last night we met with the pastor who will be marrying us

Re: last night we met with the pastor who will be marrying us

• csuave member

  

  January 2014

  That is great!  And maybe a little bit of a relief?  Hopefully you will get some useful tools for your marriage.

  We were kind of nervous going into our first meeting.  Me because DH isn't very religious and DH because he didn't want to have to talk about his divorce.  Also we were not members of the church so we really didn't know the pastor at all.   

  All four meetings went very well and Pastor Bruce was great.  I think DH actually left the meetings with a much better understanding of my religion and an improved attitude towards religion in general.  Especially after Pastor Bruce said our gay best man would be more than welcome in the church (ELCA).

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• dramamonkey member

  

  January 2014

  The rabbi who married DH and I gave us homework after the first time we met with him. We had to, separately, send him our answers to the following questions: 

  
  

  1. How did we meet?

  2. What was our first date?

  3. How did we know that he/she was "the one" 

  4. What is your favorite thing about the other person? 

  5. What, if anything, would you change about the other person. 

  
  

  We never saw one another's answers, and he incorporated it into the "homily" at our ceremony. It was really nice to reflect on these questions as we were engaged. Made me think about and put words to how I felt about DH. 

  
  

  The Rabbi said he actually gets some couples who give long.bulleted.detailed. answers for #5. Those couples have more sessions prior to the wedding. 

  
  

  We ha a nice moment in one of our meetings when the Rabbi mentioned that for DH's answer to #5 he put that he wished I would "treat myself" more. I got a little mushy at that one and almost cried. (I had put that I wish he was a little less of a homebody). 

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• pumpkinsandturkeys member

  

  January 2014

  We've had three meetings with our pastor, and have our final one in March to discuss all of the ceremony details. FI is not religious at all and I grew up in both Catholic and Mennonite churches, so we agreed to compromise and have a semi-religious ceremony outside of a church.

  
  

  Our pastor actually had us do a giant survey after our first meeting -- Prepare and Enrich, I think. We each take the survey online, and it asks about all sorts of things like what your family was like growing up, your expectations of your partner, how you view your relationship and yourself, etc. 

  
  

  Your officiant gets the results, and it identifies both strength areas and growth areas for you as a couple. From there, we spent a couple of sessions discussing those areas, and we were giving worksheets and activities we can do as a couple to help our relationship grow stronger than it already is. The nice thing is it doesn't 'score' you as a couple or predict success/failure -- it was a really nice way to see things we already knew about ourselves and each other and relate to them in a different way.

  
  

  
  

  
  

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• cruffino member

  

  January 2014

  @csuave, @dramamonkey, @pumpkinsandturkeys: its so interesting what the different faiths require, yet how similar they all are. fi and i were both raised catholic and still attend catholic mass semi-regularly, but i have so many differences with the catholic church that i did not want to marry there. so we chose a non-denominational christian church instead. 

  
  

  we did go to the engaged encounter weekend (catholic marriage prep) back in november and i loved it. focusing on the spiritual aspect of our marriage has been the most meaningful part of this engagement process to me.

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• pumpkinsandturkeys member

  

  January 2014

  @cruffino -- that's how I felt about a Catholic church wedding, too. I'm comfortable in church, but I didn't feel as though a Catholic wedding was right for either of us. The pastor who's marrying us is from my dad's Mennonite church and is really laid-back and relaxed, which is exactly what we wanted (while still having a spiritual aspect).

  
  

  
  

  
  

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• cruffino member

  

  January 2014

  pumpkinsandturkeys said:

  @cruffino -- that's how I felt about a Catholic church wedding, too. I'm comfortable in church, but I didn't feel as though a Catholic wedding was right for either of us. The pastor who's marrying us is from my dad's Mennonite church and is really laid-back and relaxed, which is exactly what we wanted (while still having a spiritual aspect).

  so glad someone else gets it! yes, i'm a sort-of-practicing catholic, but no, i do not want to get married there, but yes, i do think there are lovely things about the catholic church overall. see, not so complicated....lol.

  
  

  fmil looked so confused when she realized the church we chose is not catholic. it was a priceless moment.

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• dramamonkey member

  

  January 2014

  csuave said:

  That is great!  And maybe a little bit of a relief?  Hopefully you will get some useful tools for your marriage.

  We were kind of nervous going into our first meeting.  Me because DH isn't very religious and DH because he didn't want to have to talk about his divorce.  Also we were not members of the church so we really didn't know the pastor at all.   

  All four meetings went very well and Pastor Bruce was great.  I think DH actually left the meetings with a much better understanding of my religion and an improved attitude towards religion in general.  Especially after Pastor Bruce said our gay best man would be more than welcome in the church (ELCA).

  
  

  STUCK IN BOX: 

  
  

  DH and I were apprehensive going into our meetings too. He's divorced. He's not Jewish (raised in a Southern Baptist home, now not much of anything . But we truly ended up enjoying every session we had with the Rabbi. 
  
  If you've ever seen the show "The Middle" - I likened Rabbi Sunny to Rev. Tim-Tom on that show. 

  I agree -it's really interesting to see how different faiths approach the same topic. 

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• lovesclimbing member

  

  January 2014

  pumpkinsandturkeys said:

  We've had three meetings with our pastor, and have our final one in March to discuss all of the ceremony details. FI is not religious at all and I grew up in both Catholic and Mennonite churches, so we agreed to compromise and have a semi-religious ceremony outside of a church.

  
  

  Our pastor actually had us do a giant survey after our first meeting -- Prepare and Enrich, I think. We each take the survey online, and it asks about all sorts of things like what your family was like growing up, your expectations of your partner, how you view your relationship and yourself, etc. 

  
  

  Your officiant gets the results, and it identifies both strength areas and growth areas for you as a couple. From there, we spent a couple of sessions discussing those areas, and we were giving worksheets and activities we can do as a couple to help our relationship grow stronger than it already is. The nice thing is it doesn't 'score' you as a couple or predict success/failure -- it was a really nice way to see things we already knew about ourselves and each other and relate to them in a different way.

  Our pastor had H and I do that during pre-marital counseling.  I think it was really helpful in getting us to talk about stuff.  Most of the stuff, we lined up pretty well on.  However, there was one thing I knew I needed to talk to him about and actually checking the box on the survey and having the pastor ask me about it made it much easier to talk about, rather than me bringing it up.

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• pumpkinsandturkeys member

  

  January 2014

  lovesclimbing said:

  pumpkinsandturkeys said:

  We've had three meetings with our pastor, and have our final one in March to discuss all of the ceremony details. FI is not religious at all and I grew up in both Catholic and Mennonite churches, so we agreed to compromise and have a semi-religious ceremony outside of a church.

  
  

  Our pastor actually had us do a giant survey after our first meeting -- Prepare and Enrich, I think. We each take the survey online, and it asks about all sorts of things like what your family was like growing up, your expectations of your partner, how you view your relationship and yourself, etc. 

  
  

  Your officiant gets the results, and it identifies both strength areas and growth areas for you as a couple. From there, we spent a couple of sessions discussing those areas, and we were giving worksheets and activities we can do as a couple to help our relationship grow stronger than it already is. The nice thing is it doesn't 'score' you as a couple or predict success/failure -- it was a really nice way to see things we already knew about ourselves and each other and relate to them in a different way.

  Our pastor had H and I do that during pre-marital counseling.  I think it was really helpful in getting us to talk about stuff.  Most of the stuff, we lined up pretty well on.  However, there was one thing I knew I needed to talk to him about and actually checking the box on the survey and having the pastor ask me about it made it much easier to talk about, rather than me bringing it up.

  I found it really helpful for that, too! We're very similar in a lot of ways, and the ways in which we're dissimilar are things we're already aware of, but it was great having a neutral third-party summarize everything.

  
  

  I agree that being able to be honest via a private questionnaire made it much easier to address any bigger issues, for both of us. I'd recommend that program to any engaged/married couple.

  
  

  
  

  
  

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