Wedding Photographers & Videographers at St. Rita Church (Connellsville), Connellsville

A wedding at St. Rita Church on Connellsville's West Side comes with an Italian flavor. The church is decorated with stained glass windows and frescoes in the Italian tradition, refurbished in more recent years, and next to it are the Italian gardens and grotto that parishioners built by hand. That mix of painted walls, colored glass and a garden outside gives your photographer and videographer more variety than most parish churches, both for the walk down the aisle and for wedding photos afterward, if the parish allows pictures in the garden.

Your wedding ceremony here is a Catholic liturgy, and St. Rita has a pipe organ installed in the 1970s that is still used for every celebration, so your processional will have a real organ behind it on your wedding video. The sanctuary has a marble altar, and an accessible ramp leads into the church for guests who need it. The parish's social hall, renovated in the 1980s, sits on the property; ask whether it can be booked, since its use isn't described online.

St. Rita is one of the four churches of the Yough Catholic Community, and the parish office for all of them is in the former St. Rita rectory on South Second Street. The parishes refer couples to partner parish marriage guidelines that aren't posted online, so call the office about dates, marriage preparation through the Diocese of Greensburg, and whether couples who aren't parishioners may get married here. Ask too about photo and video guidelines and the garden before your wedding day.

• Call the parish office to check your date and the steps for getting married at St. Rita.
• Ask whether you may take wedding pictures in the Italian gardens and at the grotto.
• Have your photographer and videographer look at the frescoes and windows in the light of your ceremony time.

A little about St. Rita Church

The parish was founded in 1914 for the Italian immigrants of Connellsville, and the first Mass in the new church was held on Christmas morning in 1915. The windows and frescoes were in place by 1922, and the gardens and grotto, built by parishioners out of work during the Great Depression, were dedicated in 1933.