No. The Church doesn’t celebrate weddings during Great Lent or any of the major fasting seasons.
This isn’t arbitrary. It’s about the character of the season itself. Great Lent is a time of repentance, fasting, and spiritual preparation for Pascha. The services are penitential. We’re prostrating ourselves, asking for mercy, focusing on our sins and our need for God’s healing. The whole liturgical rhythm shifts toward mourning and introspection.
A wedding is the opposite. It’s joyful, celebratory, festive. The Mystery of Holy Matrimony is one of the Church’s great blessings, a time when we crown the couple as king and queen, dance at the reception, toast their future. You can’t do both at once. You can’t ask people to fast strictly and weep over their sins on Wednesday, then show up Saturday for champagne and cake. The Church protects the integrity of both the fast and the feast by keeping them separate.
When Else Can’t You Get Married?
Great Lent isn’t the only restricted period. Weddings also aren’t permitted during:
- The Nativity Fast (the forty days before Christmas)
- The Apostles’ Fast (starts the Monday after All Saints Sunday, ends June 28)
- The Dormition Fast (August 1-14)
- Bright Week (the week immediately after Pascha)
- The twelve days between Christmas and Theophany
Some parishes also restrict weddings on Wednesdays and Fridays year-round, since those are traditional fast days. And most won’t do weddings late Saturday afternoon because that’s when Vespers starts, beginning the liturgical Sunday.
This applies across all Orthodox jurisdictions. Whether you’re Antiochian, Greek, OCA, or Antiochian (like St. Michael here in Beaumont), the rules are basically the same. It’s not a local custom. It’s how the Church everywhere orders her life.
What This Means Practically
If you’re planning an Orthodox wedding, you need to work with the Church calendar, not against it. That spring wedding you’re dreaming about? Great Lent moves around based on Pascha’s date, which changes every year. In 2025, Great Lent runs from March 3 through April 19. In 2026, it’s February 16 through April 4. You can’t just pick a Saturday in March and assume it’ll work.
Talk to your priest early. Like, six months early if you can. He’ll help you find a date that works liturgically and practically. Most priests prefer Sunday afternoons after Divine Liturgy, when the whole parish can celebrate with you. Some allow Saturday mornings or early afternoons, finishing by 3 or 4 PM so Vespers can happen on time.
And here’s something folks moving to Beaumont from Baptist or non-denominational backgrounds often don’t expect: you can’t just show up and get married. There’s pre-marital counseling. There are requirements about who can stand up with you (they need to be Orthodox Christians in good standing). If either of you has been married before, that’s a whole separate conversation involving the bishop.
Why It Matters
I know this can feel restrictive, especially if your work schedule at the refinery only gives you certain weeks off, or if you’re trying to coordinate with family flying in from out of state. But the Church isn’t trying to make your life difficult. She’s trying to form you.
When you agree to plan your wedding around the fasting seasons, you’re learning something crucial: your life now moves according to the Church’s rhythm, not just your own preferences. That’s what it means to be part of the Body of Christ. We fast together, we feast together, we marry and baptize and bury within the calendar the Church has kept for centuries.
It’s actually a gift. You’re joining something bigger and older than yourself, something that connects you to Christians in Antioch and Constantinople and Moscow and every Orthodox parish between here and there. Your wedding day matters, absolutely. But it matters even more that it happens at the right time, in the right season, when the Church can celebrate with you fully and without compromise.
So no, you can’t get married during Lent. But talk to Fr. Michael, look at the calendar together, and find the right time. It’ll be worth the wait.
