The wedding preparations have kicked into high gear these last two weeks. We’re working through something like 4 or 5 different books, finalizing fun things for the actual day itself, and meeting with people all over the midwest to hear about preparing for marriage! Whew!

Two months from today, I will finally be getting married, and I am greatly looking forward to it!!! However, that means that one month from today, all kinds of things are supposed to be done: meeting with DJ’s, invitations RSVP-ed (maybe we should be getting these sent out), dress/tux fittings (oh yeah, Russ, we still need your measurements!), not to mention bridal showers (two!) and a bachelorette party. (Hey, where’s mine?). We do have the invitations stuffed and (mostly) printed/labeled, so those should be going out this week. We also purchased wedding bands this weekend, so I’ve been fiddling with mine. …pricey little hunk of gold, but very precious. (My prrrrrecious……)

I don’t suppose I’ve been writing about this, but we’re in a 6-week engagement equipping class at Cornerstone church. This has probably been the most informative preparation we’ve done! When we missed one time, we scheduled a make-up (actually just this morning) because we didn’t want to miss out on what Pastor Troy had to say. We’ve also been working through Dennis Rainey’s

Preparing for Marriage

workbook on our own. This has probably been the most challenging as it often asks for responses that require time and thought (sometimes prayer even). But it’s making a nice complement to the Cornerstone Classes.

Two weeks ago, we did the Catholic Pre-Cana weekend, a series of 7 talks aimed at preparing us for marriage. I guess this is a substitute for one-on-one pre-marital counseling with a priest. We did get a lot of useful information, but we also heard one or two things that made us uncomfortable…. like “The primary goal of marriage is to get your spouse to heaven.” We understood it as “earning salvation for your spouse” which seems incredibly wrong. I guess this is not quite the meaning of it, but it still made us squirm. We did spend a couple hours with Father Burkle (the one in Epworth who will be marrying us) doing a “Focus” survey, a 150-ish questionaire on a big variety of topics. We answered them one day, and then came back the next day to “discuss” any undecided answers we marked or anything we marked that was in contradiction to what the Church was expecting as an apropriate answer. Only a couple of questions made us nervous, Amanda moreso. But I was really proud of the way she handled them. We made it through the weekend, and I think he’s still going to marry us…. I hope!