Catholic Marriage Preparation

Do you need an approved Catholic course, acceptable anywhere in the Catholic world, so that you are ready prepared for when your wedding can take place?   Need flexibility without having to attend meetings?   

Congratulations on your decision to marry in the Catholic church!   As Marriage is one of the Sacraments of the church, it’s Canon Law requires that couples undertake some kind of preparation to understand the Sacrament and what marriage entails.   Our course is done over nine weeks, although it can be fast tracked to be done in a month if your wedding is very soon or you are getting married abroad and need to satisfy a particular country’s regulations.  At the end, you and/or your priest get a report and certificate of completion, depending on whose email addresses you give when registering.  Your priest may then give you some further guidance on the Sacrament.

 

The Diocese supports the online Catholic marriage preparation courses run by SmartLoving UK.  (Website is https://smartloving.org/uk). Couples regularly comment that their course enabled them to discuss things never shared before and their relationship deepened as a result, even if they are already living together.  

 

When you are ready to register for your course, go to  https://smartloving.org/northampton/ where you will see an option enabling you to read or download the Diocesan marriage preparation flier (scroll down).  Then click on the “Engaged Couple” button to open up your registration form.  Further instructions on how to register and pay for the course are given below*.  You may also get a pop-up box on the website asking you to sign up for our e-newsletter.  This is worth doing and gives you free interesting articles every so often to help your marriage and can be cancelled anytime.  

 

If there is any problem, do get in touch at smartloving@talktalk.net.  The sooner you start the better, especially if your wedding is abroad as the paperwork trail takes a long time!  

*  FURTHER DETAILS: The course is comprised of  9 Lessons of approximately 1.5 hours each. Ideally, one lesson per week gives you time to practice the tools and form new habits over a 3 month period. It can also be fast-tracked to one month if time is tight.  Remember that marriages taking place abroad can take much longer for the paperwork to be done, sent and translated.  

At the end of each lesson, you will complete an online quiz designed to ensure that you have understood the key concepts. You need at least 80% to advance to the next lesson and quizzes may not be attempted until you have spent a minimum one hour in the lesson. If you get under 80% the system will direct you to the sections you need to revisit. When you’ve done this, attempt the quiz again. When you get to 80% the next lesson will unlock and you can progress. Quiz questions can be previewed in the workbooks so that you can draft your answers before you submit them.  You can either download and print workbooks or buy online.  

Your priest may give you a Sponsor Couple from the parish to guide you – if so, give the sponsors the coupon which comes with the course after you register.  At the end of the course, you will do an assessment whereby each of you separately complete a series of short answer questions. Your answers are then compiled into a report for your priest who may want to discuss some of your answers with you. A certificate is also generated then.   It’s not a test and there are no wrong answers. The purpose of the quizzes and assessment is to help us support you and ensure that you’ve mastered concepts, frameworks and tools in discussion with each other. 

READY TO REGISTER?   

You only need to purchase ONE registration per couple as you can access the online platform from one or two devices, separately or simultaneously if required.   Having arrived at our landing page, click on the button for Engaged Couples.  You will need a workbook each to do this course online.  EITHER, you can download the file for free (This is Option 1 and entails printing off some 400+ pages in total for two books, now or later) ……  OR you can order a couple’s pack to be free-posted to you (this is Option 2 and maybe cheaper for you than printing yourselves!).  Choose your option from the drop down box and then click add to the cart.  

After you have viewed the cart, you will see that a package has been added to your basket or cart.  Click Proceed to Checkout.  Ignore Login and Coupon Code boxes and fill in your name, address etc.  (You use Login later when you need to access your course).  Agree to the terms and place order.  

When you start, you’ll be asked to create your account user name and password which both of you later use to access your course individually or together as you progress.  The coupons referred to relate to free access for your parish sponsor if you have one.  Adding your priest’s (or sponsor) email address will ensure a copy of your final report and certificate is forwarded on for you to discuss any issues, with confidentiality assured.

Each time you then wish to access your course in order to pick up from where you left off or to print off your certificate, go to https://smartloving.org/uk/ and click on LOGIN (top right corner).