The Wonderful World of Marriage

So it's finally official.

My wonderful betrothed and I have set a date to make the next level of our relationship official.

On September 25th, 2009, we will be wed at Guardian Angels Church in the West End of Vancouver.

A funny thing, getting married is. Some people say manogomy is unnatural, and therefore marriage should not be an institution. I disagree whole heartedly. I suppose one can't really appreciate the truly fine art of being one half of a married couple unless they are engaged in a fulfilling, supportive and, most of all, happy relationship. I am one of the fortunate who has found the other half, the answer to all my woes and the end point to my search. This person will become my husband in less than one year.

Getting to this point has been no easy feat, and waiting this long to get married was tough, but probably good for us in the end. We have had almost 3 years to live, love, laugh, yell, cry, and be together before the day of our marriage - which I wouldn't trade for anything. Many lessons have been learned.

Again about the lessons, you say? Yes, as I have used all of my such lessons to base my values and beliefs on.

I have learned that revenge is a dish best never served in any relationship, and guilt tripping is not something that should be used to obtain any goals...no matter how overwhelmingly frustrated you get. I've also learned that I hate being the only one who does dishes, but that I prefer the level of quality washing I do rather than his. I know about motivation, and I know that it's harder to motivate someone else than it is to motivate myself. I also know that having someone else by your side is motivating in itself.

So my fiance and I just completed the compulsory Marriage Preparation course to allow us to be married in the Catholic Chirch. If I were to say anything about what I've learned, I would have to be honest and say that I've learned more from this course alone than I have in almost 3 years of my relationship. I think the reason why is because it is tremendously helpful to have experts tell you what is good communication and what is bad communication. Also helpful is all of the writing and talking exercises we had to do surrounding things like what we like about eachother, and what we think of having children. I believe there is a certain stigma attached to these courses, and let me tell you all of mine were dispelled after we completed the program.

It gave us stuff to talk and think about, such as how large of a family we want, how we want to raise our kids, what we are going to commit to working on in our relationship and many others. Bottom line is that it was a good experience and I think we are more prepared than ever to become married.

Now comes the fun part...the planning. We are still in the early stages, but things are already starting to shape up.

In the coming weeks, as the count down continues I will post updates about how things are going.

Until then, let's eat some cake!