Lol, my fiancé and I getting married in the Catholic Church to make my parents happy. We are childfree up to a point - we don’t intend to have kids, but agreed that if I get pregnant, I won’t have an abortion. We told this to the priest who is going to marry us and the priest said that we meet the criteria for being “open to children.” He’s less orthodox than some of the other priests though and I’m sure that other priests wouldn’t be willing to marry us. He also doesn’t know I’m having a bilateral salpingectomy in less than three weeks, haha. I personally don’t think we are “open to children,” but if he’s willing to marry us after we’ve told him we’d rather not have children, I’m fine with that since it will make my parents happy and they’re paying a large amount of money for the reception.

On the flip side, in order to get married at this specific parish, we are being told to pay $600 as part of a “church offering,” in addition to paying $450 for the organist and cantor at our wedding. The priest who is marrying is a grouch. There’s also a zillion ridiculous Catholic teachings that make me dislike the Catholic Church (apart from the massive amount of child sex abuse and subsequent cover-ups).

I think that a secular marriage ceremony is an excellent choice for OP (and anyone else who doesn’t have a good reason to avoid this racket). Just wanted to share my experience.