Accord pre marriage course

Dabatter

Hi everyone, my wife to be and I will be shortly be doing our pre marriage Accord course. I get the feeling by the Accord website that every course is fairly much standard/the same. However, if anyone out there knows of a venue(in the Dublin or Galway area) that you must truly avoid please let me know as we want to make the most of it. Or if anyone has recommendations of the best venue??

Eoin

We did ours in Dun Laoghaire - near the Fire station I think. It was a Friday evening and full day Saturday. We got more out of it than we thought we would actually - it was nothing like the antiquated Catholic sermonising I was sort of expecting. The family planning section however used some terms quite casually that I didn't agree with, but I can't remember exactly what they were, so won't try and repeat them.

A couple I know had someone call out to the house for one evening, which I hadn't realised was an option. Could be something to look into if you're not into the group thing. Not that there were any group exercises or anything like that.

00112984

Hi OP, I presume you know this but you don't have to do the course with Accord if you find one that suits you better. I don't know if you're getting married in a church or whatever but a lot of priests only seem to know about the Accord ones. Some priests are quiet old-fashioned in only "allowing" people attend the course they recommend but it's worth looking into.

We did the PREP course in All allows, Dublin last year and it was grand. We went with fairly low expectations anyway but it's wasn't at all bad and not religion-based so we found it more realistic for us than other courses we looked at.

Toots

Someone said to me today that there is a time limit that you have to do this course. They said that it could only be done a max of 6 months before you got married, is this true? We're not getting married until next october, but were hoping to do the marriage course in perhaps June of this year just to get it out of the way.

Marz66

Nope, its not true at all. I think the church like to have 3 months notice of a wedding and might prefer that you have it done at that stage but its not a requirement or anything.

Toots

Cheers for that! I'd hate to go and do it this year and then be told next year that we had to do it again :eek:

sweetie

We did an accord one in Old Hallow's in Drumcondra and I hated it. The couple were just so annoying. Turns out the priest didn't even want us
to do one so that was more irritating!

Eoin

Marz66 wrote: »

Nope, its not true at all. I think the church like to have 3 months notice of a wedding and might prefer that you have it done at that stage but its not a requirement or anything.

I think the question was if you can do it more than 6 months before the wedding? I don't know if that's the case, but I think if you're not getting married in your local parish, then your letter of freedom from them must be issued within 6 months. At least, I think it's something like that.

sweetie wrote:

Turns out the priest didn't even want us to do one so that was more irritating!

Actually, that's a good point - check with the priest first.

Dataighom

I would avoid the Accord pre marriage course if i were you.

I found the people giving the course to be condescending and more than a little arrogant.
It is a catholic based course so i expected it to be a little biased towards the churches teaching but i didn't expect it to be deliberately misleading.

The family planning section could be summed up as
"The pill is bad" and we were actually told that the Natural family planning method is 98% effective. I still wonder how many of the other attendees went home and managed to get their girlfriend knocked up because they believed what they were told.

We didn't get any information that i would consider practical such as the legal forms we need in advance of getting married and any of the tax implications.

If you want to spend a weekend getting talked to like you were a 10 year old and listen to someone in their 50s who got married when they were 18 start every sentence with "Well in my day ..." then knock yourself out. Otherwise try and find some other organisation the does the course.

I did the course in Carndonagh in Co. Donegal so maybe it's a little different up here as opposed to the one in the city. But i still rate the weekend worse than one were my dog got run over by a car, Thierry Henri knocked us out of the world cup and i managed to get my lottery tickets mixed up and though i had won the jackpot for 2 hours.

aldeniro

Look in to the avalon one instead. 60 euro cheaper than accord one, and you can also get this done in 1 day (bout 5 hrs i think taking lunch from it). Emphasis on the accord one by your priest is cash from this goes directly to the church! - I did the avalon one and it is Sh*te, many of my friends have attended the accord one and also think its the same and is sh*te. So if its going to be crap anway, you might as well save yourself 60 bucks and an extra evening by doing cheaper one

Goolay

Hi All,

Just wondering if anyone has managed to find a decent course? Either in Dublin or Donegal if poss. Having a church wedding but into the preachy rubbish...

leap

We did the prep course in all hallows. We thought it was fine and not crazy religious. A priest came in for about an hour but mainly to discuss the legal reguirements and to make sure eveyone had the right forms etc.

It was €150 which I believe is cheaper than the accord ones and we did it on 2 Thursday evenings so we didnt have to give up a Saturday.

BC

I did the Accord one in Portmarnock.
Our priest would only accept the Accord one and it had to be done no further than 6 months ahead of the wedding.
I wouldn't go so far as to say it was 'good' but it wasn't as bad as I expected. There was no priest at it, it was all given by lay people.

whatnext

Ask them what happened to all their statistics:D:D:D

http://www.accord.ie/knowledge_base/?category=4

Then ask the priest for a definition of extortion
ex·tor·tion (ĭk-stôr'shən)
n.
The act or an instance of extorting.

Illegal use of one's official position or powers to obtain property, funds, or patronage.

An excessive or exorbitant charge.

Something extorted.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/extortion

I did, €160 saved

Plumella

We did ours in Whitefriar Chapel in Dublin for the reason that St Valentines relics are in that church so we were able to visit the remains and pledge prayers for our future as a couple.

The people giving the course were really nice, and I would recommend this venue to anyone.

I am not over the top holy in any sense, but it give a nice focus to our wedding course.