I have a confession to make: I have been looking forward to changing my name since I was a little girl… well, at least since kids in my class discovered that my last name contained a four-letter word and was therefore worthy of mockery. So around sixth grade. Junior high is not kind to the Dickers of the world.

As I’ve gotten older, tougher and wiser, I have embraced my family’s name and have become unfazed by any jokes people may throw my way. There is a long, fine line of Dickers before me, and I am proud to be part of that lineage. I’m sorry, are you giggling? Did I say something funny?

We will always be the Sisters Dicker

For the last few years, I’ve gone back and forth on whether I would change my name or not after I got married. The independent feminist in me said I should keep my maiden name to show I am still my own person with or without my husband. The family-oriented part of me wanted me to hyphenate or take my husband’s name to show unity between us and to make things easier for when we have kids someday.

Well, it turns out I don’t really like the way “Dicker-Burgess” or “Burdicker” or “Dickurgess” sounds. Plus, DMV employees already get testy with me for having a super long name. If I became Gillian Elena Mei Po Dicker-Burgess, they might kill me with their angry, soulless eyes. I decided to make the full change to become a Burgess.

I went to the Social Security Administration and the DMV last week to change my name officially, and I got a lot more emotional about it than I thought I would. I’ve had this name for 25 years, and it has served me well. Brian came with me to both places, waiting patiently and holding my hand in depressing, crowded, fluorescent-lit offices. We went out to lunch to celebrate after Social Security legitimized my new identity as Gillian Burgess. As we toasted over Karl Strauss beers, I told my husband that I’m happy I did it. And I meant it.

Welcome to the Burgi

Changing my name was a hard personal decision, one I thought about a lot before I took the plunge. If I was surprised by my strong emotions on the matter, I was even more surprised by the stronger reactions I received from friends, acquaintances and even total strangers (beyond the expected “wow, it’s going to be awhile before I get used to your new name”).

A few:

• It’s archaic to take the man’s last name and you should keep yours.
• You should definitely hyphenate.
• I think it’s nice when the woman goes the traditional route and takes her husband’s name.
• I’m going to change my name, too, when I get married.
• I would never change my name.
• You’re a terrible feminist and you might as well kiss your freedom goodbye because you are now your husband’s property.

Maybe that last one was more implied than stated outright, but I can read between the lines.

I respect everyone’s opinions, but this experience made it very clear to me that a decision that is good for one woman is not necessarily good for every woman. Taking a new last name or not, having children or not, being a stay-at-home mom or a working mom, traveling the world or settling down and buying a house, all the gray area in between– these are all choices we get to make as individuals. No one can make them for us. And that’s what both thrills and terrifies me about being a woman.

Coming soon… The Name Game, Part II: A How-To Guide to the Tedious, Obnoxious Process of Changing Your Name

I have a habit of going through periods of extreme, massive and sometimes violent change. I don’t, for example, just start a new job or move to a new apartment. Oh, no. That would be too easy. I go, what my friend Gene would call, “balls to the wall” when I shake things up in my life.

Around Christmas a year ago, I got laid off from one job, started a new one, moved from California back to New Orleans, found out that Brian was being deployed to Iraq, went through a number of emotional breakdowns and got engaged… all within a month. This is just how I roll.

OMG, what happened? Where did these rings come from and why am I wearing a blanket with sleeves?

Right now is another one of those times where everything is changing, and I just have to embrace the madness or go mad myself. First step toward sanity: going back home and burning things with my sister. Yep, that’s right. Melia and I have both been moving all over the country, yet we still have boxes and binders and bookcases of old memories left at our parents’ house in Sonoma. Every time I go home, I say I am going to get rid of things I no longer need, but I always find an excuse to put it off to a later visit.

Didn’t get to paint over the hot air balloons this time, but the Sarah McLachlan and Austin Powers posters did come down

Well, it’s finally time. If I’m really going to make the transition into adulthood and marriage, I don’t want to be tied down by pieces of my past I just don’t feel like dealing with.

Signs of progress: cleaning out shelves full of books, photo albums and knickknacks

Melia and I both came home the same week, and we formed a moral support group of two, spending our evenings deciding the fate of stacks of photos and papers and books. I was amazed by what I had kept for the last 10 or 20 years. Why did I hang on to letters that remind me of a time I’d rather forget? Did I really think my high school English paper on “The Kitchen God’s Wife” was worth saving to show my future children? I don’t even like Amy Tan!

We decided a ritual bonfire was the right way for us to let go of the past and move forward. We gathered together the bags and bags of papers we wanted to burn (sadly, photos had to be disposed of another way) and lit a match in the fireplace. In went Melia’s identity as a nonprofit workaholic: Rolodexes, curriculum plans, workshop notes. In went my reminders of being a reserved and over-achieving teenager.

Burn, baby, burn

With every stack, it got a little easier. Notes from my junior high BFFs, angsty teen poetry, senior project writing assignments, college term papers. I watched them all go up in flames, and it was glorious. Let me tell you, there is nothing more freeing than burning your SAT scores.

Anyone who has ever had to write a “dialectical journal” will know the satisfaction I got from burning one

Melia wrote a blog post about our fire, and she captured very eloquently how I felt about our ritual:

Burning the written documentation of your past is much, much more cleansing than dumping it in the recycling bin, or even shredding it. When the flames consume the pages that symbolize your past, your former self and relationships instantly cease to exist. What remains is nothing, and it forces you to relate to people — your best friend from middle school, or your enemy, for that matter — in a completely new way instead of clinging to how things used to be.

I am very different than I was at age 15 or even 20 (thank goodness), and it was a huge relief to erase my old expectations and make a fresh start. The way I celebrate a fresh start is by breaking open a bottle of red wine… and making a new list. Borderline alcoholic, maybe. More-than-slightly nerdy, definitely. But this is a good list, not my normal “holy Christ, I have so much to do and will never finish it all” list. This will be an ongoing fun list…

Fresh Start List #1: A Few Goals for the Near Future

1. Go to Central America and learn Spanish

I love traveling, and it has been far too long since I’ve gone on a down-and-dirty, fit-everything-in-a-backpack, shower-every-now-and-then trip. Summer 2005, to be exact, when Jenna and I took over the Greek Isles. I have always wanted to go to Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, you name it. I loved Panama when Brian and I went there on our honeymoon, but I hated not being able to communicate beyond my toddler’s vocabulary of “hello” and “thank you” and “I have hunger.” I want to learn Spanish, and I’m comfortable enough with French now that I’m ready to tackle a new language. This summer, I am determined to go on a Central American extravaganza with my girl Angie. Our plan is to go to language school for a few weeks, then spend another month traveling from country to country on buses full of chickens while practicing our new skillz.

September 2005: Jenna has a “Titanic” moment on the ferry from Greece to Italy

2. Take the plunge on new projects

I have a million ideas a-brewin’ in my head at any given moment– business ideas, freelance writing ideas, home decorating ideas, costume party ideas– but a lot of them don’t go anywhere. I get so overwhelmed by wanting to do something perfectly that I never actually do it at all. That needs to stop. If I want to try to build a Web site (or a bookcase or a magazine) from scratch, dammit, I need to give it a shot. The worst that could happen is that it won’t be perfect and that I’ll learn something from the process.

3. Do more things every day that make me happy

I consider myself a fairly happy person. Sure, I stress out over things more than I should sometimes, but when I get carried away, I try to take a step back and keep it all in perspective. Lately, though, I’ve been working too much, working out too little and not making time for a lot of activities that make me really happy. Dancing. Cooking. Swimming. Watching movies. Taking pictures. Speaking French. Writing for fun. The best New Year’s resolution I ever made was freshman year of college when I vowed to go dancing at least once a week. I kept it up until the end of the school year (longer than any other resolution I’ve ever made), and I couldn’t have been happier doing it. I’m making a resolution to make more of these resolutions.

French Quarter Fest 2008: Dancing in the streets with my sis

For the first month or so after we got married, Brian and I had a habit of elbowing each other and saying, “Hey, you know what?… We’re married.” The novelty of that hasn’t quite worn off, but now we’ve moved on to a new catchphrase: “Hey, you know what? We live here.”

We are officially residents of Kailua, Hawaii. We signed the lease on our place last week and have been just tickled pink with it (one of us is pinker than the other).

Sometimes we just need to lie on the living room floor and love our new apartment

After more than a year of separations, cross-country/cross-continent moves and stints of living out of a suitcase, we are finally going to have a real home. Together. I won’t even know what to do with all that time I used to spend pining. Some ideas:

1. Painting our awesome apartment
2. Refurbishing furniture and being generally crafty with decorating
3. Using every single kitchen gadget, utensil and dish we got for our wedding
4. Planting vegetables and herbs in boxes on the lanai and trying not to kill them (this is where Brian comes in)
5. Grilling every kind of fish and crustacean we can get our hands on (our first culinary experiment with shark went swimmingly… tee hee)
6. Becoming masters of urban composting
7. Finally printing, framing and hanging photos of our friends and family from the last five years
8. Turning our second bedroom into a sweet-tastic office, silkscreening studio and guest room

Oh, you want to see photos of where you’ll be staying when you come visit? If you insist.

Front door: Soon our New Orleans flag will be proudly waving there 

Kitchen: Flat-top range and a dishwasher? Could life get any better?

Living room/dining room: Where our dining table, sectional sofa and future flat-screen TV (the first TV I will have ever bought myself after years of using hand-me-downs) will reside

Living room looking out onto the lanai: We’ll be leaving that door open a lot to let in the ocean breeze

Lanai: Brian contemplates where the grill and the hammock will go

Master bedroom: Large closet and a door out onto the lanai

Master bathroom: It’s not huge, but it has two sinks, so I am stoked

Since we found the place so early in our week-long stay, we decided to get a jump-start on painting before our furniture arrives. We discovered there is a Hardware Hawaii just down the street from us (a fact that made Brian downright giddy), so we picked out some colors, bought supplies and got to work. Gray-blue for the master bedroom, warm cream for most of the living room and kitchen and dark red for two small accent walls in the living room. We’re still accepting suggestions for the bathrooms, the hallway and the office.

I am an artiste 

I graciously allow Brian to do the meticulous ceiling work

It looks as though a terrible crime were committed in our living room

Awesome! Our landlady was a little skeptical of the red, but she relented, saying red is a “good Chinese color”… and then later asking us if we will paint over it before we move

The finished product in the living room (and our new sofa in boxes)

This is what the sofa will look like when it’s put together…oooh (minus the pillows)

Look at that beautiful masking…

Victory! Our first meal in our new place, courtesy of Chef Papa John

“So how’s married life?”

This is a question Brian and I seem to be getting a lot, and I’m not sure how to answer it yet. I’m pretty sure, “Oh, you know, we lived with a college buddy of ours in New Orleans for the first month of being married and then drove our stuff 2,000 miles to spend a month in San Diego before going to Virginia for two months and then moving to Hawaii. Just your standard newlywed couple stuff… I won’t bore you with the details,” is not exactly what normal people say. But then, when have we ever been normal?

It was Mardi Gras. Mustaches and silly hats are almost required. 

We’re going through some pretty major life changes right now, so I guess it’s fitting that No Dowry is going to evolve right along with us. I’ve given it a lot of thought, and although I started this blog to record the journey of planning a wedding without selling my soul or my firstborn, I’d like to think our wedding day won’t be the happiest day of our lives and that this is just the beginning of the journey.

I have loved keeping this blog over the course of the last year. It’s an amazing way for me to process what’s going on in my life and keep in touch with everyone from Lil Laverne (hi, Mom) to friends scattered across the country. I hope y’all have enjoyed reading and will continue to follow my shenanigans as a, ahem, Navy wife (yeah, yeah, laugh it up).

The Short Version of What’s Going On

1. Gypsy Travels: Leaving the South

If I haven’t told you my new mailing address, it’s because I don’t have one yet. We left New Orleans on Friday, February 27 and drove like crazy to make it to San Diego late on Sunday, March 1. It wasn’t the most relaxing road trip we’ve ever taken, but it also didn’t result in a flipped car and a trip to the ER, so I count it as a victory (read more about the trip in Brian’s blog).

It was unbelievably hard to leave our friends and New Orleans again. We keep leaving (this is the third time I’ve moved away) and we keep coming back, and dammit, the next time we move back, it’s for good. There are a lot of amazing places to live, and we’ve been fortunate enough to have tried out a good number of them, but everywhere we go, we compare it to New Orleans. No place has the food, the drinks, the people or the culture quite right in comparison, and we can’t think of anywhere else we want to settle down. You’d better believe we’ll be invading the Dirty South again in a few years, buying a kickass house with a big porch and a roomy yard for crawfish boils and eventually raising a couple of loud, crafty, costume-party-loving hapa kids.

Breakin’ it down in the S. Liberty house for our going-away/Rubik’s cube party

2. Gypsy Travels: Moving to Hawaii

Until we move back to NOLA, I am stoked to live in Hawaii. Brian transfers to a new ship based in Pearl Harbor in May, and we are on Oahu right now house hunting. My mom was born here, her parents and their parents grew up here, and we have tons of aunties and uncles and cousins scattered throughout the islands. I have wanted to live here since I was a little girl, and the Navy, in a strange, out-of-character move, has granted my wish. I will spend the next year and a half picking up hula again and spending as much time as I can swimming in the Pacific.

Where we’re staying at the moment (Bellows Air Force Base): the view out the back window…

…and the front

We arrived on Friday, looked at a bunch of apartments right away and found the perfect one on our second day. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a big lanai (which we’ve learned is a back porch/balcony area) where we can grill and grow vegetables, tons of storage space and our trifecta of perfection: dishwasher, washer and dryer. It’s also in the center of Kailua, within walking distance of coffee shops, restaurants, bars, grocery stores and the beach. Oh, and a karaoke bar. We already checked it out, and though it did not have “The Humpty Dance,” it did provide “Shoop,” “Baby Got Back” and “Bust a Move.” Sold.

Our friend Heather and I made Salt ‘n’ Pepa proud

We got the apartment almost solely because I am hapa and remind our landlady of her daughter (this is the second time my hapaness has gotten me an apartment– Melia and I shamelessly milked it in San Francisco when we discovered our property manager had a half-Japanese son) and because Brian is an adorable Navy boy who can charm any Chinese auntie.

The complex where we will be living has a KOI POND… for serious

This is going to be sweet.

3. Being a Navy Housewife

OK, not a housewife. I’m taking my sweet Interweb-based job with me so I can continue to work from home, God willing, but we are getting pretty darn domestic. I am positively giddy at the thought of using all of the awesome kitchen toys we got as wedding presents (Salad spinner? Pastry blender? KitchenAid mixer?!), and we’re already planning on going all ReadyMade on our new place. The words “aluminum-lined planter boxes” may or may not have come up in conversation. We might have to give in and buy a Wii, if only to remind ourselves that we are not too old to trash-talk while duking it out on Mario Cart.

Brian hearts mattress shopping

This is all new territory, and it’s a little scary, but mostly just exciting. We’re almost real grown ups! (Bob keeps telling me that if I use the term “grown up,” I am not one yet. Whatever.) I’ll post pictures of our new place later this week, which I hope will inspire you to come visit as soon as possible. Those mai tais aren’t going to drink themselves, people.

Whenever I get together with my girlfriends, a few things tend to happen. 1) We have a couple of drinks, 2) We wear silly costumes, 3) We dance wildly in public places not necessarily meant for dancing and 4) We take hundreds of pictures of us loving on each other.

All four of these things happened in excess the night of my bachelorette party, and I am still coming down from that high. New Orleans didn’t know what it was getting into when it let 20 of us run wild and unchaperoned through the streets.

Smooth, Nicole.

Lovely Loyola ladies.

California girls… so classy.

We took over the top floor of Mimi’s in the Marigny, toasting with champagne, feasting on tapas and shimmying to a washboard band.

I always wanted to be serenaded by a man with a washboard. 

“Ain’t no thang!”

Then we went to our old stomping ground, One Eyed Jacks (formerly the Shim Sham) where Kaila, Parisa and I have spent many a Thursday night tearing up the dance floor to ’80s new wave music and drinking $1 High Lifes.

Oh, my favorite Asian sassypants pixies. 

Arrggghh!

Those long flowing locks…

Scratch that. Those long flowing locks.

It was an amazing night. I love, love, love my girls, and I never thought I would have the chance to see so many of them in the same place at the same time.

Katie Ide and I often say, half-jokingly (but not really), “Why are we so awesome?! I feel sad for people who aren’t us.” I think this perfectly describes all of my girlfriends, a group of women who are as intelligent as they are sassy, as strong as they are generous and as creative as they are hilarious. I looked around that night and saw the women who have seen me at my best and my worst– who comforted me through incoherent sobbing fits, traveled with me halfway across the world, primped with me before big events and slapped some sense into me when I started to talk crazy.

Sista, sista!

To Melia, thank you for being my best friend, mentor and confidante for the past 25 years. You are amazing for planning such a perfect celebration. I adore you.

To my girls who were there and to those who couldn’t make it, I love you all and can’t wait until we can get together again. Vegas next year?

I used to tease Brian by asking obnoxious questions like, “What would you do if I wrote you love letters printed in Papyrus?” or “What if my favorite font were Comic Sans?” Brian was not amused. His answer to the former question was, “If you did that, you’d either not know me at all or you’d know me very well and would be actively trying to hurt me. I don’t know what’s worse.” He wouldn’t even answer the other question.

This may sound silly, but design is very, very important to Bri. He values aesthetics, which I guess I should take as a compliment. He designed all of the printed materials for our wedding, centering them around the quote we used for our save-the-dates: “Love doesn’t make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile” (Franklin P. Jones). Well played, Brian. Well played. Though I think Curlz really would have added a certain something…

Invitation

Map

RSVP postcard

Wedding favor CD label

Wedding CD cover

Wedding CD song list

I told you this would be all out of order. I tried for about five minutes to write about the wedding in sequence, but I’ve already given up the idea that I can think or write in a linear fashion. I’m embracing my moderate-to-severe adult ADD and will write about things as I think about them. It is my blog, after all, so no judgment.

I’d like to take a moment to pay homage to a special man… someone who brings out the best in me and who tries to overlook my flaws and shortcomings. That man, of course, is our wedding photographer, Marc Pagani.

All photos by Marc Pagani

I don’t think I can overstate my adoration for Marc (I swear not in a creepy, I’m-watching-you-right-now kind of way). As a former phot-ho myself, it was really essential for me to find a photographer who would take beautiful, creative and, most importantly, non-vomit-inducing pictures. I feel a little ill every time I see a soft-focus image of a newlywed couple’s left hands intertwined.

I came across the Wedding Photojournalist Association way back in January and thought I had died and gone to heaven. Finally, photographers who take original, interesting photos that really capture the excitement and emotion of weddings.

I looked at all the WPA photographers in New Orleans, and Marc was head and shoulders above the rest. His portfolio was incredible, and I immediately emailed him to see if he was available for our wedding day. At one point, a few other couples were inquiring about January 17 before we had signed a contract and put down a deposit. I told Marc we were prepared to duke it out with these other people and would like to nail down the date before things got ugly. He responded, “I think you could take these other couples if it came to blows.” That’s when I knew we’d get along just fine.

He showed up the morning of the wedding to take getting ready pictures of the girls. I hadn’t slept at all the night before, was wearing no makeup and looked a little like Charlize Theron in that movie where she played a serial killer. HOTT. God bless him, he didn’t take many close-ups until I had finished my coffee and was looking more like a real human female, thanks to the magic of make-up.

For the rest of the day, Marc was amazing. He was a good taskmaster during the group portraits (wrangling 40 people takes a certain kind of patience I don’t possess) and then completely unobtrusive the rest of the day. Whenever the thought, “Oh, that’ll be a nice shot; I hope Marc gets it,” crossed my mind, I’d look around and he’d already be there, shooting away. He may have been a spy before he became a photographer… cat-like reflexes.

We were only supposed to have him shoot until 8 p.m., but the party was just getting into full swing then, so he generously rearranged his schedule so he could stay until 10. If any of y’all are getting married in NOLA soon, I can’t recommend Marc highly enough.

And, as if he needed any more brownie points, he wrote this about us in his wedding photography blog: “Gillian and Brian are one of THOSE couples…you know the type…happy….in love…they make each other laugh…they throw fun parties.  I love shooting THOSE kind of couples!” Awesome. We do throw fun parties.

Check out the rest of Marc’s portfolio and the rest of his photos from our wedding.

At our wedding and rehearsal dinner, we received some beautiful toasts from our friends and family. I pretty much cried and laughed like a crazy person throughout every speech at our wedding, and I’m hoping to post some videos if I can track any down (all you Flip Cam videographers, give me a holla).

Just when I thought I was done getting teary, Lil Lisa sucker punched me with this written tribute. Lisa, we love you, and this is perhaps the nicest thing anyone has ever written about me.

I returned to DC on Sunday from the the best wedding I’ve ever attended. What made it the best was not that it was giant or showy or expensive (none of the above); rather, it was the overwhelming feeling of love and positivity and happiness that surrounds this couple. They are people who open others’ eyes, who make everyone around them better and happier. Bri and Gill are excellent apart, but together they form a beautiful team, a rarity among couples, and a ridiculously good-looking pair. They give me hope for my future, because I want for myself a version of what they already have. They are an inspiration; I am honored and blessed to be part of their lives.

I know I’m not the only person who feels this way. It was fairly evident in the 10 or so toasts that were made at the wedding that everyone they know has a story to share or feelings to express about them (on that note, let’s congratulate Ma and Pa Burgess for not aborting Brian … OK, I’ll leave that speech alone).

And as if they weren’t great enough, they know how to pick some cool, talented friggin’ friends. I haven’t met anyone through them that I DON’T like. Brian’s friends that I hadn’t met before were fun, exciting and hilarious. Gill’s friends were, of course, the same.

To my friends, to all of our mutual college friends, you are the most welcoming, honest, down-to-earth people I know. It’s only among true friends that I am comfortable, willing to be myself without fear of being laughed at or judged. We accept each others’ faults and embrace each others’ strengths, and that isn’t easy to find. We can go months or years without talking and still slip easily into conversation, back into the old groove again. We encourage each other to reach for our dreams and never, ever settle. When someone is down, we do not dwell on the negative, but offer kindness and support until that person is up again. I can’t count the times throughout the past few years where one of you has lent a shoulder or an ear; Gill and Brian supporting me through my West Coast man troubles; Chuck letting me cry on him when I finally realized that my anxiety was too much to handle by myself; Kaila reassuring me and letting me know that I’m not alone; sharing copy desk shenanigans with Katie Ide; and so much more. You have all made me a better person.

If any one of you is ever hurt, I will be there to stand by your side or to elbow the fuck out of the person who caused the pain.

It is my hope that we stay lifelong friends, perhaps because I really want to see some hot biracial babies! Awww yeah. My adopted Chinese daughter is totally gonna marry one of the Burgess-Dicker kids one day.

This is my toast to Brian and Gill – keep doing what you’re doing, don’t stop believin’, et cetera. Get ready for everyone to visit you in Hawaii. Oh, and nothing’s official until it’s on facebook, so you’re not really married yet.

Why, hello, friends. It has been far too long. It seems I went and got married since I last updated No Dowry.

Beautiful photo montage by my cousin, Jeremy Mau

The last time I posted, on January 12, I had these lofty goals for the week of the wedding. I was going to blog daily about the last-minute madness before the wedding– the mini sweatshop of friends putting together wedding favors and centerpieces in our living room, the headache of wrangling florists and babysitters and chauffeurs, the wave of friends and family flying in town before the bachelor/bachelorette parties and rehearsal– and hilarity would ensue.

Yeah… the funny thing about all that madness is that it leaves very little time for witty commentary. I was pretty much a crazy hermit lady with 100 to-do lists instead of 100 cats.

Now that Brian and I are all married and back from our honeymoon, I want to go back and reflect on our wedding weekend in a series of posts (accompanied by lots and lots of photos). I’ve been so wrapped up in planning everything that I didn’t fully grasp how incredible and emotional it would be to celebrate our marriage surrounded by the people who are most important to us.

All weekend, from the bachelorette party to the morning-after recovery party at Molly’s, I kept looking around in amazement at our high school friends, our college friends, our families, our work friends, everyone in one place and getting along famously. I got verklempt more times than I can count. I love you guys, and you made our wedding the best damn party I could have hoped for.

Photo courtesy of Miss Lisa Campo

So, over the next few weeks, you can expect to read more than you ever wanted to know about the following topics (probably not in order and woven in with what’s going on at the moment):

• Last-minute preparations and the final designs from my talented husband (I’ve been practicing using that word, but it still does not come naturally. For the record, I will never use the word “hubby.”)
•  The bachelorette party, organized by my amazing sister and maid of honor, Melia
• The day before the wedding– martinis for lunch and insomnia for dinner
• The wedding day, night and after-party into the wee hours
• The honeymoon– two glorious weeks in Panama and the Caribbean

In the meantime, some of our friends have already written beautiful posts about the wedding. Read and enjoy:

Ide:

• This time, I mean it.
• Blam!

Gener:

• Best Wedding Ever. No. Seriously. Part I.
  
• Part II.
• Part III.
• Part IV.

Lisa:

• where has the time gone? 
• With her permission, I may later post the incredible post-wedding toast she wrote.

Kathleen:

• La Mia Famiglia

Thank the Lord, the day has finally come. We finished our laughably bad pre-cana class tonight. I can’t put the joy and relief we feel into words. This calls for a celebration. Champagne for everyone!

In all fairness, there were a few useful parts of the last two lessons (two out of seven ain’t… well, no, that’s pretty bad). One was about forgiveness in relationships and how important it is in marriage, and there were a couple of good questions that actually encouraged us to talk to each other and not just regurgitate doctrine. OK, a promising start…

And then they threw these questions in: “Do you think watching pornography can hurt your relationship? Why? How can you avoid pornography becoming a problem in your life?”

Wait, what? I thought we were talking about forgiveness! Somehow our conversation about communication and compassion turned into a lecture on the evils of porn. Way to be a buzzkill, people.

Anyway, no use dwelling anymore. The bottom line is we are DONE. And they have to let us pass go and receive our certificate of participation… even after they read the very long feedback questionnaire we filled out after our last lesson. We win!