I am getting married in a couple months. In many ways I’m your average groom. I’m excited to spend the rest of my life with the woman I love, but slightly nervous about the process. What I think makes me a little more unique is the fact that I’m 40 years old and getting married for the very first time. But for someone who has never been married and doesn’t have any kids I have loads of life experience. I’m literally oozing experience. Or maybe that’s something else. Remind me to get that looked at.
My Lady Friend Fiancé and I are going small with our wedding. Extremely small. So small that beyond her and I am not sure anyone else will be invited. Though it will be small, it will still be in a church. Specifically the church I went to as a kid and my parents still attend on a semi regular basis. I make an appearance there once a year on Christmas just to remind God that I’m still above ground, but beyond that the place feels a little foreign to me. It’s a small, quaint church that happens to be more than 120 years old so my Lady Friend / Fiancé thought it would be a great place for the tiny little ceremony. Or maybe she just liked it because our wedding and the church are both small, while both myself and the church are old. Hmmm…
Before we can get married in the church, they asked us to go through a process called Prepare-Enrich. It was essentially an online personality test to see how compatible we were. After we each took the test separately we had to meet with a mediator to assess our results and give any advice or pre-marriage counseling we may need. We had that meeting recently and found out we’re so compatible we may in fact be the same person. Those who have been reading my blog for some time are probably now wondering if the Lady Friend is fictional. Or maybe worse, my sister. Nope she’s the real deal and as far as I know, completely unrelated to me.
We aced that test to the point where the mediator said it looked like we took the test together, which we did not. Our compatibility makes us the perfect couple, not that I needed some stranger to tell me that. We don’t fight. Ever. We have never had an actual legitimate argument. Anytime we disagree about something we either talk through it, or agree to disagree and leave it at that. It makes for a peaceful, happy life. What a novel concept!
Now that we’re through the process of proving ourselves compatible and worthy of marriage (as if 4+ years of her tolerating my nonsense wasn’t enough proof) we are ready to move forward with planning the actual ceremony. With the small size of the ceremony, that planning will be simple and easy. However, the problem with being my age and finally getting married is that every jackass and their brother wants to be there to see it. So we’re having a big party at our house a few weeks after the wedding. We never had a true house warming party after moving in here last summer so this serves that purpose too. It will be a hassle but at the end of the day as long as people bring me presents and I’m sitting out my deck getting drunk, I’ll be happy.
The problem is who to invite… our house isn’t big enough to fit as many people as a traditional wedding, so how do we decide? Who makes the cut and who gets the shaft? I’ll write about that next time.
