Week 2 - Only 52 more weeks to go!

Today's challenge is to find the time to contact a church regarding performance of the ceremony. Right now, I do not attend any particular church on a weekly basis, as I have been "saving myself" (in a way) for the proper community. I love our neighborhood...I really do. My neighbors are awesome, we look out for each other, we're in a fabulous location in the city, and our street just got re-paved. Gotta love it. However, when I moved in 3 years ago (pre-Jesse, of course), I had only planned on staying in the house for a maximum of 5 years, and got a home loan accordingly. The biggest question looming over my little life prior to the proposal was should I sell the house first, or should we get married first? I knew that I wanted to marry Jesse, and I knew that I wanted to sell the house. Preferably, I would be able to do both in 2007 sometime.

And I can almost hear the shaking of the heads out there as people think exactly what I thought immediately after asking myself that question every few days or so. I would say, "Self? Can I sell the house in the summer if Jesse and I plan on getting married in October?" And Self would answer back with a resounding, "HELL no!" It would be insane. There is no way that I would escape institutionalization after attempting to do both things in the same year, so plans sort of made themselves after I resolved that battle within myself.

Annnnyway....so we'll be living in the house for a bit longer than I anticipated when I originally bought it. But I also love the neighborhood a bit more than I anticipated, and I also hate the house a little more than I anticipated. It's a big mess, really, so let me scoot along to my original point.

I never started going to the Catholic church down the street because I didn't want to start in as a member of the community without knowing that I was going to be there for a long while...like, at least 10 years kind of long while. Some of you may not know this about me, but I've moved around a bit. Ok, actually, I've moved around A LOT since I originally started college and moved out of my parents' home back in 1992. I've lived in Malibu, West L.A., Kansas City, Overland Park, San Diego, Chicago (when I was traveling for work), Northern California, Boston, and back in Overland Park again. Since I've been back in this area, I've only moved 3 times, but each time has taken me to a new church community boundary, meaning that I would have had to change churches 3 times since 2000, and that just gets soooo old after a bit. If I could have picked up my church in Boston and brought it with me for my last 3 moves, I would have. I loved it there.

Hey. Can I have the ceremony in Boston, and then have the reception in Kansas City? Wouldn't that be fun?! No? Whatever...party poopers.

So that's that. I've moved a lot, and I was tired of switching from church to church, and basically stopped attending regular mass back in 2000. I'm still big into my faith and love being a Catholic, and completing my next sacrament (i.e. marriage...since Jesse saved me from becoming a nun at some distant point down the road) is important to me. Unfortunately, the church that we live "within the boundaries of" isn't my style. (Family members, it reminds me of St. Bruno's. Yeah...it's that cool...) Jesse doesn't like the looks of it from the outside (I tend to agree for the most part), and I've never been inside it, so I don't know what to expect. They have an enormous mural of something...not sure if it's Mary or Jesus, to be quite honest...above the main entrance, and it just looks gaudy to me. I'm sure it's a lovely little community of people, but I can't bring myself to be that interested in wanting to get married there is the thing. It's last on my list.

I'm feeling a little bit uncomfortable contacting churches that I don't belong to, asking them if they will let me marry my currently-agnostic fiance at their altar, and trying to figure out all the fun details that go along with that question.

What it's looking like is going to happen is I'm going to have to accept the fact that I will likely have to have a ceremony someplace other than in a Catholic church, and that adds another fun dimension on to the scouting of the reception venue! AND does that mean we can have a pretty huppah over us and Jesse gets to step on and break a glass at the end of the ceremony? That always looks like so much fun. It's like, "Yeah! We're done! Now let's break things and get this party started, yo!!" (Although I'm sure it has a different meaning from that interpretation all together...it's kinda what I hear in my head when I see it on t.v.)

So. That's what's happening today. I have two appointments this week to look at locations, one of which Jesse will be able to attend with me I hope, and then I'm working on a third for hopefully another day this week or early next. One is a specific location just for events like meetings and weddings, another is a golf club that I've always admired and thought of as a possible location for my eventual wedding, and the third is this really cool looking, very elegant and yet relaxed "boutique" hotel downtown. Which happens to be across the street from the first location.

This is fun an exciting, I swear. But these first couple of weeks of the whole thing have been a little overwhelming, to say the least. Stay tuned for more fun updates...