Wedding Photographers & Videographers at St. Joan of Arc Church, Farmington

A wedding at St. Joan of Arc Church puts you up in the mountains of Fayette County, on the National Pike in Farmington, not far from Fort Necessity and the Laurel Highlands resorts. The parish calls this its mountain home, and the setting is a gift for wedding photos and video: green ridges in summer, bright leaves in fall, and a church that feels a world away from the city. On the grounds is the shrine of Our Lady of the Mountains, an open-air place of prayer that draws pilgrims; ask the parish whether you may take a quiet picture there.

Your wedding ceremony here is a Catholic liturgy, with or without Mass, planned with the booklet the Southern Fayette parishes give couples. Photographers and videographers check in with the priest before the wedding, stay in place once the liturgy begins, and can't attach cameras or microphones to the church's furnishings, so your videographer should plan camera spots at the rehearsal. You have thirty minutes after the ceremony for photographs or a receiving line.

St. Joan of Arc follows the marriage guidelines shared by the Southern Fayette parishes. Members and former members get married at their home parish, and couples who are not parishioners need permission from their own pastor; call the parish office in Farmington first. One wedding is scheduled on a Saturday, at 1:00 p.m., and none on Sundays. Marriage preparation through the Diocese of Greensburg is required, and the paperwork falls between four months and one month before your wedding day.

• Call the parish office for a Marriage Inquiry Form and reserve your date before booking anything else.
• If you aren't a parishioner, talk first with your own pastor; the parish office can explain the permission needed.
• Your photographer and videographer must contact the parish office a month before the wedding to go over the guidelines.

A little about St. Joan of Arc Church

Catholic families in these mountains first gathered for Mass in homes and then in a small chapel at Elliottsville, where the parish cemetery still stands. A building near Fort Necessity became St. Joan of Arc Church in 1962, the present church was completed in 1981, and it became a parish in 1993.