I took a look at your family reunion pictures and was so glad to see your grandparents on both sides. Please tell your grandma Ondina, she looks just as beautiful as the last time I saw her, love her hair.

When you read this please give my email address to your Mom and Dad, I would love to get in touch with them. You and your sister and our daughters, Melanie and Alisha played together when you were very little in Elizabeth, NJ.

Please give them our love and let them know we speak of them often.

Much happiness to you and your family.

Ann Gonzalez
749 Snead Circle
West Palm Beach, FL 33413
561-687-5449

I am having my wedding there because it was very special to me when I used to attend mass there as a person who lived in NJ near the church.

I was not allowed either to be consider a parishioner, even though I used to attend mass there, nor qualify for the 1300 discounted fee, as I had moved for just one year from the parish. Granted I was not registered and receiving envelopes.

I have been a dutiful Catholic my whole life. I was brought up to go to church weekly. Generally I have maintained that with some spurts of missing mass occassionally.

We have had nothing but negative aggrevation from this Church.

Since registering our wedding I became unemployed with a job lined up whose start date was pushed back 4 months. So instead of being unemployed for say 30 days, I will be unemployed for 4.5 months or 5m.

Not my choice. Obviously I had an emergency fund, but some of that was used up, and also to help wityh costs of the wedding.

You would think this church could have some charity to go around. NO. 2K for me. Even after attending mass there.

I used to say Novenas to the Blessed Mother. I would attend weekly mass there. That doesn’t count in this Church.

It only counts how much monty you can give them.

They figure if they can charge exorbitantly high rates to couples who want to be married in their church they can bank-roll the normal expenses of the church, because the general population of Newark probably can’t afford to.

I don’t understand even 1300 for a family who attends church there who are residents of Newark. Seems crazy

When I further inquired about my situation, a NEW rule was made clear to me, that you had to be a registered parishioner with 3 years of attendance.

I guess they figure over 3 years you would have given the other 700 dollars to make the balance of the 1300- to 2K difference in costs for parishioners and non-parishioners.

We too had to find out own priest and pay for that, bc for $2000 they do not provide a priest if you want a mass.

They act like they are doing you a favor for $2000, and fail to relaize how much that is and how it’s hard to come up with that money in a short time.

I have never felt so poorly treated in my life, when i explained that i used to attend madd there but for me it would be an extra 700 dollars. Or when I heard the prices in general.

What about the many people who never go to church who then decide they want to get married in the Cathedral, or that church or any church and they welcome them with open arms, only to become Cafeteria Catholics, who go to church when they pick and choose.

We and my family are not very happy with this institution. It’s not that I don’t have faith or like the Catholic Church, but this is GREEDY, and seems very uncharitable.

It has caused a great deal of anger, and negative emotions for myself, my fiancee, and family.

I understand they are just trying to do their jobs and are volunteers, but it just seems they don’t see this price as supremely prohibitive or unfair.

They treat it like it’s pocket change for them.

Another annoyed but faithful catholic

The air is quite nasty. My first day it was pretty clear and I kept thinking that it was all hype, then the smog rolled in for the rest of the week!

And with that, I’m off to the HK airport!