Cannot get married as a catholic in Poland if I don't have sacraments - No kids without Church marriage

Hi everybody
I'm married to an amazing polish girl, I love her and she loves me back. We've been married since 2011, and together since 2006. Considering I'm almost in my thirties, I'd love to have kids considering we're both working. The problem is that I don't have any of the sacraments and my wife won't have any children unless we're married in church. I have proposed her to make a small ceremony(of course me getting married even as an atheist:which I'm not but I can't get married as a catholic if I don't have the sacraments) for 2 of us and go somewhere a on a little holiday because I don't have 30-40 k to spend on the wedding but she doesn't agree. It has to be a wedding as everybody she says :(, the thing though is that her friends got money from their parents and our parents are not rich or not even close to rich so we do have to pay for everything ourselves.

Now, everytime this comes up we finish having an argument,with her saying that she doesn't want kids unless we get married in church and me saying that we don't have money for a big ceremony. I have to say that I wasn't baptized because when I was born, my country was communist and I have tried later but it takes till 2 years ( from what I've heard ) and I go in my country only for 2 weeks/year, to visit my parents, here in PL I can't because my polish is very basic.

Any advice/opinion is welcomed.

She has to apply to her bishop for marriage permit with not a christian. She will get it, so it's not a problem. Only requirement is that you will have to sign that you have nothing against children becoming Catholics. You can google about it, for example here:

prawno.diecezja.lublin.pl/Sakramenty/Malzenstwo/malzenstwo-arty.html

So since one problem is solved, only 2nd left - money. Women are not cheap, so be a man and save enough money for this ceremony if she wants it. You could only try convincing her to keep it moderate, because traditional Polish weddings are unhealthy sumptuous.

2 more things:
I think there is some fast track for you to become Catholic if you want.
Also about the money, you should expect to get back at least 50% of costs from guests, so it's not so burdensome for your budget as may seem.

This is absolutely true, my Dad married a non Christian, this was all he had to do; it didn't take very long for permission to come through.

There is no guarantee that any children you have will become committed Catholics; there are six of us offspring and non of us had any belief in the religion.


Stick to your guns about a small wedding! Explain that the money for a large wedding could be much better used on a deposit for a house. There are many other uses for it if you already have a house.


People are very generous but with the current economic situation it's better to play safe.
My brothers and sisters (and myself) had very small weddings but they were all beautiful.

She can indeed.


Yes, but some Polish women will almost certainly spend 50% more than the budget on a wedding. They are almost always the ones who insist on a big wedding.

Thnx a lot everybody!!


Finally there is a girl who agrees with me :D :D

Above is True. You're going about this the wrong way. If she doesn't get "her" wedding, it will haunt your marriage forever. Give her what she wants and you'll probably get what you spent on the wedding in the way of gifts. In a marriage the woman calls the tune for the marriage ceremony (it's her day) and the house selection. You get to make the call on how often you have sex.

My natural answer as a very practical man would be to forgo the large wedding and spend the money more wisely. However, Meat-head makes a very good point, much as I hate to admit it. Men forget. Women and elephants don't. Never ever ever.

I am UK born and not a Catholic and my wife is Polish and a Catholic: We are both late starters, I was 48 years old and she 40. The first thing was a letter to the bishop and that seemed a formality and its outcome not in any doubt. A condition was also that any children from the marriage should be brought up as Catholics. We had been together for 5 years prior to that and living in Denmark and the UK during that time, during this time we built a home in the village where my wife was born and spent most of her life. I have no great feeling towards tying the knot, not been married before, but I felt for her it was more important.

I agree that letting her have the wedding she wanted was the best thing in our case, i am not one to be the centre of attention, but I felt we should do this in Poland and in the correct way as perhaps those in her family would appreciate and in the end it worked out better than I could have expected. I did stomp my feet on the Church service, it seemed to me that I would be required to be there and not have much to do, I felt I would be required to sit there and say nothing or take much part in the service until asked if i would take this woman etc.... We had to take a civil service to get married, I did think we had to do this, perhaps I misunderstood, that was done in the morning with close family and then after talking about my concerns about the church wedding and my part in it, the priest suggested we just invite all the guests to the church and just bless the wedding, which worked out very well for me.

I must say at the start I was reluctant to have a large wedding, I would have been happy with a small private affair, but I know that my wife and her family would not really want this, so I most certainly let her decided how she felt the day should go, I asked that it should be upstairs at the local firehouse rather than a purpose built wedding party building and also told the band what not to play, the video they gave to advertise what they do had them playing "stay with me" by the Small Faces.....

Plus, if it's all a disaster, it's not your fault ;)