Weddings comprised most of the excitement of 2011.  My own eleven-month engagement took prime focus for most of the year, in addition to serving as a bridesmaid (or rather, matron?) for dear friend Bridget in November and enjoying Adam & Kate's wedding on 12/30/2011.  2012 will bring high school friend Lauren's wedding in March, Monica's Hawaiian elopement in May and Jake's wedding in June (with Greg serving as Best Man), as well as plans for my sister Sarah's wedding to take place on 4/13/2013.

Is this the time of life during which a lot of folks wed, naturally?  Mid-twenties seems to be all the rage for matrimony, nowadays.  However, our parents' generation may have exchanged their vows from age 19 to 30.  Do young people nowadays just consider 24-27 to be the best time to settle down with someone? 



I'm getting married in three weeks!

Wedding!

Soooo... I got a wedding dress!  I will probably post a photo of it soon, as I'm sure Greg will never read this blog.  :o)  To my surprise, I'm finding that Mom adheres to all sorts of wedding traditions and superstitions.  "There will be no face-smashing of cake.  Each couple whom we saw do that at their wedding has been divorced."  Oh my!  She has also expressed the necessity of the "something old, new, borrowed, blue" tradition.  I read in a wedding magazine that the poem ends, "And a tupence in her shoe."  How am I to come across a tupence?  Will an American penny get the job done?  Furthermore, I had been looking up stock photos of wedding gowns online, which I showed Greg to ask his opinion.  Boy, did I get a chastisement for that!  Even the samples!!  However, I will obey the, as we call her, Incident Commander.

Engagement

Greg and I are finally engaged, after having been a'courtin' for the past three years.  Yay!

Family celebrations ensued at the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, with many toasts and much story-telling and support from everyone.  I think the wedding will be a great, fun party with all these excited family members, plus good friends from home, summer camp, church and college.  We are very excited!

Even more exciting is the fact that we have a place booked.  Yes!  In the most difficult month to find an available venue, my parents succeeded in nabbing a catering place with a beautiful hall, great yard with many pine trees and a kind and detail-oriented catering lady.  We're stopping by her open house today to sample cakes.  This will probably be the most fun part of the wedding-preparation process.  Yum.

Besides that, we've got my parents' church reserved for the early afternoon on our special day, which I think will prove just perfect for the size crowd we'll have there.  Next up:  starting pre-marital counseling with our pastor, planning the ceremony with him and our Camp Hill pastor and a church wedding planner, picking out attire and flowers and making invitations and whatnot.  Oh boy!  I'm actually sort of excited to finish our Save-the-Date postcards, and later, make up our lovely printed invites; it's been a long time since I've dedicated myself to a design project of any sort.

What a  busy time!!  I'm glad we still have eight whole months to finish working on all this stuff.

And now, off to brunch and taste cakes!

Let's Make a Weekend of It

This weekend I went to Kutztown to visit some friends. It involved piercings, spending time with my man, new & old friends, "lunch meat casserole", Man on Fire, a Matt Reffie original sermon, and sushi. Getting away from the midstate for a few days was hugely rejuvenating. My life has been lacking challenges as of late, and it was a breath of fresh air to get away from home.

On Sunday morning Reffie preached on engagement - in particular, Jesus' parable on "the kingdom of heaven is like a bunch of bridesmaids waiting for their friend's groom to show up." Half of them didn't have enough fuel for their torches, so they went to the store to get some and ended up missing the party. Engagement isn't about waiting around for your wedding day, it's about preparing: calling the caterer, making hair appointments, getting facials, working out to look good in your gown [and out of it, afterward]; renting a tux, working hard, saving money, preparing a home for your bride. Jesus told His disciples that He was going to His Father's house to prepare a room for us. He's getting ready for us, His bride. Are we getting ready for Him?

That sermon was refreshingly challenging & convicting. Thanks, Cornerstone.

I spent today resting after a crazy weekend, and in studying the Word, especially in preparation for girls' small group on Wednesday. Our discussion topic is prayer. What would be your input about it?

For your listening pleasure, a beautiful snippet of a John Piper talk: