This is how God does things...

Lauren and I are to be wed on Christmas Eve of this year.  This is much sooner than we had anticipated.  We spent much time thinking about this.  It was only through significant conversation, discussion and reflection that we were able to come upon this decision.

After I initially proposed both of us assumed that we would have a wedding sometime next summer in Pittsfield.  We talked about what this would look like quite a bit.  We always had money at the forefront of all of our discussions.  We knew that things would be tight.  We also knew that we could invite no fewer than 100 people.  Furthermore, Lauren had certains standards that we had to adhere to if we were to drag those invited people to lowly Pittsfield.

And so we discussed and we dreamed of our wedding day.  Sometimes we would make minor compromises about where the reception could be held or what level of catering we could have.  But, to be honest, we never fully explored what the day would look like.  More importantly, we never fully explored where the money would come from.  Even a modest wedding of this size would cost an easy $8,000.

I think both of us naively assumed that the money for the ceremony would fall from the sky.  Traditionally speaking, Lauren's parents were supposed to pay.  That didn't seem very likely.  They never really offered.  They did mention remortgaging their house house.  That just sounds terrible.

Eventually, Lauren and I were forced to sit down and look at the facts.  We wanted to get married by the end of next summer.  As I have already mentioned in another blog, we are both in agreement that the time for marriage is already upon us.  In order to make a summer wedding happen we needed to start booking halls and caterers immediately.  Yet we were stalling.  We were holding out for money to magically fall from the sky.

We ended up having a good talk about it one night a few weeks back.  It was not an easy dialogue to get through.  Lauren had some very hard set ideas of what she wanted.  I was stubborn and unappologetically refusing to look at anything other than the cold hard facts of our situation.  But we made it through it.  And we are the better for it today.

We came to the conclusion that the choice was solely in our hands.  We could pay for a wedding or we could choose not to have one.  We have been putting our all into saving over the past year.  We have managed to put away about $8,000.  This could quite easily pay for a wedding.

The saving of that money is so vital and integral to who we are and how we envision our relationship.  To spend it on a wedding ceremony and reception is to cut at the very core of who we are as a couple.  We saved that money while paying very high rents and working very low wage jobs.  We saved that money with the intent of having enough to put a down payment on a house today.  This goal, of buying a house, is absolutely the most importantly material goal that we have.  It towers above all the rest.

Lauren and I are not getting married simply because we love eachother.  We are not getting married because we get along well or we think it will be good fun.  We are not merely trying to avoid loneliness.  We have a shared vision of our future.  That vision, that future, involves a family.  We want to have children.  We have sat down and discussed this matter thoroughly and we have come to the conclusion that it is vitally important to our future family that we own a home.  We have avoided trappings in this matter.  We both agreed that if we are unable to purchase a home that should not stop us from having a family.  But we are firmly convinced and dedicated to making owning a home reality.

To pay for our own wedding would be to deplete all of the funds that we have saved up towards this endeavor in just one day.  We labored over this decision greatly.  We both take marriage and the ceremony there of very seriously.  We want to celebrate our love.  We want to celebrate the massive commitment that we are making to eachother with our friends and family.   We want to sing and dance and have a good time.  It just was not possible.

We are to be married on Christmas eve at Park Square in Pittsfield.  We are going out to get a suit and dress tomorrow.  We have already ordered wedding rings.  They will arrive shortly before we leave the area.  We are inviting our immediate family and maybe a friend or two.  We want it to be small, intimate and meaningful.

We also want to celebrate with all of those loved ones that will not be there on Christmas Eve.  We are in the midst of planning a less formal wedding like reception in the summer.   This will be thousands of dollars cheaper than a wedding ceremony and reception.  But we will still have the same opportunity to sit down and celebrate with our 100 or so friends and family.  We are looking at potential halls to rent out in Pittsfield for the event.  A relatives house is also an option.  Family members are willing and much more able to help out with this event.

This is a decision that we laboured over for many hours and truly came together on as partners; as a couple.  Both of us had our hopes and our concerns.  Ultimately, it was the shared vision of a family and future together and how we would like that to look that pulled us through this very hard decision and brought us closer together.

I know that I prayed over the decision.  I assume that Lauren did as well.  We very rarely talk about such things.  That works for us right now.

It is a funny thing, these blogs.  I thought out what I imagined as a beautiful piece of writing last night.  It was all about how no one had ever told me that Jesus was the son of God before.  Everyone that I had heard just went around ranting about how he loves you or that he said do this and don't do that.  I was never impressed.  Plently of people love me.  My mother loves me.  Plenty of people tell you what to do.  Some I respect.  Some I do not.

This is what I intended to write about.  Things do not always work out as you plan.