Weddingbee Blog

Obviously the first thing on Mr. D’s and my to-do list was to start booking the big vendors. The most important thing was first: where we were going to get married. So we started to discuss the possible places to get married.

We could get married in my hometown of Des Moines, Iowa. The thing here was the fact that I had not lived in the area for almost seven years, and I no longer had ties with my home church. I was raised Catholic but left the church went I went to college. As a girl, I had always dreamed of getting married at this church:

St. Ambrose Cathedral in Des Moines, Iowa. Such a beautiful church—just not my church. / Image via Wikipedia

But now that I was no longer part of the Catholic church, this was no longer a choice. So we started looking into other options, but we realized that just because it was in Des Moines, everything was going to be about 10% more expensive than it would be somewhere else. And I just was not really attached to my hometown anymore. So we looked into possibly having it on my parents’ acreage in northern Iowa.

It’s a beautiful piece of land, and obviously it would be cheap. They even have an old barn and a large metal machine shed that could be reconditioned to be a wonderful reception site.

The parents’ homestead: So much potential…just too expensive to pull off. Sorry for the blurry picture. I made my sister go and take one for me and send it to me.

Then we considered the logistics of it. My parents literally live in the middle of nowhere. They live about 15 minutes from a town that has no bars, no restaurants, and one gas station/mini-grocery store. There is nothing to the town. The nearest hotel is 30 minutes away, and most of that is on gravel road. Then we would have to rent EVERYTHING! Tables, chairs, lights, a dance floor. We would have to pay for travel fees for most of the vendors. The cost went through the roof. Not to mention it was very important to both Mr. D and me to get married in a church, and the nearest church is 25 minutes away and is, you guessed it, a Catholic church.

We completely passed over Mr. D’s hometown as well because his has a lot of the same problems as my parents’. It’s another small town without a lot of resources, which meant it would cost more to bring stuff in. So our solution? Mr. D said we should have it in the town he currently lives in, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It’s a small city, so it has everything we need without being super overpriced. I did mention that we would have to start attending churches to find the right one. I had my home church in Chicago, but whenever I went to Iowa to visit, our weekends were usually so full that we did not have the time to go to church. But Mr. D had something up his sleeve.

Now, I am a baby born-again Christian. After I left the Catholic church when I was 18, I didn’t look for another. I just didn’t go to church for almost five years. After what happened to Mr. D’s sister, I started to actively seek God again. My boss in Chicago is a Christian and suggested her church. I went in April of 2010, and by June 2010 I had been re-baptized as an adult. Mr. D on the other hand had no religious upbringing. His mom is a lapsed Catholic and his father a lapsed Episcopalian. Mr. D recalls going to church as a child only a number of times. However, Mr. D found God shortly after his best friend committed suicide, and was baptized for the first time at the age of 18. The pastor who baptized Mr. D had a church in Cedar Rapids, so Mr. D suggested that we go. We went and I loved it. I knew that when I moved back to Iowa, that would be my home church; it was so much like my church in Chicago, only smaller. (I attend a mega-church in Chicago, so we have about 40,000 members compared to Mr. D’s church of about 400.) Mr. D is thrilled with the fact that the pastor who baptized him is also going to be the same person who marries us.

The church is not a flashy cathedral like my childhood dream. In fact, it’s the complete opposite. The church is actually a renovated strip club. When the club started having problems financially, the church swooped in to buy it instead of allowing another club to go in its place. It may not have the physical beauty of a cathedral, but it has such a spiritual presence in my heart. I knew that this was the exact right place for us to marry. Plus, we were signed up for six months of pre-marital counseling—just another bonus. I can’t wait to get married in this little church with the big heart!

It may not look like much but, believe me, it’s an amazing place! (Personal photo of the pastor)

Did you have a hard time deciding where to get married? How did you get beyond it and where did you choose?