Jenny & Mark

We are having our wedding ceremony at the Ukrainian Catholic National Shrine of the Holy Family, in Washington D.C. (Map)

This begs several questions:

1. Who is Ukrainian? Actually, we both have Ukrainian roots, though Mark has a first-generation connection to Ukraine through his mother who was born there. Jenny's family on her mother's side also originally came from Ukraine. For the uninitiated, Ukrainians are not Russians. This is a bit of a sore point, given the history of the 20th century when Ukraine was ruled by Russian communists. In fact, Ukraine is its own country with 50 million people, and has its own language, culture, religions … and nuclear weapons. All good reasons not to get the two confused. (Ukraine also has a team in the World Cup.)
2. Who is Catholic? This one's all Mark. But here again is a sticking point: Ukrainian Catholics differ from your garden-variety Roman Catholics on a variety of theological, liturgical and cultural matters. (Notably, they cross themselves "backwards," i.e. right to left.) The church hierarchies are also independent, though they follow the Pope and have representatives in Rome. The Ukrainian church is part of the Byzantine Rite (aka the Eastern or Greek Rite), and for centuries has looked to Constantinople as its spiritual home.
3. Will the ceremony be different? We have chosen a modern Ukrainian wedding ceremony that includes a number of unique customs and traditions. Some of these we'll explain in an upcoming post; others we will save as surprises.

A bit of Uke wedding trivia: The 1978 Oscar-winning Vietnam film The Deer Hunter features a Ukrainian wedding scene (with a youngish, but still spooky, Christopher Walken.)