You're Getting Married WHEN?!

When I realized that Caitlin would most likely be getting engaged, I was thinking..."A Summer Wedding".  It would only be a mere 2 years since David's wedding and these children of mine were not obeying the "3 Year Wedding Rule".  For those of you who did not read through our last "wedding adventure", I declared at the end of it that there was going to be this "3 Year Rule", which stated that I HAD to have at LEAST 3 years between each wedding to recuperate.  HA!  WHO was I kidding?  I had given birth every other year, thus causing me to have a child graduating from high school every other year...which also had 3 OF THEM in college at the same time once...WHAT WAS I THINKING?!  Oh, I remember now..."I will get  them all out of the 'diaper stage' quickly".  Well, it appears that the "diaper stage' was actually one of the LEAST EXPENSIVE stages in their lives!

Less than 24 hours later, Caitlin and Kevin had chosen a wedding date (I'm still thinking a June wedding at this point...).  "OK; lay it on me", I said.  "May 26th".  WOW!...A May wedding.  May is that month that is just chocked full for us:  The first week alone consists of, Ryan's birthday, my anniversary, Mother's Day and this year, Caitlin's graduation from college.  Mid May, David and Kevin will both graduate from medical school in Kentucky.  MAY?!...SERIOUSLY?!  And then it hit me...That's Memorial Day Weekend!  They explained that they knew this, but Kevin would be starting his residency approximately 2 weeks after his graduation so it was the ONLY time they could get married.  This information was given to me on a Saturday, so naturally I had to wait until Monday to see if the church was even available.

I called the church on Monday morning and they told me that, that was the ONLY available date for a wedding in May; everything else had already been booked.  I sent someone down with a couple of checks to secure the date and breathed a sigh of relief.  I could check that off of my list; I was feeling pretty good...that is UNTIL the "packet" arrived. 

My mother-in-law brought the "packet" by from the church.  I looked at this thickly stapled together bunch of papers and all I could see was rules...and bold print words...and tabbed papers that needed to be signed and returned ASAP.  I looked at those papers for about 30 seconds and said, "I don't ever read those kind of things.  It's sort of like the Student Handbook they give you in high school; I always just flipped to the signature pages, signed them and sent them back" (only worrying about what could be in there if someone got in trouble...).  My mother-in-law laughed at me and then said (while flipping through the pages...), "I think you better read over these."  OK, so I picked them up and just thumbed through them and my eyes STOPPED on something I deemed important:  There will be NO weddings planned on holiday weekends; included was Memorial Day Weekend!  Now THAT got my attention quickly!!!

While I was pacing around, now worrying about the wedding date, Robby decided to sit down and actually read the "packet" in its entirety (he's good at that sort of stuff anyway...).  He said there would be no problem with anything in it, told me to sign the papers and all I kept saying was, "WHERE will we have the wedding if the church is not available?!...It NEEDS to be in a church!"  Clearly I was a little panicked about the situation (although I had stated at the beginning of this thing that I would NOT let anything upset me...)  Calmly he said, "Stop worrying about that until you call them tomorrow".  OK...what else could I do?

I actually called the pastor's assistant at home and left her a voice message to check that date again when she got to the office the next day since I noticed that Memorial Day weddings would not be booked.  First thing the next morning, she returned my call.  She had looked over the papers as well and sure enough it HAD stated that.  She explained that those papers had been drawn up by her predecessor and to give her an hour; she would check things out.

Within an hour, I received a phone call to let me know that Memorial Day Weekend had been approved for our wedding!  WHEW!...I was SO glad that had worked out.  What next?  Caitlin would be coming in for the weekend so perhaps we would line up some venues to visit for the reception site...Oh, and the band; we needed to book the band for the reception too!  SO much to do...NOW you know why I NEED a "wedding planner"; SOMEONE has to be organized (and calm...) around here!