So, it would appear I spoke way too soon of "free weekends" in this post. While I had half of the big items done, there were still other things to deal with, such as (1) registering for marriage preparation, (2) booking a Catholic church and priest to officiate at our wedding, and, what I'm finding is the toughest of them all, (3) getting a wedding photographer. To top things off, I had an incredibly intense start to the work year, for reasons I'll talk about another time. For now, I'd like to talk about what we got up to in January in relation to our wedding.
(1) Marriage Preparation Course
This turned out to be far easier than I thought. First, I was referred to my parish, rather than the church I attend, as our wedding will be taking place overseas, so it's my parish priest who needs to ensure that I am properly prepared for marriage. I was a little dismayed by that as I haven't been to my parish ever since I moved here. Instead, I've gone to the one I used to go when I was in university, or, if I can get up early enough, the one nearer where I live. So, having read good things (in terms of how easy-going the priest is) of the one near me, I decided to speak to him first and see if I could get him to help us with the marriage preparation. Lo and behold, he was more to happy to put me down, after commencing with (when I rang him up), "You're getting married! Congratulations! Is that wise?" So, that was that. We'll be attending the course in March, six months before we get married, so that the paperwork can be completed in time and sent to Singapore.
(2) Booking a church and a priest
Now, this started out rather annoying. I e-mailed my preferred church in Singapore before Christmas only to be told to enquire after the holidays were over. So I followed up in January... and again... and called, but to no avail. In the end, it took my parents intervening (i.e. going up to the priest and handing him a print-out of my e-mails) before the church assistant got back to me. In a rather amusing episode, the assistant told my father that he was too late as a lady from London had already booked the church on that day. But, in any case, she confirmed that the church was mine to use, and, boom, this was done before the end of January. I rock!
I've booked the priest as well, but still need to get back to them as to the exact time I need the priest. This is, of course, far, far harder than most people realise. Knowing the exact time I need the priest means knowing my plan for the wedding day, and whether I want to have the infamous gatecrashing or not. My friends, as it turns out, would love for me to have this, even though it's them who would have to conduct the bridal games. That said, having the gatecrashing means pushing our wedding service to noon thereabouts, which means we end up having to provide lunch of some kind.
It also means that we won't have time to do the tea ceremony, but, hey, maybe we can postpone that to the day after? I think it'll be a nice touch, which is why I still want to have the ceremony rather than eliminating it all together, but the wedding day itself is already going to be pretty tight for time.
(3) Wedding photography
Now, this... this is difficult. Photography is so personal, and it's lucky that my fiance and I have similar tastes. Unfortunately, it's also expensive taste, and, at the rate we're going, our wedding day photography is going to cost us more than £3k. Ouch! I mean, we even entertained flying someone over from the UK to take photos because their day rate was more affordable than some Singaporean photographers, but, at the end of the day, we still have concerns over how well they know the country and the venues, not to mention what happens if they fall ill!
I'll write more about my favourites some other day. This post is long enough!
No comments:
Post a Comment