Marriage Preparation Process

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First Steps

The first step in preparing for marriage is to contact your local parish at least one year before your desired wedding date. Before you register for a Pre-Cana session, you'll need to set up your first meeting with your priest or deacon to begin the official process where you will be given information about the general requirements of Catholic marriage, guidelines for Catholic marriage in New Jersey and specific instructions from your own wedding parish. It's best to confirm your wedding date with your parish before you select a reception venue, however, if you find it necessary to book your reception site more than a year in advance, we suggest you contact your parish first to find out if your date is available.

IMPORTANT: If you are celebrating your Catholic wedding outside the U.S., you must still complete the entire marriage preparation process required by the Catholic Church and must begin the process by contacting your local parish (refer to the Marriage Preparation Checklist mentioned below).

Marriage Preparation Checklist

We’ve created a helpful Marriage Preparation Checklist just for you! Marriage preparation consists of completing your pre-marital paperwork, discussing marriage topics with your officiant or pastoral minister at the parish, attending marriage preparation classes, planning your wedding liturgy, and getting actively involved in the faith community where you will live after your wedding.




 

Taking the FOCCUS Pre-Marital Inventory

FOCCUS (Facilitating Open Couple Communication, Understanding and Study) is a tool designed to help couples learn more about themselves and their unique relationship. The pre-marital inventory provides each couple and a facilitator with a personalized profile of areas or issues that should be discussed and worked through before marriage.

The content covers a range of elements necessary for a successful marriage. Couples work with a priest, deacon, or mentor couple to discuss the topics. After completing the FOCCUS process, couples often experience a noticeable increase in their understanding of the marital commitment and readiness for marriage.

Couples are encouraged to complete FOCCUS with their pastoral minister before attending the marriage preparation workshop of their choice.

Marriage Preparation Classes

Because the Catholic Church believes that marriage is not only a sacred covenant between a man and a woman, but also the foundation of healthy communities, all Catholic dioceses around the world offer engaged couples an opportunity to learn all they can about what it takes to build a lasting marriage that gets better all the time.

Couples who are adequately prepared for marriage learn how to communicate in loving ways, resolve conflicts effectively, and begin to create a marriage built on respect, trust, intimacy, forgiveness, faith and unconditional love.

The Diocese of Trenton offers a variety of marriage preparation classes to suit the individual tastes and needs of today’s engaged couples. These include parish Pre-Cana workshops, diocesan Pre-Cana classes, and mentor couple sessions in the parish. Engaged Encounter weekends are available in nearby dioceses for couples seeking a more intensive, retreat experience. Couples in which one or both parties are remarrying in the Church after the death of a spouse or annulment must attend our Better Together Remarriage Retreat.

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Parish Pre-Cana Conferences

Pre-Cana conferences in the Diocese of Trenton are designed to help engaged couples prepare for the everyday challenges of lifelong, sacramental marriage. Through married couple witness presentations, private couple dialog and group interaction, the Pre-Cana experience helps couples develop better relational skills, including healthier ways to communicate and resolve conflicts. Couples also begin to see that their marriage as part of a mission to share God’s love and truly make a difference in the world.

Pre-Cana classes are offered in selected parishes at various times and locations throughout the year and are open to all couples preparing for Catholic marriage. Couples find participation in Pre-Cana conferences to be a positive, enjoyable and worthwhile experience.

Please be aware that, while some Pre-Cana programs are completed in one day, others are scheduled in segments over a two or three day period. To get the most out of their Pre-Cana experience, couples will attend all segments and participate in the program in its entirety. Important: Couples for whom either party has a prior marriage must attend the Better Together Remarriage Retreat in lieu of Pre-Cana.

Check out our marriage preparation events to register online for a class that works for you.

Engaged Encounter

Catholic Engaged Encounter (CEE) The Engaged Encounter is a weekend away with other engaged couples that provides time in both groups and alone as a couple to dialogue honestly and intensively about your new life together.

Ideas presented by a team of married couples and a priest stimulate personal reflection and private couple dialogue.  Topics for discussion include: strengths and weaknesses, desires, ambitions, goals, attitudes about money, sexuality, children, family, and your roles in Church and society.  Also central to this weekend is the Sunday Mass celebration.
 

Diocesan Pre-Cana Conferences

In accordance with the Pastoral Policies and Guidelines for Marriage Preparation for the Catholic Church in New Jersey, the Department of Evangelization and Family Life offers one-day instructional sessions for engaged couples in addition to parish-based Pre-Cana workshops. Diocesan Pre-Cana events are conducted by a highly skilled and professionally trained team of diocesan marriage ministry couples. 

Diocesan Pre-Cana workshops tend to be larger events with as few as twenty and as many as eighty engaged couples in attendance. The format includes a variety of presentations on sacramental marriage, witness talks given by team couples on various relational skills and family life, large group activities, and couple exercises and reflection. Small group facilitated discussions are not offered as part of the diocesan format.

The goal of Pre-Cana is four-fold:

1. To discuss and practice certain key relational skills for marriage - communication, conflict resolution, decision making, etc. The marital relationship is different from all other relationships.

2. To gain self awareness and insight into my future spouse - what patterns of behavior learned from my family of origin am I bringing into the marriage? The more we understand about ourselves and our partner, the better prepared we are to respond in the best possible way.

3. To learn the realities of Catholic marriage and how it is lived each day - it's a covenant, partnership, vocation and sacrament - how is this manifested in our relationship?

4. Most importantly, to examine the role God and our faith community will play in our marriage? We know that God wants all couples to have an extraordinary marriage - that is our ultimate goal.

Engaged couples may register here for a diocesan Pre-Cana event.

Better Together Remarriage Retreat 

Preparing today’s couples for Catholic marriage is both challenging and rewarding; perhaps the greatest reward is sharing in each couple’s hope that their marriage will last a lifetime. But we know the reality - many Catholic marriages end with the untimely death of a spouse, and many more end in unexpected divorce. The good news is that many Catholics are given a second chance to enter a loving, authentic sacramental marriage. When couples have the desire to enter a remarriage, they may not realize how much work is needed to become whole again, to heal from the loss of a failed marriage or death of their beloved spouse. 

Here in the Diocese of Trenton we offer a marriage preparation retreat day specifically designed to meet the needs of couples entering remarriage in the Church. While sacramental preparation is meant to take place primarily in the parish, our couples have the unique opportunity to attend a retreat day that offers the witness of remarried couples who’ve been in their shoes, private couple reflection time, the chance to learn from their peers in small group discussions, and a new understanding of sacramental marriage as a holy calling and shared vocation. 

More good news! ... the Better Together Remarriage Retreat is also recommended for civilly married couples who wish to bring their marriage into the Church through the process of convalidation. Since the grace of sacramental marriage is transformative, couples who enter a true Catholic marriage often experience a radical change in their relationship. When they open their hearts to Christ's love, it's as if they have a whole new marriage! 

The Diocese of Trenton Remarriage Ministry has helped countless couples prepare for happy, healthy remarriage in the Diocese of Trenton since 1996. Their tried and true approach has been updated to meet the needs of today’s engaged couples. Check out our marriage preparation events to find a Better Together Remarriage Retreat and register online.