Congratulations!
Congratulations on your decision to get married.
The Church (the people of God) sees your marriage as a sign of God’s love among us. As ministers of the Sacrament of Marriage to each other you choose to live your married lives within the community of the Church.
The Sacrament enriches your lives in a very special way but it also enriches the community in which you will live. You become witnesses for Marriage to all with whom you make contact. Your parents, family members, friends, colleagues and neighbours celebrate your entry into Marriage and by their attendance at your wedding ceremony offer their continued support to you for your future.
Your decision to get married is a sign of your love and of your desire to be together as husband and wife.
source: Accord
Planning Your Wedding Mass Celebration
It is important to give at least 3 months notice to the Church and civil authorities prior to your preferred date. To begin the marriage preparation process:
- Please read the Celebrating the Sacrament of Matrimony
- and read more on the Sacrament of Matrimony below
- Register your intentions with the Pastoral Area Wedding Coordinator (see below)
- Speak with the Priest who will officiate at your service
- Select and attend a Marriage Preparation Programme
- Complete the State Requirements for Marriage
It is always important to discuss Wedding Mass readings with the Priest you have asked to marry you.
- Appropriate Liturgical Wedding Mass readings link to
- Appropriate Liturgical music selections, not inclusive
How the Church Sees Matrimony
Marriage is based on the consent of the contracting parties, that is, on their will to give themselves, each to the other, mutually and definitively, in order to live a covenant of faithful and fruitful love.
By its very nature it is ordered to the good of the couple, as well as to the generation and education of children. Christ the Lord raised marriage between the baptized to the dignity of a sacrament.
The Christian home is the place where children receive the first proclamation of the faith. For this reason, the family home is rightly called “the domestic church,” a community of grace and prayer, a school of human virtues and of Christian charity.
The sacrament of Matrimony signifies the union of Christ and the Church. It gives spouses the grace to love each other with the love with which Christ has loved his Church; the grace of the sacrament thus perfects the human love of the spouses, strengthens their indissoluble unity, and sanctifies them on the way to eternal life.
Each spouse is to help the other become a saint.
Catechism of the Catholic Church: 1569-1666
Pastoral Area Support for You
The Pastoral Area of Greystones and Kilquade has a dedicated Wedding Coordinator, Maura Walsh.
The wedding coordinator might be the first person you contact after getting engaged and Maura will be very happy to assist with booking the church and establishing a timeline for State and church requirements.
Couples intending to receive the Sacrament of Matrimony have church and civil obligations to fulfil.
The Church expects couples to participate in a marriage preparation programme.
Civil obligations require you to give notification of your intention to marry to a Registrar at a civil registration office, at least 3 months before the intended date of the marriage.
The booklet Celebrating the Sacrament of Marriage contains all relevant information and if any queries arise she is happy to assist.
The email contact is: weddings@gkpastoralarea.ie; Our dedicated phone line for wedding arrangements is 01 281 9658.
As Maura is only available part time, we invite you to leave a message and Maura will contact you as soon as is possible. Thank you.