...the whole day felt like a dream, but our wedding bands assure us otherwise!
When
Robby and I were talking after getting married, about writing our
success story for Catholic Match, we jokingly said "Should we tell them
the long version, or the short version??" Well, we decided to do a
little bit in between.
As our Relationship & Engagement success
stories show, we met in 2004 on CM and became engaged in the summer of
2005. We married at St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Jacksonville, FL on
September 18, 2005. When we became engaged, we originally discussed and
planned for a wedding in 2007. After meeting with Father, we decided to
plan for our wedding to be on May 20, 2006. We even designed a website
to celebrate our upcoming marriage, which should be active for about
another year... Little did we know that we'd move the date up one more
time, but God works in mysterious ways.
Over the last two months
or so, I (Jenni) have developed some (currently unknown/undiagnosed)
medical problems that landed me in the emergency room and hospital
multiple times over a short period of time. We wanted to get married
earlier because of my health problems, and for insurance purposes,
since the cost of bills for my health would kill us otherwise. We knew
that "legally" we could have a civil marriage and "elope" but neither
of us wanted to do that. Both of us are recent converts (in the last
three years) to the Catholic faith and we couldn’t imagine getting
married anywhere except before the eyes of God in the Catholic Church.
We met with Fr. at Church, and made arrangements to be married earlier,
in a small, quiet ceremony on a Sunday afternoon. Somehow, with the
help of our friends, family and loved ones, we organized a small
ceremony and reception for about twenty-five people in a little over a
week.
What was important to us was our marriage, so the simple
wedding ceremony was a blessing for us to give the Sacrament of
Marriage to each other on that magical day!! We had a number of close
family members fly in from Illinois, California & Florida. The
night before the wedding, my dad went into the hospital, he had passed
out and hit his head on the cement.
Robby and I ended up
spending the entire night before our wedding keeping ourselves awake
with my mother outside the ICU, waiting for word on my dad and being
able to visit him occasionally. We both got maybe two hours sleep that
morning before we had to run around and prepare for the wedding. My dad
begged and pleaded with the nurses, but there was no way they could
release him from the hospital for him to walk me down the aisle. But
still... the wedding goes on! My older brother walked me down the
aisle, the wedding started almost forty-five minutes late because of
all of the circumstances, but in the end... we exchanged our vows
before God and the Church and became one as Man and Wife. We had a
small reception at a restaurant owned by a parishioner at our Church,
then took the cake and the wedding party to the hospital for a small
and brief celebration with my dad so he could see me in my wedding
dress.
Regardless of all that went on, God has blessed us by
giving us the gift of this Sacrament sooner. Robby and I continue to
pray to God to strengthen our marriage through His love. Our prayers
together, to God, through the Church, through Mary our Mother, and
through all the Saints, has brought us together in every circumstance.
We were both so tired on our wedding day, the whole day felt like a
dream, but our wedding bands assure us otherwise!
Both Robby and
I are extremely blessed by all we have learned on CM through the forums
(esp. in the Canon Room and likewise discussions of our faith). Not
only has God blessed us through CM by finding our spouse, we each also
have many wonderful friends that we now correspond with and visit with
as often as possible. Sometimes we think we'll miss the excitement on
Catholic Match, but God has blessed us in so many ways we know it is
time to focus on our marriage and moving forward in our lives together
as husband and wife.
Thank you again, Catholic Match!
Side note:
I have Dr's appointments this week to recieve treatment and hopefully
will have diagnosis and this issue will be solved soon. My dad was
released two nights after my wedding, and is currently healing. All
prayers would be appreciated!
