We found St. Francis Xavier (aka Saint Louis University College Church) several years ago. We had started thinking about what we wanted for our wedding, and we realized that we had no place that worked for both of us. I was not one of those girls who grows up fantasizing about her wedding, but that said, I never had any intention of getting married in the small Illinois church I grew up in, for several reasons. First, my family is huge, so we never had any hope of a small wedding. We could not have fit half of half of our guest list in that church. Second, if I had developed any preference for a wedding site, I would get married either outside (preferably in the mountains) or in a huge cathedral (because of the rich culture conveyed in the architecture). Catholics must be married in a Catholic church to have a valid sacramental marriage. Getting married Catholic was important to me, so the outdoor plan was out. I would have considered getting married at the church I attended in college, but Lance didn't want to ask friends and family to travel that far.
As a compromise, we began looking at churches in Saint Louis. We figured that would be more considerate to our friends who will be flying in for the wedding, and it's also not too far away from our family and friends across the river.
When we first started looking at churches in the Saint Louis area, we quickly became concerned that we would not be able to make this compromise work. The first church we visited was monstrous. It sat 2,000 people (that's a BIG church!) and the walls were covered in Byzantine-style gold paint and giant mosaics. Lance is not a big fan of gold, and the size of the church was just overwhelming. We moved on. The next church we looked at was on the murder side of Cole Street. The walls of that church were covered in naked angel butts and skulls with butterflies on their heads, an archaic Catholic symbol for resurrection. After mass, someone invited everyone to come up and touch a sacred chalice that was part of a miracle (that is not normal goings-on in any other church we've ever been to!). We booked it out of there and back to the other side of stabbey road. Finally, we went to mass at St. Francis Xavier. The stained glass in the church was (and is!) the most beautiful I've ever seen, and we both loved the stunning high altar in a much more understated concrete gray palette. The Gothic architecture is reminiscent of castles and buildings at Cornell (my other true love). After mass that day, we walked across the street to look at the fountain (where Lance later proposed :D ), and we both knew that this was our church!
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