Wedding Photographers & Videographers at Saint Thomas More University Parish, Indiana

A wedding at Saint Thomas More University Parish in Indiana feels close to home for many couples who met at IUP. The church on Oakland Avenue is a Vatican II style building, with a narthex where guests gather before the processional, and your photographer and videographer can capture the moment the doors open and you start down the aisle. It is a fitting place for wedding photos that bring back your college years.

Your wedding ceremony can be a full Mass or a ceremony without Communion, chosen with the priest or deacon who prepares you. Mass is normally not celebrated when one of you is not Catholic. You'll pick two or three Scripture readings, and the parish provides an accompanist and cantor, so the music is live. That matters for your videographer, who will want clean sound of the hymns and the vows.

The parish is open to registered parish members and to Catholic students enrolled at IUP. IUP alumni speak with their own pastor and the parish pastor first. Weddings usually take place on Saturdays between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m., and never on Sundays or holy days, though a weekday wedding day is possible. A rehearsal is held the evening before. The parish asks you to skip rice, petals, confetti and aisle runners, and it does not use artificial flowers or a unity candle. Contact the music director at least six weeks ahead, and expect the parish to prefer hymns over popular love songs.

• Contact the parish a year before your hoped-for date, and book the church before the reception hall.
• Turn in your selections form a month before the rehearsal.
• Ask about photo and video guidelines when you meet with the parish.

A little about Saint Thomas More University Parish

Catholic students at the school organized a club in 1927, and a former pasta factory served as their chapel from 1958. The present church held its first Mass on February 4, 1968, and later became a university parish of the Diocese of Greensburg.