By Jacquie DeSisto
Shortly after our engagement, Josh and I were eager to celebrate and start planning our wedding. We had already decided the most important details, the date and the venue for our ceremony. While St. Dominic’s Chapel is a special place, and we were excited to be married there, we were disappointed that we were not going to be married at the parish we attend each week for mass. We wanted to do something that would incorporate our parish, Holy Angels, into our wedding plans. So we asked our priest if he could bless our engagement.
As it turns out, there is a Catholic ceremony called the Rite of Betrothal. The priest explained to us that he was unfamiliar with this ceremony, but he knew of its existence and would do some research so that he would be prepared to perform it on August 7, 2015, one year from our wedding date.
Part of the Rite includes the exchanging of gifts. The items would be blessed and we would have them with us at our wedding. We decided that we would use my engagement ring as Josh’s gift to me, but that left me to find a suitable gift for Josh. I thought about cuff links or a tie clip, but at that point it was still undecided what Josh and the groomsmen would wear! After a lot of shopping, I found a beautiful watch that I thought Josh would love and would be a really special piece to wear on our wedding day (it makes a special appearance in our engagement photos, one of which you can find above!).
During the Rite of Betrothal, the priest speaks about the sacrament of marriage and the role the church will play in our marriage. He encouraged us to spend our engagement preparing for our lives together and not just for our wedding day. The ceremony reminded us that our engagement is an opportunity to reflect on difficult questions all engaged and married couples face, and that we are blessed to have our families and our faith to help us through any issue we may encounter.
We invited our families and bridal party to attend the mass and the blessing. Following those events, we had a small luncheon where we were able to share some of our plans for the wedding and hear suggestions from those closest to us. It was a wonderful way to celebrate our engagement!