Building a Foundation of Faith Through Online Wedding Album

Story by Karen A. Avitabile

Since June, Our Lady Queen of the Apostles Parish in Derby has been building a foundation of faith through wedding and anniversary photos posted on its website.

The photos, of parishioners and their families, represent a sampling of couples married in the parish church of St. Mary the Immaculate Conception. The photos also represent memories for couples married in St. Jude Church which has been merged into Our Lady Queen of the Apostles Parish. 

The goal of the wedding album is twofold: to preserve the parish history and to emphasize the importance of the sacrament of marriage in the Catholic Church, a covenant of the union of husband and wife symbolizing the love for one another and God’s faithful love for his people.

Father Carlos Castrillon, former pastor of Our Lady Queen of the Apostles Parish, overwhelmingly supported the wedding album on the website because “we need to hear more testimonies of the covenant of love.”

“Marriage is a sacrament of two people who come together in love,” he says. “Marriage within a Church creates disciples for the life of the Church that will be carried on.”

The idea of the wedding album was the brainchild of Anne-Marie Bégin, office assistant for Our Lady Queen of the Apostles Parish. While the website was undergoing a transformation last fall, she suggested creating a page to display a wedding album.

Her request was fulfilled. Through the bulletin, she put out a call for wedding photo submissions: “We’d love to see photos of you or your ancestors making memories, creating families and building a foundation of faith at our parish.” 

This collection of memories immediately started coming in and has been exponentially growing as locals and former parishioners who have moved out of the area learn more about it.

Some of the older photos in the wedding album had been digitized and were emailed to Bégin; others were dropped off in the parish office, scanned and then placed on the website. 

Currently, 28 photos represent seven decades of marriages performed in the two churches. The oldest photo in the album is of Carmine (Carmen) and Sebastiana (Anna Storiale) Moccia who were married on Nov. 24, 1921. The newest photo is from the wedding of Damon and Stephanie (Horbal) Ott on June 30, 2007. 

Bégin says she has a goal: to have every decade of both churches represented through the wedding album. In the future, she adds, the site could be expanded to include photo albums documenting parishioners who made other sacraments in the two churches. 

“I like photographs,” Bégin says. “I hope they bring people together and they get excited about it. Our parishioners have an affinity for the Church and the town, and they love to talk about them.”

To view the marriage photos posted on Our Lady Queen of the Apostles Parish website, visit olqaderby.org, click the “parish life” header on the top toolbar, open the “photos” link from the drop-down list and click on “wedding album.” New photos can be emailed to office@olqaderby.org or dropped off at the parish office, 212 Elizabeth St. in Derby.