Is Celebrate Love the same as Marriage Encounter?
Marriage Encounter and CelebrateLove are near relatives, but not the same. The founder of World Wide Marriage Encounter, Fr Chuck Gallagher SJ, was also the initiator of the first prototype of CelebrateLove. Marriage Encounter has a long history of over 40 years — over a million of couples world-wide have attended. CelebrateLove has a shorter history (about 16 years) and was developed in Australia. Both programmes focus on enriching the couple’s marriage and are presented in the context of the Catholic faith by married couples. Both are well regarded and considered to be highly effective by the couples who attend them. The main characteristics of the programmes are: Marriage Encounter is residential, beginning Friday night through Sunday. The weekend offers a series of presentations which aim to improve communication and intimacy between married couples. It covers topics such as expressing feelings, effective listening, personality styles and behaviours and the effect of these on relat
