Congratulations on your decision to get married.  We welcome the opportunity to invest in your upcoming union and commitment before God and His people. We want to strengthen you as a couple for your marriage, not just your wedding day. If you desire to be married at St. Luke or married off-site by one of our pastors, completion of the Premarital Counseling is required and is offered to both members and non-members.  
   
Our Premarital Counseling process consists of six sessions, each lasting approximately 60 to 90 minutes.  This process is designed to enrich your relationship with each other as a couple, to deepen your understanding of marital expectations, and to ground your future in God’s perspective of commitment and hope for marriage.
  
To begin this process we ask that you schedule an introductory meeting at least six months prior to the wedding date. At the initial conference with the pastor, the information necessary for the early stage planning of the wedding service will be given. At that time the bride and groom will receive a legal details pamphlet, wedding information sheet, template for the wedding service, hard copy of the The Wedding Guide, and an invitation for the Zoe Premarital Inventory. The couple will also receive a Sanctuary Request Form securing the sanctuary for the dates and times of the rehearsal and wedding service.
Please note: The date of the service on-site or off will not be secured until the initial meeting with the pastor is completed.
   
Your wedding day is one of the most important days in your lives. The wedding service is an opportunity, before family and friends, to ask for God's blessings on this occasion and His consecration of your union by the Word of God and prayer. Beautiful flowers, dresses and decorations have their place on this joyous occasion. Yet, tremendously more important than these is the blessing of the One who instituted marriage and gave Himself to be our Savior. For these reasons we endeavor with you to have a Christian wedding that celebrates the couple but even more, is in the true sense of the Word, a service in which Jesus remains central and the Word of God and prayer receive their rightful place. God's blessings to you.
  
For more details about weddings and premarital counseling at St. Luke or to schedule an introductory meeting, please call 724-352-2777.

  (You will need Acrobat  Reader to open the forms on this page.)
 

Frequently Asked Questions:
To begin this process we ask that you schedule an introductory meeting at least six months prior to the wedding date. Please contact Pastor Jason Hoerth.

Who does the Premarital Counseling?
The Premarital Counseling is handled by the pastors of St. Luke Lutheran Church.

What do we talk about in the Premarital Counseling?
Within the scope of the Premarital Counseling is the awareness of strengths in the relationship and opportunities to see growth in topics that need the attention of the couple: Biblical principles of the marriage covenant, skills for marriage, goals for the union, marital roles and responsibilities, finances, resolving conflicts and more.

What should I expect from the Premarital Counseling?
You can expect to be challenged, stretched, and Lord willing, better prepared for the marriage that God is going to bless you with.  You should leave the Premarital Counseling with an idea of some strengths of the upcoming union and some growth areas to work on --- in other words, a more realistic idea of marriage, its challenges and blessings.

The Premarital process is a facilitated opportunity where the couple can feel safe to share before each other and before the pastor the concerns and certain celebrations that will come with married life. We want you to have a marriage in every way as meaningful and enriching as God designed it to be.

In a current cultural environment where many marriages end sadly in divorce, many individuals are a part of a divorced family, and current attitudes build in a disrespect or distrust of the holiness and strength of marriage, we hope to build your relationship on biblical understanding and to make Jesus the very center of your relationship.
 

18 The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

 23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”  24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.                Genesis 2:18-24 (NIV)