The majority of the Polish are Roman Catholic. If at least one of you is Roman Catholic, you can get married in most of the many Polish churches. If you live abroad, most of the paperwork will be taken care of in your country of residence. Your local priest shall issue a license, confirming your marriage preparation, and send it to the Krakow bishop’s office. Due to the fact, that Poland signed the Concordat with the Vatican, a Catholic wedding without civil consequences is not possible. I.e. you need to sort out the civil paperwork beforehand too or present a civil marriage certificate (two separate weddings).

Krakow has dozens of beautiful churches to offer, they are available for weddings on any day of the week and it’s fairly easy to have a bilingual ceremony with some parts conducted in Polish and some in a different language. For that, we will recommend you a priest with knowledge of the foreign language, interpreters aren’t used in churches.

Outdoor ceremonies are currently strictly prohibited by the archbishop of Krakow. If you’re looking for an open-air wedding, it could either be a symbolic one or a civil one.

When preparing for a Catholic wedding, local requirements at your place of residence should be followed. It’s only possible to have a wedding in a church if at least one of you is Catholic and so member of a parish at where you live. See your local priest for information on applying for a license, confirming that you’re prepared for a Catholic marriage. Usually this involves presenting a certificate of baptism and confirmation, sometimes taking a pre-marital course.

A wedding in the Catholic church comes with many strings attached. Restrictions to permitted clothing, music and order of service apply, if a particular piece of music or sprinkling petals along the main aisle are crucially important to you, make sure you will be able to have those in the church.

If one of you is an atheist or non-Catholic Christian, a mixed wedding in a Catholic church in Krakow is possible, although restrictions to the content of the ceremony may apply (e.g. no Communion).

In case of religions more distant in beliefs (Muslims, Buddhists etc.), individual circumstances need to be explored, it may be worth to hire a wedding planner to help you with those. If permission for a wedding with a Catholic is granted, the non-Catholic part will be required to declare in writing that he/she approves their Catholic spouse to bring up their children in Catholic faith.

Catholicism is by far the most dominant religion in Poland. In Krakow you will also find an Orthodox community, a few Protestant denominations (mostly Evangelicals, Adventists and Baptists), the Jehova’s witnesses. The orthodox Jewish community, despite its’ strong historical presence, doesn’t involve in weddings and doesn’t allow intermarriage.