MARRIAGE MATTERS: Marriage prep a flurry of meetings, surprises and discussion

I was put in charge of two aspects of our wedding, which is now only about a month away: liturgy and liquor. The latter was easier to figure out than the former. There will be an open bar with champagne served throughout the reception.

The liturgy was a little trickier. Sarah and I picked the readings that we preferred, and found a former priest-professor of ours to come down to San Antonio and celebrate the Mass.

Sarah and I are big fans of music. In fact, one the first times we met, we listened to a bunch of Steely Dan in my dorm room out of tiny laptop speakers. I still can’t figure out if that made us incredibly hip or terribly outdated.

Anyway, music is going to be featured heavily at our wedding. At the reception, a mariachi band will wander the hall. We’re also having one of our favorite local bands drive out to play, and we’ll have a fully stocked iPod for the rest of the party.

We have a friend in San Antonio who sings Gregorian chant in a schola, and we asked him to chant the ordinary and propers of the Mass in Latin. And I thought we had an organist to play during Sarah’s procession to the altar, during Communion and to provide a suitably bombastic and triumphant recessional piece.

But I just found out the organist fell through. So, we’ll see what happens.

Testing the water

Preparing for this wedding has been a lot of realizing that what we are now settling, we should have done two months ago. That’s been apparent in our dealings with our parish.

I think the normal course of events when two Catholics decide to get married is that they meet first with their parish. The deacon or wedding coordinator gives them a checklist of things they need to complete and sets up further meetings for them to take the FOCCUS test — Facilitating Open Couple Communication, Understanding & Study, kind of a personality/expectations questionnaire — and to meet with the pastor.

We did things out of order because we wanted to get married as quickly as the Church and our schedules would allow. That turned out to be about seven months to the day from when I proposed; a quick turnaround considering many couples remain engaged for a year or more.

So, instead of first meeting with our parish’s deacon, we started throwing checks at all sorts of diocesan agencies and signing up for the first engagement weekend and series of Natural Family Planning classes available.

When we did meet with the deacon, it was a very pleasant experience. He gave us some books to read and asked about our history. We also had to separately swear to a list of questions that inquired to our proper disposition to marriage, which I think are kept in case of annulment proceedings.

We were also told to come in whenever to take the FOCCUS test, which we neglected to do for too long. I think my reticence in taking the test was owed to a little bit of fear as to what the results would yield, but mostly I am suspicious of tests, agencies and anything else whose names seem derived to form a cutesy acronym.

The test itself is written out as a series of statements to which the test-taker fills in a bubble reading “agree,” “disagree” or “unsure.” One statement might read, “My fiancée and I have discussed how we will share household duties,” or “I will be embarrassed to be seen naked by my spouse.”

That last one was almost verbatim what was on the test. It also covers topics like finances, extended family involvement in the rearing of children and other things.

Some of the statements were so specific that I can’t imagine any couple sitting down together to discuss them.

I mean, I understand why the FOCCUS test exists and the benefit there is to discussing certain roles and responsibilities before marriage. And, in few cases, because of the FOCCUS test, Sarah and I have already figured out some things that may have gone unsaid before our marriage.

Talking it over

But one of the things I’m most excited about marraige is all the surprises that will come with it, especially since we’re not cohabitating. The FOCCUS test read a little too much like those job expectation sheets you’re given when you start a new job, outlining your duties and responsibilities.

But what do I know, anyway? Apparently Sarah and I bombed the financial portion of the test, though I have it on good authority that most couples bomb at least one of the sections.

After you take the test, you have to meet with a married couple and go over the results. Because of our tardiness in taking the test, along with some miscommunication over which couple was responsible for contacting the other, we didn’t connect with our marriage mentors until very late in the game.

And we still haven’t met with them, because Sarah had to leave for Houston in late May to complete her master’s degree. We’ll meet with them over the course of two weekends a couple weeks before our wedding in July.

It should be interesting, considering our initial phone call with them can most charitably be described as awkward.

Mostly though, we’re just very ready to be married. The preparation process has been almost entirely edifying and helpful, but at a certain point, you get very tired of discussing your relationship ad nauseam with everyone. (Says the writer who bludgeons monthly the poor readers of The Catholic Sun with musings about said relationship.)

In the next installment, I should be able to report on the FOCCUS test meetings and ease your surely troubled minds with a report on finding a last-minute organist.

FOCCUS sample statements

Couples are asked to fill in “Agree,” “Disagree” or “Uncertain.”

We are in agreement about the husband and wife roles each of us expects of the other in our marriage relationship.
There are qualities about my future spouse that I do not respect.
We have discussed the ways our families solved problems and how this may affect our problem solving.
We disagree with each other over some teachings of the Church.
My future spouse and I have agreed we will not have children.
I am concerned that my in-laws may interfere in our marriage relationship.
My future spouse and I can talk about our sexual fears, hopes and preferences.
We are in agreement about how we will make financial decisions between us.
I sometimes feel that this may or may not be the right person for me to marry.
My future spouse and I agree that our marriage commitment means we intend to pledge love under all circumstances.