Atheist here. My wife is Catholic and we married at her church. I had been an atheist for a couple of years by then but was still somewhat ashamed of my lack of belief so I didn’t fight it. I can’t say I enjoyed the ceremony but it didn’t kill me and it meant a lot to my wife.
We weren’t sure what her family’s or priest’s response would be to me being an atheist so we kind of/sort of lied about it. Whenever I was asked about my religion, I simply responded with “I was raised Baptist.”
Since some people have brought up christening\baptism: I’ve put my foot down about any potential christening should we have children. I refuse to make a promise that I have no intention of keeping.
Ugh, yes. I got bullied into it be my soon-to-be mother-in-law. The whole Catholic shebang, except the giant ceremony.
It was ridiculous. I was resentful of it at the time, and for the remainder of my marriage. Hell, I resent it now, and I’ve been divorced for longer than that marriage lasted. I should have known, it should have been a sign that the woman was a manipulative bitch and my husband was a spineless bastard who would cave her way rather than mine.
My ex-wife and I were married in a Catholic church. She’s Catholic, I’m agnostic-veering-atheist, with absolutely no interest in affiliation with any kind of organised religion. It was pretty strange - her family are pretty heavily Catholic, mostly regular church-goers, and my family are universally atheistic.
The religious aspect didn’t bother me at all, and my side of the family dutifully sat through it, kneeling and standing and sitting and singing and kneeling again … just like “God” ordered them to do. Then we all decamped to the local University and ate ourselves silly and got completely drunk, in the older tradition of atheism. And later … well, let’s not go there. Suffice to say, the Lord’s name was evoked in a nice, gasping way.
What was interesting was the mandatory meetings between the priest, my wife-to-be and myself. I was very impressed with the priest - he had no interest in converting me or anything like that, and we planned a rather secular wedding mass (if that’s not an oxymoron). Sure, the big magic guy in the sky got his kneelings and songs and standings and sittings and chantings, but it wasn’t an extremely solemn, pious occasion, and that suited everyone.
Those pre-wedding meetings were a good thing. We chatted about religion and atheism, and organised everything to compromise, but the main reason he insisted on doing that was to be sure within himself that the union was likely to succeed. As he put it, he’d feel awful if he’d married a couple and the relationship turned out to be a disaster he could have foreseen.
Of course, it didn’t succeed completely - we lasted 18 years - but it was worth a try …
Oh, and he didn’t bat an eyelid about the fact that we’d already been cohabiting for two years, with the obvious pre-marital hot monkey sex that resulted.
I married my wife (agnostic / atheist) in a church. Her elderly grandfather was a minister and performed the ceremony so we decided to do it in his church (the tradeoff being we wanted to be married by him before he passed away, thus we had to do it in his church).
I didn’t care. I just wanted the whole thing to be done and legally binding before she the glow of “getting married” wore off and she realized she was “getting married… to me”.
I liken it to getting married at Disneyworld or something. If that what the wife wanted, I didn’t care at all. I know Mickey & Donald don’t really exist, and if people in attendance really truly believe they arefor real that’s their own problem to sort out in due time.
I don’t know. Not wrong so much as . . . well, a bit hypocritical, maybe. I mean, the structure is built for and dedicated to the worship of God. You don’t believe in Him but you’d like to use His building? And here I’m talking about the “it’s so pretty!” rationale, not the “my family wanted it” or “my fiancee wanted it” rationale, which I think is completely valid. I can’t imagine I’d be interested if I were an atheist, because I don’t see how you can separate the beauty and peace of the church from the fact that it’s a church – that’s exactly why it’s so beautiful and peaceful.
But I have no problem with people appreciating gifts dedicated to God even if they don’t believe in God, and weddings can be a nice way for a church to make money, so I can’t say it bothers me much. Plus, I think you have to be pretty meanspirited to want to disapprove of someone else’s wedding day. Congratulations and best wishes, says I.
I’m no longer Christian, but I find it tacky to grab the traditions of Christianity if you reject the meat of it for a wedding. I suppose there are exceptions - getting married by someone or in a place you have a connection to seems like a fair one. On the other hand, I was terribly offended when I was Catholic by a set of “angry pagans” who felt ‘Christianity was evil’ who got engaged and went for the big church wedding. (So I gave them one of those “marriage crosses” as a wedding gift with a note telling them I was glad they’d finally found Christ - they were my ex-husband’s friends anyway - never put the wife you are cheating on in charge of buying the gift for people she doesn’t like who have managed to offend her).
There are lots of beautiful places in the world that are secular - leave the religious spots for the religious.
Oh, that’s bogus! We got married outdoors in a lovely little park. We’re outdoor sort of people. Why in the name of whatever one considers holy would it matter WHERE a couple gets married?
My wife was not and is not an atheist, so we got married in a church. I really didn’t care and it didn’t matter to me at all. Making wife happy for 36 years.
I am an atheist but had a minister (my dad) and a rogue priest who specializes in Catholic weddings that would normally be impossible. What made ours impossible is I would have given up my husband rather than agree to try to raise any children Catholic, even if I had all my fingers and toes crossed. We were not married in a church, but did have two clergy including this priest who was probably a scam artist and it seemed to satisfy my mother-in-law.
Now I’ll go you one better: I had my son baptized at my dad’s church. Why? So I could have a little party for him.
I would not have a problem with it and would perhaps welcome it, I’m not sure, I’d have to think if it some more, unless you were actually against Jesus. Nonbelief in Him does not equate to being actually against Christ aka a antiChrist as I see it.
The number of people saying they went along with the church thing so as not to offend family makes me realise how lucky we are to have easy-going families. My parents are not at all religious (well, they’re nominally C of E, as am I, but certainly not practising) and her parents rarely go to church and have absolutely no problem with our having a civil ceremony.
On a related note, I spoke to my fiancee this afternoon and was slightly gobsmacked by the size of the budget her father has put aside for his eldest daughter’s wedding!
Edit: kanicbird - I’m certainly not “anti-Christ”. I believe that Jesus existed (well, it’s not really a debatable point) and was a good teacher, I just don’t believe the “son of God” part. It’s the trappings of organised religion, and the attitude that “regardless of how you behave, you’re a sinner unless you believe this particular story” that get to me.
My father’s not a rabbi - he’s a minister. That’s why. Plus, I was in no position be entertaining when my baby was 8 days old. By the time he was five months, with the weather getting nice and all, I was all set.
My husband and I are both atheists. We got married in my parents’ backyard, overlooking an ocean inlet, at sunset. It was beautiful, except for the hurricane that was approaching :). A UU minister married us and didn’t mention God once, at our request. We had previously fired a “celebrant” because she wouldn’t comply with that. The only person who had a problem with any of this was my Catholic grandmother who expressed surprise and disappointment that I, who had not been raised in any religion, who had been in a Catholic church only a handful of times (about the same number of times I’d been in a Synagogue) and who was marrying someone who had been raised vaguely Protestant, did not have a Catholic wedding.
In the U.S. the only thing that counts is that someone who was qualified to sign the marriage license signed it - and that you and your spouse signed it, with two witnesses. I’ve known of folks who didn’t have a wedding - they just had a officiant and “witnesses” sign the license. Oh, and at least my state requires you to pledge that one of you is a man and one of you is a woman or it isn’t legal (no comment).
With that in mind, you can have whatever ritual you want where ever you choose to have it - provided you have the necessary permits and permissions for public property and aren’t breaking any laws (like having big bonfires with “skyclad” guests in public parks).
Churches (or apprpropriate places of worship) are probably the most common spot by far. Courthouses are probably number two. But I’ve been to weddings in homes, in public parks, at Science Fiction Conventions (the Best Man was a Klingon), in a museum, a Buddhist tea garden (that may qualify as a place of worship), at RenFaires and at SCA events in the gym of some elementary school in Wisconsin.
My wife and I (atheists) rented out a mansion hall, but would not have been averse to a church building for its inherent qualities; wood is wood and stone is stone, we just wanted it to look pretty.
However, we did choose against a church due to certain relatives in our family who are freaky judgemental fundies and cherished thumbing our noses at them by having a purely secular ceremony with a pagan-flavored candle lighting.
