J and I had the distinct and scary experience of meeting the priest who will marry us this weekend. We're not going to be married by some priest who's known one of us since birth, but instead by a complete stranger who runs the show at Our Lady of Sorrows (Yes, that's correct. Quite an uplifting name for a church in which one gets married, right?). Since we were spending the weekend at the bay, we took a trip down the lovely country roads out there last Saturday morning at 9:30 a.m. First of all, upon hearing that time suggested by the priest, I got immediately nervous. 9:30 a.m. on our annual President's Day get together with college friends? But who's going to say no to a priest? He's given up nearly everything to serve the Lord and is letting us get married in his vessel of holiness even though we are, undoubtedly, sinners. 9:30 it would be. So we left our friends snug in bed after a night of beer drinking, took early showers and tried to look presentable, and then settled in for the car ride during which we went over our story. There were important details to discuss: where each of us lived, where we went to church, how often we attended and whatnot. J, I soon found, was much more nervous than me about stretching the truth to this man of God. I, instead, viewed it as a burden we were not putting on him, and therefore, doing him a favor. Does this guy want to lecture us? Probably not, I thought. Let's give him the easy way out.

When it was all said and done, things went fine. We met our priest, his two adorable dogs, and finally saw the inside of Our Lady, which contrary to the name, is a cheerful, old, adorable church. We went back home with our copy of "A Life Together" complete with 70's-style pictures of couples holding hands and presumably waiting until wedding night to hit it. They're happy, we're happy. We rejoined the weekend get together, opened up some beers and told everyone about our morning. We said maybe we'd even so go Sunday mass the next day. When the time came, however, there were baseball games to play and bars to check out. But I'm pretty sure we will be forgiven.