Guidelines for Marriage by a Northcross Pastor
Congratulations on this exciting time of preparation for your upcoming wedding ceremony and marriage! If you wish to have a Northcross pastor officiate your wedding, please review the guidelines below, and complete and submit the pre-marriage questionnaire. Please note that considering the size of our church and the total number of pastors on staff, the pastor you request may already be at capacity and unable to officiate your wedding. This is why we advise contacting pastors as soon as possible.
Hangyul Cho
Associate Pastor
Andrew Neville
Senior Pastor
Mark Wallace
Associate Pastor
Honorarium:
The honorarium for the pastor performing your ceremony is $300. This includes performing the ceremony, rehearsal, counselling and consultation, and wedding planning. This is paid directly to the pastor at the initial meeting. If there is a financial hardship involved in the cost of these sessions, feel free to discuss this with us.
1. Complete the pre-marriage questionnaire
2. Review of your questionnaire
A Northcross pastor will receive your completed questionnaire for review and we will contact you with any questions and next steps. Before a pastor can confirm that he can perform the wedding he will request an initial meeting with the couple. In this session, you can expect the pastor to ask you about information supplied in your questionnaire including your Christian faith, church life, and the nature of your relationship.
3. Preparation with a Northcross pastor
Once a Northcross pastor has been confirmed to preside over your wedding, you should coordinate schedules as early as possible to ensure that he is available for your wedding date and to allow adequate time to complete the premarital seminar and premarital counselling process, allowing no less than six months between the time of the initial contact at the actual wedding.
4. Premarital Course
Members of Northcross must attend a premarital course, “Alpha Pre-marriage/marriage”. The seminar is a course that discusses the meaning and purpose of marriage, the qualities necessary to have a healthy marriage, the true nature of love and how to effectively express it, communication and conflict resolution, role relationships, and sexuality in marriage.
5. Premarital counselling
The pastor will provide an undetermined number of counselling sessions with the couple to supplement the Alpha course. The number of sessions will depend on several factors, including the couple’s background, and level of readiness, etc. This is done through a diagnostic tool (Prepare/Enrich) to supplement their counselling, which will entail additional cost.
6. Wedding planning
The planning for the wedding ceremony will take place after the completion of the pre-marital counselling sessions.