It's Official...

We are now certified to become husband and wife. To get married in the Catholic Church you must first complete a three step marriage counseling/preparation course. The three steps are:

1. Be dating for a least six months (Trust me, we had this one covered)
2. The FOCUS portion, where basically you take a questionnaire and you answer questions about things you have/will discussed and then compare those answers while talking to a married couple, and
3. Participate in a group marriage preparation course.

Today was our last day of the three step process. We now have our certificate from the Catholic Diocese of Biloxi and are officially ready to get married.

I honestly feel that this process has been extremely helpful and a great learning experience for both of us. There are always going to be those topics that one you don't think to talk about or two, don't want to bring it up. Well this preparation brings out all of those issues and topics and let's you discuss things.

At the beginning of this whole thing, I was honestly dreading the whole experience. I didn't want to talk to someone I didn't know about our life. I didn't want to spend a weekend day sitting in a classroom listening to someone talk about what we should do in order for our marriage to work. Now that the process is over, my feelings are completely different. I would honestly recommend for any of my friends getting married to take some sort of marriage preparation course. It has prepared us for marriage in more ways than I ever imagined.

This doesn't have anything to do with the marriage preparation course, but my sister recommended a book for Lamar and I to read. She received this book as a wedding present from someone and her and Shane read through it and found it to be extremely informational. It is called "Sheet Music" by Dr. Kevin Leman. Lamar and I have started reading this book together and found it very helpful to feel open enough to talk about intimate issues that otherwise not be brought up.

Well I guess that's enough marriage prep talk for now. More on wedding plans later. I can't believe we only have 3 months left. It's getting to be crunch time. Also, we could have really big news this coming week, so I'll keep you updated.