitive power, are particularly great. Promising each other love, faithfulness, and virtue in marriage, not only will you confirm again what your young hearts bear witness to now, but at the same time you will lay the foundations for the construction of the home of your common future. Man must live on the earth, and to live there he needs not only a building constructed on a material foundation; today he needs a spiritual foundation. Love, faithfulness, and virtue in marriage constitute that foundation on which alone the matrimonial community can rest, the foundation on which the spiritual dwelling for the future family can be built.
Pope John Paul II, Wedding Address, 25 February 1979
Celebrating God’s covenant of love in his house:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
True veneration leads to imitation:
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