Every Catholic, whether practising or not, has a right in the law of the Church, to get married in the Church of the parish where they live, unless there are obvious reasons to the contrary, such as not being mature enough to marry, or not intending your marriage to be permanent.
The boundaries of St. Mary of the Angels parish are roughly Ladbroke Grove to the west, the Westway to the north, the Bayswater Road to the south, and a line between Westbourne Grove and Bayswater Road west of Queensway to the east. If you live in this area, you can be married in our Church or have the parish priest arrange your marriage elsewhere. If you do not, we can only perform your marriage here if you worship with us regularly.
The Church normally requires you to give six months’ notice before the date of your wedding, but if for a serious reason you cannot do this, we will do our best to accommodate you. In any case, it is a good idea to give as much notice as possible in order to secure your preferred date.
In fact most couples living within our parish boundaries get married elsewhere: in France, Spain, Italy or the United States, for example, either because that is where they come from or because they want to get married in a beautiful location, or one that has associations for them.
Whether you are getting married here or elsewhere, your first step is to make an appointment to see the parish priest, who will interview both of you, fill in a form and tell you about various documents you have to get. If you are getting married elsewhere, those documents will have to be sent to the diocese of Westminster for approval, and then forwarded to the diocese where your marriage is taking place. You will also be expected to attend a marriage preparation course, either her in our parish, or if that is inconvenient, elsewhere.
Although the Church encourages you to marry another Catholic, there is usually no difficulty about arranging a marriage between a Catholic and a baptised member of another Church, or a member of another faith, or an unbaptised person, provided you as a Catholic agree to raise your children as Catholics and your fiancé(e) does not oppose this.
You are normally expected to get married in a Catholic Church, but if for strong reasons you wish to get married in another Christian Church, it may be possible to get permission for this, but you will be expected to go through the whole process as if you were marrying in a Catholic Church.
If you have been married before, please contact your parish priest well in advance to find out whether there is a way of obtaining permission for you to marry again in a Catholic Church. This is sometimes possible, depending on various circumstances, but it takes extra time to arrange.