11 months to go!

11 months remain until Adam's and my wedding day!  Woooohoooooo!

As of this writing, all the vendors have been secured (well, almost).  I need to drop off a deposit check in the mail next week when I return from a work trip in Florida.

You know what the coolest thing about the vendors is??

The majority of them are friends from the Catholic Young Adults group I was a part of before moving to North Carolina.

Our photographer is the super awesomely talented Juliana Tomlinson!  I must find time to write about hers and my connection very soon.  It's a neat story.

Our DJ is a pretty cool guy I got to know through attending a Haiti Benefit Dance our friend Lisa coordinated a few years ago in May 2010 *this dance was on the night I made the decision to leave A and go to school in NC!!* where he was the DJ and the Malvern Young Adult retreats in May 2011 and May 2012.  I would have never dreamt we would be enjoying Jon's musical talents in a different way in May 2015.

A loving friend who attended the Haiti Benefit Dance with me four years ago will also be playing a super sweet role next May.  She will be sharing her culinary and baking creations with our guests and us!

The videographer, BC Productions Entertainment Event Videography, is the only vendor I don't know personally but through his detailed emails and prompt responses, Adam and I feel very confident and thrilled with our decision to go with his services.

All this planning and excitement aside, nothing compares to the happiness that comes with knowing come next May, we will be united in such a holy sacrament.  Something we learned recently is the priest doesn't administer the sacrament of marriage to the bride and groom but rather the bride and groom are the only ones who can administer the sacrament of matrimony to one another...pretty cool stuff!  I'm so so so thrilled to know that I will be able to walk down such a familiar aisle from one life to a new one at the end of it.  I can't help but think of the wedding mass each time I go to mass on the weekends.  With each church I attend while home, whether it be St. Ann's, Annunciation, or St. Ambrose, I feel grateful for the fact that we will be able to marry at St. Joseph's.  For while these churches are the churches I grew up attending and have that sense of familiarity and history from my childhood, they don't represent where I've been and where I'm going like St. Joseph's does.  For this was the church where I went to my first face-to-face confession as an adult (with an Irish priest no less).  This building was where I would stop by when driving from school to school to say a quick prayer then continue with my day.  Those four walls were the ones that guarded me from outside doubters and critical naysayers of my faith when living in York.  It was in that building where I started developing my love of volunteering, specifically at the Catholic Harvest Food Pantry in downtown York.  I also subbed for Adoration each Thursday while a parishioner there.  I learned about the opportunity to coach basketball cheerleading (something I did for 8 years myself) by reading the bulletin in one of the pews.  Following up on the ad, I was cheer coach my last year living in PA.  So many homilies, and songs, that I heard in that beautiful sanctuary spoke straight to my heart and struck a chord deep inside me.  I've been in that facility during the highs and lows of my time in York.  There were times I sat in the pew fighting back tears as I stayed after mass and sat in the darkened sanctuary but there were also happy days there with my little brother when he visited me and my parents when we would go to mass before grabbing a bite to eat.

Working in York during my early 20s...going with the flow...being the only practicing Catholic as had always been the case....then moving there in my mid 20s which caused me to discover St. Joseph's gave me the courage to get more involved with my faith and start branching out and meeting others in my age group who also were practicing Catholics out in Lititz, Lancaster, West Chester, and back in Harrisburg where I had left to go live in York.  This was a radical departure from my college years and young adult living.  I can see how these steps further helped me to make the transition to NC and branching out and joining several Catholic Young Adult groups down there and I guess you could say even prepared me for this major life change of switching from teaching in the secular world to teaching at a Catholic university.

I suppose some brides would tell you they chose a wedding location by tradition because it was where she grew up or it is where she met her groom, or some may say the church is in their dream location as in a destination wedding.  Yes, York is definitely very convenient from major highways and in the middle of several airports.  I love the rich cultural history the town of York has to offer not to mention my roots there.  Many of my former coworkers (co-friends) and some of my best friends live there or in the surrounding areas so it would be convenient for many of the local guests but also not terribly far away for out of towners (well, except for the West Coast family...).

While distance and time away over the last four years has changed several of those relationships (some more hurtful than others), one thing has remained a constant for me.  For the regular readers of my blog, you will recognize that change does not come easy for me, especially when it comes to friendships and relationships.  However, the other night I read an article that stated this:

People sometimes change," says the wise sage.
No, people always change. They never stop changing. Life is change. Everything is moving, everything is transforming. Everything is changing, all of the time. Life is more of a river than a stagnant, mosquito-infested puddle.

WOW...!  I need to embrace change more.  This author is so right.  I mean...without all the changes I fought so hard against and clung to so tightly to try to keep from changing....I wouldn't be where I am today ~ eagerly looking ahead to a future with the man God brought into my life.  What if I had been closed off to possibilities because I was so busy looking in one direction or trying to hold on so tightly to something I should have let go of....the quote from that article reminds me yet again of a song I've posted on this blog at least once.  How ironic I should think of this song since I first heard it at the Young Adults Retreat in Malvern in May 2011 when our DJ coordinate it.  Love God's way of bringing things full circle sometime!

 So back to the one thing that has remained a constant for me amidst the swirling changes in life....that is the feeling I get when I enter the brown church over on Kingston Road.  I guess you could say this bride chose the wedding location because of the church.  Again, while many other brides are preoccupied with colors, flowers, dresses......I never really daydreamed about that sort of thing.  For being a somewhat traditional gal, I've been unconventional in that regard.  The wedding mass has always been what mattered most to me.  So, when Adam proposed...in the days that followed, the first things that entered my mind when thinking about wedding planning were can we have it at my old church in York, can we have Father Vince from NC, and can we have Fr. Jack from Boston?  As Meatloaf would say, two out of three ain't bad and we'll miss Fr. Vince.  Thankfully the groom was on board for an opposite coast wedding with a bunch of out of state connections..ha!  ;)  While the church may not necessarily be his preferred style of sanctuary, hopefully he won't mind and will feel some of the same peace I feel upon entering that building. 

Whew, this ended up being a much longer post than I intended.  Thanks for reading my rambling thoughts!  Pax!