Chai Brady
Young couples hoping to tie the knot may get some reprieve from wedding costs as parish halls are encouraged to open for evening receptions.
It comes as new research suggests that some couples are just too poor to get married.
Bishop Denis Nulty – head of the Church’s marriage agency Accord – told The Irish Catholic that using parish facilities to help couples reduce “prohibitive” wedding costs is something parishes are keen to promote.
Bishop Nulty said the Church encourages couples to be “thrifty” in the receptions they organise and that the parish community, and the advice of older married couples, can play a role in mitigating expense.
“Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia says this very thing. We need to revise how we celebrate Sacraments, particularly marriage in the parish community. He talks about accompanying the couple in the early stages of engagement,” Bishop Nulty said before blessing an engaged couple at the Shrine of St Valentine in Whitefriar Church in Dublin.
“The Accord course would be part of it, other things would be being supported by older married couples in the parish community and part of that would be letting the parish community look after the simplest possible wedding reception that comes at a very low cost to the couple” he added.
New report
It comes as a new report ‘Mind the Gap: Marriage and Family by Social Class’, shows that for many people – particularly from more socially disadvantaged communities – the dream of walking down the aisle will never become a reality.
Statistics from the North’s Statistics and Research Agency show that 60.7% of upper professional workers (‘Social Class A’) aged 18-49 are married, compared with just 32.7% of unskilled or elementary workers (‘Social Class I’).