More Wedding Details

While Kate and I don't have anything solid that I can report on, we've really been trying to get organized about the wedding since we know there are going to be some cut-off points coming up soon.

Last Thursday, Kate and I took the FOCCUS test at our church. "FOCCUS" stands for "Facilitating Open Couple Communication, Understanding and Study." It's basically an "Agree-Disagree" series of questions regarding our thoughts about various aspects of marriage. Our answers will be tallied up and used to start up discussions during our marriage prep classes. In addition, the goal is to encourage the couple to talk with each other, maybe about things involved in the marriage that they didn't think of before. I was pleased to see that most of the things on the FOCCUS test were concerns that Kate and I have already talked about.

We both acknowledge that honest communication is incredibly important in a relationship. Not only to you have to be willing to talk to your partner but your partner has to be willing to hear you. And vice versa. After being together for two years, Kate and I have agreed that we can be frank and straight-forward with each other at all times. Even if one of us doesn't really like what the other has to say, we agreed that we would listen anyway. That's so important! Now we feel comfortable talking about anything. Don't get me wrong; there are days when one or the other of us is too grumpy to what not to talk like a civil human being. But for the most part, we can talk. And I think it's helped avoid a lot of major arguments that we might have had otherwise.

We start our first marriage prep class this Sunday. It'll run every Sunday of February from 1pm to 4pm. I honestly don't know what to expect from it. More on that after the first class.

Kate finally got in touch with the local instructors for Natural Family Planning. This was tricky because the phone number that we had for these folks came from an outdated form we got from the parish. That number was wrong. Kate tracked down a newer form online but the phone was still incorrect. She dug up an information number and called that. There was a quick mention of an error on the phone listing and a correction. Kate snagged that and finally got in touch with the folks who run the NFP class. Whew! We'll have our first session on Friday the 11th.

We're currently researching caterers and photographers for the wedding. This is somewhat distressing to me because of the cost. The catering I was sort of prepared for; I knew that would be expensive with all the people we're inviting. But the photographers...wow! I think the least expensive package runs around $600. Ouch! We're going to continue with the research on this one.

As far as catering is concerned, we're leaning toward a Greeley-based company called Lopiano's. We've actually sampled their menu during a dinner theater production we saw last summer. Very tasty! Plus, they sound pretty flexible and willilng to work with what we'd like to do so that's also a bonus. More on that as we make our decisions.

We're also waffling back and forth as to whether or not to have dancing. Neither of us knows how to dance but there's a traditionalist side of me that thinks there should be a first dance. Who knows? We have time to figure that one out. Incidently, we'll also be burning some CDs with music mixes that we'll play during the reception. My sister pulled that off and it worked out really well.

Kate had a neat idea for the centerpieces at the reception. I won't go into too many details because she'll probably want it to be a surprise for folks but it'll probably involve candles and mirrors. More on that hopefully later.

Invitations are also being discussed. We're really worked up over the wording. We want it to be just right. We want to mention both sets of parents because both sides have contributed so much to help us pay for the wedding. It's just a matter of how we want to word the invites. Thankfully, our co-workers Lynda and Crystal have volunteered to help make the invitations. That'll help us out a lot!

Hm. I think that's all I can think of right now. More details as they come up!