Marriage

God created man and woman out of love and commanded them to imitate his love in their relations with each other. Man and woman were created for each other…Woman and man are equal in human dignity, and in marriage both are united in an unbreakable bond. (United States Catholic Catechism for Adults, Ch. 21, p. 279)

CONTACT:  Amy Parent    amy@stthomascamas.org   

The Sacrament of Matrimony at St. Thomas

If you would like to be married at St. Thomas please contact the parish office at least six months before the proposed marriage date, (360) 834-2126 ext. 212.


After you have initiated your marriage preparations with a staff member please fill out the following forms

Bride Intake form Groom Intake form

Some Important Policies:

There are several policies to consider when planning a wedding at St. Thomas Aquinas:

  1. Wedding Dates: Weddings are held usually on Saturdays when available. Only one wedding per Saturday.
  2. Wedding Times: Due to CRC mass schedules, weddings can start no earlier than 10:00am, and must be done by 3:00pm. The finish time means that a Nuptial Mass can start no later than 2:00pm.
  3. Rehearsal Time: Rehearsals are on Friday and they generally start at 4:00pm and end between 5:00pm and 5:30pm.
  4. Customs and Additional Rites: Weddings at St. Thomas Aquinas focus on the Nuptial Vows and Mass (when possible). Additional customs and rites such as the unity candle rites are not practiced.
  5. Brides and Bridesmaids Dress Code: During the ceremony: shoulders must have wide straps or be covered; cleavage and lower back must be covered; slits should be knee length or lower. 

Planning

Planning your wedding may take place over the course of several meetings:

  1. Securing a wedding Date: You should contact us at least a year in advance to arrange a wedding date when possible.
  2. Initial Meeting: This meeting should take place at least six months before your desired wedding date and before you have made any other plans. We fill out initial paperwork, talk about date options, and discuss the steps required to get married at St. Thomas Aquinas.
  3. Final Details Meeting: This meeting takes place one month before the wedding date. We make sure the paperwork is completed, and we go over details about the ceremony.
  4. Rehearsal: This meeting takes place on Friday (when possible) the week of the wedding. We walk through the ceremony and finalize details with as many participants as possible.
  5. In between the Initial Meeting and the Final Details Meeting, wedding preparation occurs.

Cost

If you or your family are a parishioner at St. Thomas Aquinas, or live in our Parish boundaries, we do not charge any rental or facility fees for weddings. There are minor fees for servers and musicians which can total up to $500, depending on the ceremony.



If you have already been married civilly and wish to be married in the Church. Please fill out the convalidation form below

Convalidation
The sacrament of marriage is a visible sign of God’s love for the Church. When a man and a woman are married in the Church, they receive the grace needed for a lifelong bond of unity.

Marriage is a Covenant

The Sacrament of Marriage is a covenantal union in the image of the covenants between God and his people with Abraham and later with Moses at Mt. Sinai. This divine covenant can never be broken. In this way, marriage is a union that bonds spouses together during their entire lifetime.
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. (CCC 1661)
The love in a married relationship is exemplified in the total gift of one’s self to another. It’s this self-giving and self-sacrificing love that we see in our other model of marriage, the relationship between Christ and the Church.
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. (CCC 1662)
The Church takes the lifelong nature of the Sacrament of Marriage seriously. The Church teaches that a break in this covenant teaches goes against the natural law of God:
The remarriage of persons divorced from a living, lawful spouse contravenes the plan and law of God as taught by Christ. They are not separated from the Church, but they cannot receive Eucharistic communion. They will lead Christian lives especially by educating their children in the faith. (CCC 1665)

Marriage Reflects the Holy Trinity

We believe that God exists in eternal communion. Together, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are united in one being with no beginning and no end. Human beings, likewise, were created by God in God’s image for the purpose of communion with another human being.


The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “The Christian family is a communion of persons, a sign and image of the communion of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit” (CCC 2205). The Sacrament of Marriage is “unitive, indissoluble and calls us to be completely open to fertility.” Christian marriage at its finest is a reflection of God’s self-giving love expressed between the love of two people.


PREPARATION FOR MARRIAGE
A link to a resource from the Archdiocese of Seattle.