guess now it's official

bonus points for you if you can guess what song the subject line came from :)

Today, we took one step closer to be officially married on 8/29 - the marriage license!


Now, I don't know about you, but my political leanings favor a government that makes the most of my tax money, not wastefully spends it etc. Can I tell you that getting the license was a pretty inefficient and silly process? First we got the form. Then we had to fill it out, but oh no, we couldn't sit anywhere we pleased, we had to sit at a certain counter, even though the closer tables had marriage license signs on them. Hmmm. I wanted to say "you know, my tax money probably paid for part of this table that you won't let me sit at, even though there is NO ONE else around." Then we presented not 2 forms of ID, but just one. Our drivers licenses. I guess GA doesn't really question who you are. The clerk took her time and then we had to go to yet another counter to pay and then come back to the original counter. Whew. I really wanted to say something about this convoluted process but I saved my rant til after we got outside. And I saved my rant for tonight so I could share it with all of you. Did anyone else have a similar experience? Or is this just a Fulton County anomaly?

Another funny note - free group weddings on Fridays at the courthouse. I almost want to go just to witness it!

Anyway, there it is. The license. It expires in a year so no worries about that! Haha. And we actually paid for it with a monetary gift from one of the ladies at my church back home. So thank you Mrs. Rooks :) And it was discounted because of our premarital counseling. Yay! Dr. Jon gets to sign the license on 8/29 and then we send that back off to the govt and then get our real marriage certificate. Yippee!!

marriage advice

So Ryan & I went out to dinner last night with a couple from church. They are a couple years older than us and just got married a year go. We had a great time fellowshipping with them, and they gave us some good marriage advice, some of which I had never thought about. Like...Ryan & I are going to pre-marital counseling in May, which is awesome, but what about post-marital counseling? I had never heard of this concept! But it sounds like a good idea, a good way to work through things after you're actually married and walking out the things you've learned & talked about before marriage. The word "counseling" has a stigma to it these days, like you only need it if things are going wrong. But we should really approach it as "preventative maintenance", to steal David's analogy. And this concept of a Deuteronomy...in Deuteronomy 24:5, the men who had just been married were ordered to spend a year at home with their wives instead of going to war. So making sure that we take extra time to focus on the first year of marriage and not take on anything extra...life is busy enough as it is and we should really enjoy that first year! And every yr...but you get the idea.

I'm sure there are many wise couples out there that want to share their advice :) Feel free to leave us some in the comments, or make sure you find us in August!