So since booking our church way back in April of last year, I’ve pretty much done nothing in terms of our ceremony. That’s a trifle worrying when you think about it, considering that is what the wedding is all about—the actual MARRIAGE and all, but that’s just the way it’s been. We’ve been overseas, it’s been too far out to do anything, and all of the paperwork we needed to fill out was located here in Australia.
Moving right along…we actually did something today: we went and met with our priest and started the paperwork that comes along with getting married in a Commonwealth country. If you can remember way back when I showed you our church location, I mentioned that Mr. Jaguar has a first cousin who will be officiating our wedding ceremony; I’ll call him Cousin Priest from now on to make it easier. Well, we met with him after work today, and wow, I feel like a major weight has been lifted from my shoulders. It’s good to actually know things are in progress, you know?
I’ve admitted it in the past, but I’ll say it again now:
I’m a pretty relaxed Catholic. And when I say relaxed, I really mean not practising. My studly fiancé however, is very much practising, so I’m the one asking loads of questions and learning new things along the way. One of my biggest concerns has always been whether or not to include the Eucharist within our ceremony, and I was worried that we’d be made to feel bad for leaning towards leaving it out of our wedding day. Instead, Cousin Priest very reassuringly reminded us that it was only important if we were happy, so whatever decision we are leaning towards is always going to be accepted and just fine. Honestly, he made us feel so comfortable about making decisions for the day; I feel much more in control of things already, just by his attitude and his acceptance of our plans.
During the meeting we signed our lives away regarding our personal information, whether we were related (ha, hahahaha, wait, should I not be joking about that? We’re not related, really) or whether we’d been married before. We then had to verbally affirm three questions:
- Have you come here freely and without reservation to give yourselves to each other in marriage?
- Will you love and honour each other as husband and wife for the rest of your lives?
- Will you accept children lovingly from God, and bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?
We each answered YES, and I’ll admit it, I got just a little swoony—it sort of felt like part of the wedding was happening already, you know? Cousin Priest then congratulated us on being ‘officially engaged’ in the eyes of the Catholic church—something we celebrated with a completely dorky high-five. Ladies and gents, IT’S ON: let’s DO this thing!
I seriously cannot get over how that one little meeting has changed our outlook on things. Even Mr. Jaguar commented that he felt relieved after having sat down and talked to Cousin Priest about what happens next. So…what does happen next?
First things first, we need to get our little Catholic backsides into marriage preparation classes. We tried to get a head start on this while we were living in London but our local churches wouldn’t work with us, telling us we were too early. Now we’ll have to find some locally and get busy, er, preparing for this whole marriage shindig.
After that, we’ll meet with Cousin Priest again in about three months, no doubt to fill out even more forms, and go through the nitty gritty ceremony details. I’m really looking forward to that part, especially when it comes to choosing readings and music for the day—here’s to learning things as we go!
When was it that you started to feel ‘officially engaged’?
I remember when we met with our Priest, I was all set to sit down and pick out readings/psalms/etc. but instead he gave us a booklet with our “options” and we went home and picked them. It ended up working out a lot better — I believe we did it over wine! 
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