Progress

Well, we have started to begin this whole crazy thing! Getting married in Germany is much more complicated than getting married in the good ole' USA. There is tons of paperwork to fill out and then submit to the state that we live in. Then, once we get permission (yes, folks, they don't just hand out marriage licenses here like in the U.S.) we set a date with the Standesamt, either a Tuesday or a Friday, and we basically just have a "courthouse" ceremony to make it legal. Church weddings and the like are optional here and hold no legal bearing. That stinks, but we are still filling out stuff to have our marriage blessed by the church. That is almost as important to us as legally being married.

As far as any kind of actual ceremony, i.e. a white dress and cake, etc., we were thinking about a destination wedding. We are looking into the logistics of it, but right now in particular we are looking into going to the Maldives and having a small ceremony, just the two of us, on the beach. More to follow, of course. And of course we would love suggestions!

Going to the chapel...

(A drawing of our Parish on base)

Well, Joel and I had our first meeting with our Parish priest today. It was intense! We went over lots of great stuff, and he asked some tough but important questions. He asked the simplest question, why do we want to get married? The answer was easy: Love. But it was more than that, too. We went over the important stuff: kids, family, values, and temptations. I am happy to say that we are both on the same page! Now comes the paperwork, so that our marriage will be blessed by the church. We both believe that faith plays a part in our relationship (both in each other, and in God) so we both think that doing so is an important step in our journey towards marriage. Living in Germany, we are only allowed a court marriage for legal purposes (church weddings over here hold no legal bearing) so this is our way of making it legal and sealing our love in the church.

Our engagement!

We (our friends call us Joel and Kristen) got engaged on February 12, 2010. Since we have the privilege of living in Germany, we decided to take a trip to Rome since it was a holiday weekend for the both of us. I (this is Kristen typing) had already been, and I wanted to make sure that Joel saw my favoritest thing in all of Europe...the Trevi fountain! While we were there, sneaky Joel, who knew that this was my favorite spot, grabbed my hand when we were leaving, got down on one knee, and asked me to be his wife. With a proposal like that...how could I say no? So we are engaged...to be married, is the caveat that he always adds. More to come later, including pics of the ring, but here is a picture of us right after we got engaged.

Aren't we cute???