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How should you select a wedding officiant?

Katie Scott | Catholic Herald

Fr. Edward J. Bresnahan officiates at the 2010 wedding of Michelle and Delvis Ramirez. Fr. Bresnahan is a childhood friend of Michelle, and having him present at the sacrament was “something very special,” said Michelle.

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Wedding to-do lists can feel endless and daunting: Nail down
a venue, chose the color scheme, select a band. But your
officiant – the priest or deacon saying the words of the
marriage rite – should “not be like one more thing on a
checklist,” said Father Edward J. Bresnahan, in residence at
St. Mary Church in Alexandria.

Father Bresnahan said an officiant often is the parish
priest, but asking a friend or family member can be a
meaningful addition to the day – as long as the selection
process doesn’t add to the “consumerization mentality” of
marriage prep. Choosing a wedding officiant should foremost
be grounded in prayer and communication, he said.

Michelle (Peterson) Ramirez, a program assistant in the
diocesan Development Office, is a longtime friend of Father
Bresnahan and asked him to officiate her November 2010
wedding at Our Lady of Angels Church in Woodbridge. For her
and her husband, Delvis, the decision “made a personal day
all the more personal,” she said. “You are putting so much of
yourself into the wedding,” so having an officiant that has
been a part of your life since childhood “is something very
special.”

The Peterson family of four grew up across the street from
the three Bresnahan children, with both home-schooling
families spending a lot of time together. Ramirez remembers
chasing fireflies late into warm summer nights with the young
neighbors, a memory Father Bresnahan shared at her wedding.

“Having somebody you’ve known for so long only adds to the
depth of the memories you make in a day so full of memories,”
said Ramirez. Father Bresnahan also officiated at two of
Ramirez’s brothers’ weddings and wrote a letter of
recommendation for her third brother when he applied to
seminary.

“We have been part of each other’s major vocation moments,”
said Ramirez, who attended Father Bresnahan’s ordination just
a few months before he celebrated her nuptial Mass.

Father Bresnahan, now chaplain of Bishop Ireton High School
in Alexandria, said that although he has two or three
spiritual points he makes at every wedding, knowing a couple
or individual well, as was the case with Ramirez, helps “to
make those spiritual concepts more relevant to them through
personal stories and even sometimes inside jokes,” he said.

“One of the beautiful things about the Arlington Diocese,” he
added, is that its substantial pre-Cana requirements offer
ample time to build a relationship with couples. The engaged
are required to meet with a priest or deacon a minimum of
four times during a six-month period prior to the wedding,
“so you definitely know them on the day of their wedding,”
said Father Bresnahan.

The first and most important step in selecting an officiant,
he said, is to “pray, pray, pray.”

“The bride and groom should pray and ask their maid of honor,
best man and family members to pray for them. Invite prayers
whenever possible.”

Second, couples should communicate with their parish, said
Father Bresnahan. The diocese requires you to contact your
parish at least six months before your proposed wedding date.

“Your parish is a spiritual home, so you definitely want to
have consideration for it,” he said. It is where your
soon-to-be family likely will receive future sacraments, and
“it prepares you for your spiritual home in heaven.”

Parishes also have different guidelines for weddings, and you
want to be sure you are respectful of them and communicate
fully with the pastor, said Father Bresnahan. He noted that
part of making contact with the parish should be registering,
if you haven’t already. Many young people come into the
Washington region for work and start attending Mass without
filling out registration forms. “Registering is huge; it’s a
visible connection to your spiritual home here,” he said.

If after prayer and communication a couple chooses an old
friend or family member to help establish the covenant of
marriage, they can enjoy special blessings, said Ramirez, now
mother of two young boys. It makes a day bursting with joy,
she said, “all the more joyful.”

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