We're Totally In

Part of the process of getting married in the Catholic Church is doing a marriage prep classes. Now, I know Tony is not a huge fan, and thinks it's kind of odd - even his mom joked with him about it - but I think it will be good for us. Oh, and its required.

So after registering to register with the church, calling to see how we meet with Deacon Charlie, scheduling a meeting, then re-scheduling our meeting, we are totally in. Even though we were asked to go home and think about if we really wanted to go forth - uh, deposits are down sir, we will do this kicking and screaming if we have to!

During our meeting with the Deacon - who is way different from a priest for my non-Catholic friends, I'll explain when I have more info on him - he asked us the "trick question" as Tony likes to say: "Why do you guys want to get married?"

Drrrr.... because he put a ring on my finger, I enjoy his company, he knows that I will try and cook, because my dad is tired of giving me money and would like to cute me off, or because we get a tax break? No? Not the answers you are looking for?

Oh right, because we love each other, we found our best friend, and we are committed to living together until death. No? Still not correct?

Oh yes, because God brought us together. We'll get that one down eventually. Tony claims he was going to say it - I wish he would have, we probably would have been Deacon Charlie's favorite couple.

Throughout the meeting, we talked about the things we need to do and how he usually likes for couples to not have a date yet - excuse me?- yes, he would like for them to go through this process for at least a year, if not a year and a half. Well, as of yesterday, we had 194 days.

Yikes, that number just made me pee a little.

And after the list of what we have to do, I could kind of see it, but really, I'm not the type of girl to give it time, and think. I mean, I bought a car in a day one time, chose my wedding dress in less than an hour and well, I'm just an instant gratification type of girl. Ok, I don't know if that is really the best thing to explain, but whatever, you know what I'm getting at. So here is what we have to do for St. Elizabeth's:
1. Meet with Deacon Charlie
2. Meet with Deacon Charlie again to go over paperwork when we know we want to do this
3. Call the church coordinator to make sure we have the date (just another odd thing, but I hope we have the date, if not, this might get interesting)
4. Take the Prepare survey test - 120 questions, kind of reminds me of Iowa Basics
5. Meet with Rebecca, the therapist, to go over our test questions - yep, a therapist
6. Go to Engaged Encounters retreat - a whole weekend - to discuss stuff
7. Meet with Deacon Charlie again, not really sure why, but we'll go with it
8. Take a one day seminar that talks about financials - I'm a spender, Tony makes fun of me, and hopefully we won't go broke. Look 2 minutes, I got that down, not sure what I'll do for a whole day.
9. Meet with the Priest of whomever is going to marry us
10. Meet with the musicians, Mary the coordinator and another meeting with the priest

Wow.

So after we left our meeting on Monday - I called Deacon Charlie last night that we were going to go through with all of this and we are excited! Now I have to call him back and schedule another meeting, which he again reiterated that apparently we don't have enough time, but would like to be done by September with all of this. Well, I'm pretty glad that I'm done with almost all the other wedding planning - apparently we'll be busy with the church for the summer.

But to make me life a little easier, I only have the cake to pick out and then the entire wedding plans - I think - will be done!

I'll have to share a little blog later about my mom and our invitation viewing. Oh Kathy.