Wedding Wednesday: Volume I

Whoop Whoop! It's Wedding Wednesday!
To start off, we've got a little announcement:

Maybe a little too excited about this. I just thought it was catchy! So now that we're officially engaged, the wedding planning is beginning and it is SO.MUCH.FUN.

Once we got the biggest thing out of the way that is....did you know that most venues fill up a year in advance?! Talk about pretty scary stuff for a bride-to-be to be handling on her own. Thank goodness for a handsome groom-to-be who helped find an open venue at a decent price. It's a beautiful place!

I'll announce where it will be later when all the deets are sorted out.

So what do you do when you have this huge life altering step your about to take?

I'll tell you what we're going to do. We started reading a few books by some of our favorite authors!

"This Momentary Marriage" by John Piper

"The Meaning of Marriage" by Timothy Keller

&

"Love & Respect" by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs

We're also going to pre-marital counseling. Counseling with our pastor of course, but we are also taking "Making Marriage Make Sense" at a church called Highpoint in our city. We've heard wonderful things and can't wait to go this spring.

I LOVE wedding planning so far! It's so much fun to have a checklist of things to be done. I love lists. I'm such a list maker! When I get to check something else off, I feel so accomplished.

Have any of you heard of mywedding.com ? They have an amazing checklist that covers everything from a year before the wedding, right down to the day of the wedding. They even have a way to make your own website for guests to find out information about the wedding. I'm in the process of making one now :)

Even though planning a wedding is important, preparing for the actual marriage is far more important. The life that Matthew and I will spend together will be about more than a one day celebration. It will be more than a flower arrangement or the food. It will be more than the "perfect dress" or centerpieces. Honestly,  what it is really about is two people who are coming together & promising before everyone that they will do the best of their ability to further the kingdom of Christ & to love each other unconditionally.

Marriage is about being real with each other and with everyone around them. It's not about trying to make their life seem perfect. Marriage is about pointing each other to Christ, building their ministry and opening their home. It's not about selfish decisions or only looking out for #1. 

You give a lot of yourself up in marriage. You put yourself second and always look to your spouses needs first. You cry together, pray together, and get back up together. You fight for love and you do your best to show who Christ is in every single thing you do. 

I realize it won't always be easy. I personally am awful with serious conversations. I just am not a serious person! Not at all actually. Whenever Matthew and I do have a serious conversation, he usually says in either the beginning or the end " I will always love you Lacey Beth" and every time I come out with " AND IIIIIIIIII WILL ALWAYS LOVVVVEE YOUUUUUUUUUU" by Celine Dion with dramatic hand movements.....I know I know mature right??

All that to say, I know we will have serious conversations a lot in marriage, and its something I'll have to work on. There will actually be a lot I will have to work on. Because  when two sinners come together, it's not always just a fairytale. It will be messy...because we are both sinners, "but where sin increased, grace increased all the more."(Romans 5:20)

Marriage is worth it. 

Matthew is worth it.

Christ is worth it.

xoxo,

Lacey Beth