96: a long one!

Wow. This weekend was crazy when it came to wedding/post-wedding planning.

It started with Pre-Cana. Poor Joe got in at about 1:30 a.m. on Saturday morning and was up for a day of marriage prep. at 6 a.m. We drove to Marion, an easy town to add to the We Will Never Live Here list. About 50 percent of their street names were labeled, making navigation a bit tricky.

We spent the day with two younger couples, sharing a table and a laugh when it came to the Natural Family Planning conversation. It's not that we wouldn't consider it... but the fumbling, bumbling "instructor" used a nuts and bolts metaphor (featuring a nut that was too large and a screw that was too small) before bouncing around points that we couldn't follow.

We really identified with some other couples that presented, though. The conversation about spirituality and approaching difficult decisions and situations not as "I can't do this," but as "We can do this together" brought tears to my eyes. The couple was amazing, and Joe and I got so excited to be a couple that is that willing to share our experiences with new, younger couples.

It tied into the theme of the day–learning how to be a sacrament of marriage for others. For me, it was a new way to look at things: We use the way we treat each other to be an example of love and faith for others. It's added pressure that I like, and I feel like we have a lot going for us, a lot to share with others.

Joe and I learned that we're on the same page with, well, pretty much everything. We did a lot of worksheets with His Answers and Her Answers, but we didn't go through the whole book. I'm looking forward to flipping through the other information and starting to plan our family, our budget and our conflict management. I feel like our faith will definitely hold us together, and spending a day seeing how truly compatible we are came at a perfect time. We're so excited!

The wedding excitement kept going through the weekend, and we took the plunge. Yep! We bought our tickets to France! We'll be flying out on Saturday, August 21 from Dayton, landing in Toronto and Montreal, then heading to Paris. There are things that need to be figured out along the way, like packing; the time between wedding and flight; trains to Nancy; housing in Nancy... but for now, we're letting ourselves feel really good about it.

Today, I'm finishing up the paperwork for our wedding bank account "registry". For now, we're registered as Meghan Beit & Robert Betz III, but we're fixing that. Everything else should be in the mail tomorrow!

Speaking of mailing... the invitations are all made, thanks to my parents' and sister's struggle with glue dots, folding and trimming 150 pieces of black paper. They look minimalist, geometric and sleek–perfect for an art deco, simple wedding. I couldn't be happier.

Since I'm over school right now and don't have a real final today, I'm giving myself the morning and early afternoon (with the exception of work hours) to finish up wedding design. It's been a busy morning! The place cards are in a rough draft. Directions for at the church are finished. Inserts for the invitations that explain the gift registry are all set. Thanks to the money Dad slipped me to "buying my bolt cutters," I'll be able to get those printed tonight after my final. That means I can steal some time at work to use the laser paper-cutter.

By the time I'm back in Ohio for good, after a week with Joe in St. Louis, the invitations will be ready to mail. We'll also have our wedding announcements set for the papers. I know I've been putting off thinking about this for a while, but it should be a quick project, since a few of the newspapers have online forms and the rest is only a few phone calls away.

If only it were always this easy! I guess I should turn my focus back on graduation for a while. Or at least translating... we'll see.