To make nuptial Mass booklets beautiful and rich in meaning.
My love for the sacred liturgy inspired me to design this marriage service and nuptial Mass booklet in the way you see it. When planning my wedding, I searched for a nuptial Mass booklet that reflected the beauty of the sacred liturgy, but found nothing that matched my needs. I wanted to include the chant scores for all the Mass Propers and Ordinaries to encourage active, participatory, congregational singing, as well as the wedding program, to make it an all-in-one document. I didn’t want to have a separate pamphlet for the Mass and another for the program.
I also wanted to incorporate some old Catholic nuptial traditions that may seem outdated today, such as beginning the wedding service with the Veni Creator (Invocation to the Holy Spirit) and ending with the Te Deum (Hymn of Thanksgiving). Not only did I want to add them to my own wedding, but I also wanted to allow others to experience the beauty of these lost traditions and be inspired to do the same.
I believe the Mass can be one of the most effective ways to evangelize non-Catholics at weddings. So I created one from scratch, pouring my love for the liturgy into every detail. I realized it’s not enough to present the contents of the Mass in a booklet without explaining the reasons behind what we do as Catholics. That’s why I included rubrical commentaries wherever they’re needed or required.
Our guests were moved and gave encouraging comments, and soon friends planning their own weddings asked to use our booklet. This was the testimony that led us to make our wedding booklet available for others to use:
“One of the men singing in the Schola is getting married in three weeks and was very impressed with your wedding program. Do you have a Word document or something he might be able to get from you?”
Their enthusiasm inspired us: we could share these designs with other young couples seeking beauty for their special day. However, I wanted the process to be much simpler. So, instead of just making a template and having people go to a third-party workspace to make edits, I designed a form-based editor where users can input their details — as they would while filling out a form — and have the booklet ready for download.
That’s how NuptialMassBooklet.com came to be: a fully Catholic wedding Mass booklet hub for all liturgical forms in the Roman Rite. My goal is to make nuptial Mass booklets beautiful and reflective of the intrinsic, rich liturgical meanings they convey. I hope that our work will add the intended beauty to your wedding.
— Pantaleon
Designer, NuptialMassBooklet.com