Arranging a Marriage

To marry in the Catholic Church, as in any church or civil ceremony, you need to fulfil certain conditions. The four principal ones for the Catholic Church are:

1. One of you at least needs to be a Catholic;
2. One of you needs to live in the Parish - if you don't, then you will need the permission of the Parish Priest of your home Parish to marry anywhere else;
3. You need to give at least six months notice;
4. Neither of you can be married now or have been married before without that previous marriage having been annulled.

If you would like to discuss the possibility of marrying at St Werburgh's, do please contact us to make an appointment to discuss your request. We are also pleased to help couples who live here but wish to marry elsewhere, especially abroad. In such cases, we need at least six months to process all the paperwork, and ideally twelve.

We also expect our couples marrying here to attend a Marriage Preparation Course. Courses are run every March, May, September and November.

See also the "Information For Couples" Fact Sheet which we hand out when we first meet those wishing to marry in St Werburgh's. This will answer many of your further questions.