Missed Payment

I knew it would happen. I just knew that something would fall through the cracks. I was on the phone with my mom last night (in response to one of the many text messages that I had been sent), when she decided to go through the list of upcoming payments that would be due. I told her that the only ones left were the caterer, reception site, and the cake baker, unless we wanted to increase the time we had set aside for the DJ, in which case we would need to add an hour of fees to his time.

"What about the church people? When do I have to pay S for the cantors and musicians."

"That was due July 12th. We needed to pay them $400."

"I don't have any record of that, but I'll check the internet to see if I made a payment. . . No, I paid the church $400 in March, but that was it."

So, even though I had called her after the Google Calendar (that she has access to) sent both of us an email reminder the week before the payment was due. She claimed she had "no record" of me telling her about this - which makes sense, since she deletes all of her emails as they come in.

Luckily, she emailed the music lady, who was very nice about the whole thing, and is taking the check over today.

What I Hate About My Wedding

OK - let me lie down on the couch, doctor. There is one thing about my wedding that I can't stand, and it is really starting to bother me. Really. What am I talking about, you ask? The fact that my mother won't stop worrying about whether or not we need to provide the hairdresser with bobby pins? While that is a rather pressing issue, I am not referring to hairdresser woes.
I am referring to "the gap." Not the store, though I have been disappointed with them for a while, but the fact that there is a gap between the ceremony and the reception.

I don't know what to do - I know that many people have posted their dissatisfaction on Knot message boards, but it just can't be helped. Even though my fiance and I talked to our deacon about the date 14 months before the wedding the time we wanted (4:30) wasn't available. We had our choice between 2:00 and 7:00. I blame the Catholicism. If there weren't so many of us getting married at churches, there wouldn't be this cafeteria-style ceremony line up at the church. Yargh.

We realized that a reception starting at 8:00 pm wouldn't be super friendly to our older guests, so we decided to have the wedding at 2:00 pm. We also realized that a reception that started at 3:00 or 3:30 would not be any fun - who wants to dance and drink (or for that matter, eat dinner) and leave in the daylight? So, we have "a gap," from whenever the 2:00 ceremony ends (it's a Catholic non-mass, so it's vague - somewhere between 40 minutes to an hour) until the 6:00 reception.

My sister also had a gap at her wedding. My parents reserved a meeting room at the hotel and had sodas, beers, and snacks there after the ceremony and until the reception. I don't know if that's in the plans for this wedding, but it's very distressing. Everyone keeps asking me what they're supposed to do between the wedding and the reception. I need to think up a good answer. Maybe there's a 3:30 movie across the street from the hotel. A quirky comedy would be perfect, people would be out by 5:15.

Music Lady Meeting

Today I had a meeting with the music woman at the church. Originally, I was going to go to the meeting by myself, but since my mom and I were going to go to the reception site afterwards, she decided to come with me, but not to worry, she didn't have an opinion. I felt bad that I had scheduled the meeting with her, because she looked really tired. She explained that she had been working all week to get ready for Easter Week next week.

The first thing she asked was if I had any ideas for the music. I didn't know I was going to have to do any real preparation for the meeting. I had even asked her if we (my fiance and I) needed to do anything to prepare for the meeting, but she told us that we just needed to bring our selections for the readings. I hadn't thought about anything because I thought that I would be given Option A or Option B, or maybe Option C. Luckily she did have some ideas, and ran through some options with us. All in all, it only took 45 minutes.

For a while, we apparently didn't have any "meat" in the musical composition of the ceremony. We had worked through the psalm we had picked, then the processional and recessional. I picked out all instrumental pieces, so the music lady was somewhat disappointed that I didn't have anything else for the cantor to sing. Then when we picked out the song for the mothers to walk in on, we told her that we probably didn't want to have words, because there are several emotional people in the wedding party that might break down in tears if they heard a moving song while they were walking down the aisle.

Luckily, she recommended that we have the cantors sing during the prelude, and picked a song that would be good as a duet. My mom loved the idea, thank goodness she was there. She also really wanted the the cantors to sing because she thinks that everyone will be talking really loudly before the ceremony starts, which she realllllly hates.

More on FOCCUS

I've noticed that a lot of people have been looking at my post on the FOCCUS test, which is the test the Catholic Church (and others) requires couples to take as part of the marriage preparation course. Here's a link to the other post: Http://catholicweddinggirl.blogspot.com/2007/10/getting-to-catholic-part-foccus.html

All in all, the test is nothing to worry about. The test is certainly not anything that you should feel the need to "cheat" on. First of all, I don't know of any religions that are going to "fail" you and tell you that you can't get married. I think (based on how our marriage preparation went) that the test is to make sure that the couple isn't "glossing over" any issues. If you're ignoring anything that could become a "big issue," the marriage preparation sessions are a great place to talk about them, because the priest, deacon, or whoever gets to act as a mediator for the session.

Inflexible Church Lady?

I did get a response from the church lady who is in charge of the ceremony music. Unfortunately, it does not look good. I’ve been delaying my response.

She wrote to me to say that I didn’t need to contact her until January to schedule a meeting in mid-February. She also gave her appointment schedule, which is two days in the middle of the week from 3-5 in the afternoon. This really doesn’t work for us, since we live in Austin, the church is in Houston, and my fiancé can’t take off multiple days in a row from work, and both of us would strangle each other if we had to drive to Houston and back in one day. I’m not trying to be self-centered; I really understand that those times usually work for people.

The other part of her email which worries me is that the meeting lasts for 45 minutes to an hour. We sit with her and listen to the different music selections. My fiancé and I really do not have the longest attention spans, and I think it would just be painful. I think my plan is to email the church lady to see if she could send us a list of the selections, and we could listen to them on iTunes or something, and then get back to her with our choices.

I mean, that would be simpler. Something tells me that my plan might not fly….

Church Lady Woes

Since we are having a Catholic wedding, I have expected to have the occasional "run in" with the stereotypical "church lady." Now that we've selected the readings and vows, it's time to coordinate with the music minister to arrange for the church accompanist. Last week, I dutifully emailed the contact person, but I got an out-of-office message dated the day before.

That's no big deal, I mean, occasionally I would extend my out-of-office at work while I was still catching up the day I got back, just to let people know that I might be slow responding. It's been over a week, and she still hasn't responded. Hmmm.

I asked my mom if she was still out of town (she knows some other people at church), but she said that the music lady was in, but to be careful when I emailed her again, because she was "very sensitive" about that sort of thing. I'll wait patiently for a response, but if I don't get one, it sounds like I'll need to gather the gold, frankincense, and myrrh offerings...

The Shortest Pre-Marriage Counseling Session Ever

We recently went back to visit with our deacon at the church (other posts at http://catholicweddinggirl.blogspot.com/search/label/Marriage%20Counseling). My fiancé and I were excited; the last time we went to visit the deacon, he told us that we would only need to meet one more time until the week before the wedding. Here is the timeline of events for the meeting:

10:00 We arrive at the church office reception area.
10:04 Our deacon escorts us back to his office.
10:05 We discuss the humorous anecdotes from the rehearsal the evening before for the wedding of a local “celebrity” who happened to be marrying my arch-nemesis from elementary school (I know it sounds a little hard core, but we really didn’t get along).
10:08 The deacon officially starts the meeting, the focus of which will be how God will be a part of our marriage.
10:18 We find out that we only need two more meetings – one in a month or so to go over our vows and the meaning of the vows, with the final meeting taking place two months before the wedding to go over logistics.
10:19 We’re back out in the parking lot letting my parents know that we can push up our plans for the rest of the day because we’re done with counseling.

Pre-Marriage Counseling, Take 4

We went back to Houston this past weekend, and while we were there we met with the deacon for our next counseling meeting. To our surprise, he had changed his tune with regards to the extent of our pre-marriage counseling. We did a short exercise at the beginning of the meeting in which I had to close my eyes, and then describe what my fiancé was wearing. I got into trouble right out of the gate, because I described my fiancé as “he” and not by his first name. Apparently the use of pronouns is a sign that you are taking your future spouse for granted.

He then went over the results of our visit with the actual marriage counselor. “I can see why you didn’t enjoy your session,” he said. The deacon then went on to say that he had “had a talk” with the marriage counselor and how her interpretation of the FOCCUS results differed from his interpretation. Aha! We are vindicated! We’re not the most doomed couple in the history of Catholicism and I am not the worst bride in said history! The deacon didn’t merely disagree with her assessment; he went to bat for us!

This was possibly the best counseling session in the history of counseling, because the deacon then went on to tell us that we probably only needed to meet one or two more times, until right before the wedding. He did not even mention the need for us to go on a retreat. We spent the rest of the meeting discussing how we would raise our children in a dual-religion marriage. At the end of the meeting he went even further in his praise and told us that we were in the top 5 couples that he had ever counseled. This information was even better because my sister and brother-in-law had been giving us a hard time over the last time we had been in, when the deacon had given us the impression that we would have a long counseling process (see http://catholicweddinggirl.blogspot.com/search/label/Marriage%20Counseling). I went home to tell my sister that our deacon thought that we were an even better couple than she and her husband. All-in-all it was a very satisfying pre-marriage counseling session.

Finding the One (Dress)

Even though I know it's a little early to start looking for a dress, I'm terrified that I won't be able to find "the one," and I didn't want to get so wrapped up in school that I shouldn't go dress shopping because I had too much else to do.

We went to Houston, where the wedding will be held and where my parents live, and I invited one of my sisters (the one in town, I didn't exclude the other one) and my mom to come shopping with me. I decided to try looking at this one dress shop near my parent's house, which is not the nicest dress shop, but does carry TONS of different styles. One of my good friends found her wedding dress there, and I absolutely loved it.

I went in hoping to try on several Watters dresses that I had seen online, and the shop was an authorized Watters store, but only had one or two dresses that I wanted to try on. Apparently, you only have to carry a few styles to be an authorized dealer, so it's good to call first. Anyway, this is the sort of shop where you can go through the racks yourself, look at the dresses in their plastic bags, and pull them into your dressing room yourself. So we did.

I filled my mom and sister in on what I thought I wanted, something on the simpler side, with textured fabric, maybe taffeta, dupioni silk, and ruching, or folding of the fabric across the bodice, sleeveless or strapless, but no halters. My sister was a champ, she found some really great dresses for me to try on, while my mom found a lot that she liked but were nothing like I had described. I found two that I liked; one we called the "southern belle" dress, which had thin strips of horizontal fabric layers all the way down the dress, and the other had a bodice with some fabric layering and light beading, but it still wasn't "the one." I ducked outside the dressing room and found a dress in the right size, which was taffeta with thin straps and a sweetheart neckline out of ruched fabric and beading that was concentrated on the bodice, but sprayed onto the top of the skirt. We called that dress the "boob-tacular dress."

All of the dresses were nice, the boob-tacular one was the best, but I really couldn't picture wearing it in church. I'd have to find it in another search. I'm glad I started early, it's not as easy as I thought it would be.

Pre-Marriage Counseling, Part 3

Well, I've relayed the trials and tribulations of the process so far (http://catholicweddinggirl.blogspot.com/2007/10/and-so-begins-saga-of-pre-marriage.html and http://catholicweddinggirl.blogspot.com/2007/10/pre-marriage-counseling-part-2.html ), but I have yet to talk about the first meeting with the deacon who will be performing our ceremony.

Normally, the parish requires the couple to wait two weeks after meeting with the counselor to meet with the deacon, which we found out, was so that the counselor could compose her letter of recommendation to the deacon. We (and by we, I mean I, because I'm the Catholic person in the relationship) convinced the marriage coordinator at the parish that we could overlook the two-week waiting period, since we were coming to Houston from Austin. It's not that we were incredibly eager to start our counseling, but you can't set the date at the church until you've met with the deacon. I thought my fiance was being paranoid (we were 14 months away from our date), but we (I) set up the appointments for the same day.

As I relayed in my first two posts, the counselor less-than-loved me and thought my fiance was really amazing. Well we went back to the church that afternoon, and she was still meeting with other engaged couples, so we saw her walking around behind the receptionists window. Since it was near the start of the hour, my fiance grabbed a newsletter from the end table and stuck it up in front of his face. Very mature, I know. A few minutes later, she came out and saw us, with my fiance trying to hide behind the paper, a little embarrassing.

The deacon called us into his office, and was very pleasant, it seems like this meeting was a get-to-know-you sort of thing. He did ask to see the results of the FOCCUS test, since he couldn't see the marriage counselor's report yet. He saw our responses, and there were several categories that we were to discuss with him where we had "bad answers" ("bad answers" are any answers in which you disagree with your future spouse, or you agree, but the answer is not the "right" one as designated by the test). Most of the questions we "missed" were in the religion-related of the test. He looked at the two of us, sitting expectantly for his verdict on his couch, and he said, "Well, it looks like you two really haven't talked about some of these things, have you?" "No," we said in unison. "Well, OK, I think we'll probably need to meet about once a month - about 6 times total, and then I'd like for you two to sign up for the marriage retreat offered by the diocese." Boo, we thought we'd only have to do one or the other.

Then he got down to business, and asked about the wedding date and time we'd like. There are two venues at the church, and we thought we'd go with the smaller venue, and go with the later time, so we could move right into an evening reception. He looked at our date, and our time was already taken! That's almost impossible, we thought we'd have the first pick. The deacon said that if we had any chance at all of the couple moving the date, it would be this couple, since they've changed their date 4 times. Aargh, well, we're keeping our fingers crossed.

Pre-Marriage Counseling, Part 2

The second part of our pre-marriage counseling session (not second session, just next 20 minutes) focused on the financial planning aspect of our relationship. Now, my fiance and I are 25 and 26, respectively. He's been in graduate school, but I took a few years off when before I came back to school. He's been financially on his own for 3 years and I have been for 4, ever since we graduated from college. The point of that is, that we know how to pay rent, car insurance, car payments, etc.

Our marriage counselor asked us who was going to pay the bills. We said that we hadn't discussed it, but that Fiance had been, and so he may as well keep doing it.

Marriage Counselor -"Well, that's fine, but the bride should know how to pay the bills."
Fiance-"She's lived on her own, she knows how to pay her bills, she's done it for more than 3 years."
MC-"Groom, how would you feel about showing the bride how to pay the bills, so she knows how you do it?"
F-"Sure, fine."
MC-"I'm just concerned, because I've met couples where the husband never showed the bride how to pay the bills, and then he died, and the wife didn't know how to pay the bills."
Me -"Well, I'm a business, student, so even if he does die, I think I'll be able to figure it out."

Marriage Counselor: "Well, the next topic is that I see that you two haven't discussed the use of credit."

Note - My fiance will say that this is completely my fault, because I didn't lie and say that we had discussed and agreed on this. I'm thinking that this question involved how quickly we would pay off our student loans, buying versus leasing a car, etc.

Marriage Counselor: "Well, let's talk about it - would you two be OK with using credit cards?"

Seriously - that's all she wanted to know. We answered yes, and she was totally and completely satisfied that we had discussed it. So, that was another 20 minutes of our lives wasted.

And so Begins the Saga of the Pre-Marriage Counseling

Our one and only pre-marriage counseling session was an hour filled with so many mishaps and frustrations that I will have to tell it in multiple posts.

Fiance and I had had a fight that morning: the day before we had decided that we needed to call the “final 2” reception sites to get actual quotes. So, the morning of our counseling appointment, we were sitting downstairs in at my parents’ house, and my lovely fiancé turns to me and says, “why don’t you go get the computer and write the email to the one place?” To which I replied, “Why don’t you?” . . . and back and forth until I got up and got the computer and wrote the email. Then I asked him what he thought of what I wrote – and he wanted me to write that they needed to include a list of everything the quote did NOT include. I had put that they needed to include a list of everything included and that his wording sounded like we thought they were going to rip us off. Anyway, I told him that if I was going to write the email, I should get the final say. In the end I did change it, I'm not that disagreeable.

So, we were in the counseling session, and we were talking about the fight, and it became quite clear that the counselor hated me. We described the fight to the counselor, and instead of asking us questions about how we both felt about the situtation, she kept saying that I was the one with the problem. Obviously I had needed help writing the email, and Fiance was just trying to help me. Right. Not - he was just being lazy and didn't want to put forth any physical effort - he was trying to help. Aargh.

Tomorrow - the financial portion of the pre-marriage counseling

Getting to the (Catholic) Part - FOCCUS

Well you've probably been wondering why I put the (Catholic) up there, much less put it in parenthesis. Yes, I'm Catholic, and no, my fiance is not. So one of the lovely things that is required in the process of getting married in the Catholic Church is taking the FOCCUS test.

The FOCCUS test is an ancient test invented by "church people" to determine whether or not you are compatible. Excuse me, I just looked it up on the website - it's a self-diagnostic inventory (http://www.foccusinc.com/sections/foccus_content.asp?PKID=6). The idea is that you take the compatibility test, then you meet with a marriage counselor to go over the results. After that, you're allowed to meet with a member of the clergy to set a date and start your other meetings.

Actually taking the test was much like what you would suspect. The pastor's coordinator met us in the reception area and took us to the pastor's parlor. She asked us if we would like coffee, then very sweetly brought it to us. She then handed us the test, asked us a few questions to determine which sections of the test we needed to fill out (there are additional sections if the couple lives together, has children, or has been previously married). Then, she handed us a pencil, warned us not to collude, and said she would be in her office next door.

We worked through the test independently, and while I probably shouldn't include test questions, some of them really concerned me.

• Are you ever frightened of your future spouse?
• Are you concerned about the amount of alcohol your future spouse consumes?
• Are you concerned about the amount of cocaine your furture spouse uses?
• Would you feel comfortable naked in front of your future spouse?

These questions are obviously "red flags" for the marriage counselor, but what person would answer them honestly if they actually were going to say yes to them. Who would wait until that point, when you're trying to get married to say, "Oh, yeah, and this guy really freaks me out sometimes." I guess it's a last chance effort to save people from some a potentially harmful marriage.

In answer to your unspoken question, we did fine, although when we got our test results back, I found out that Fiance is apparently concerned with my drinking. Or at least, that's now what the marriage counselor thought. He laughed the whole way home, "I swear it was an accident!"