Author: MASadmin

Ikea is the funnest place on earth. Or is that Disneyland? Either way, I’m in love with Ikea.

My fiancee and I were spending a lazy Saturday inside this weekend. The weather was pretty bad – cool, rainy, and lots of fog – and we decided that we could subsist on some old chinese leftovers for food. My fiancee then noticed that the Ikea in Brooklyn was celebrating its one year birthday and there were going to be fireworks. The call of swedish meatballs were too much for her so I got off my lazy butt and we headed to Ikea.

Now, heading to Ikea is not easy when a) you live in Astoria and b) you don’t have a car. Subways and shuttle buses end up being your friends and limits the amount of things you can actually carry home. We arrived in the early evening after about 75 minutes on public transit, wandered the showroom, ate some delicious meatballs and Mac-n-Cheese (sharing entrees and drinks is the way to do it) and then hit the self-serve section. My fiancee had decided that she wanted to buy stuff for our wedding and glass jars were her targets.

We found a nice selection, I think. The tall ones in the back are 68 oz, the ones that are diamond shaped are about 61 oz, and those glass bowls will hold a lot of skittles. We spent a good twenty minutes laying out the different glassware, picking and choosing, and then trying to figure how much we could both carry back home. We put some stuff back, added things, and tried to decide what candy could go in what jars. Twizzlers and tootsie rolls were mentioned. Lollipops too. And figuring out where we were going to store 150 lbs of candy was talked about too. And don’t get me started on trying to figure out how to get that to the church. Ugh. I’ll think about that next year.

After the jars were loaded into the cart, we went through the mind numbingly slow process that is called checkout, bought an ice cream cone and a cinnamon bun, and then went outside and waited for fireworks. The fireworks display was quite good despite the low clouds. For fifteen minutes, the piers in Red Hook shook and all the car alarms in the nearby neighborhoods went off. We then jumped on the Water Taxi, walked across lower Manhattan, and trudged home.

Do you know that the 1941 edition of the worship book that the Lutheran Church used doesn’t have the marriage ceremony in it? It also doesn’t have an index or table of contents. I wonder if those two things are related.

My fiancee and I are in a weird spot with our upcoming wedding. We’re at the point where there isn’t a whole lot to do right now. I’m working on the website (which is slow going because there are some changes to the RSVP interface that I need to make). We ordered some postcards to stick in programs. We have 298 days or so till the big day so invitations don’t need to be ordered yet. And I pretty much figured out what I’m going to wear at the wedding (which I should make a post about). Oh. And we’ve started our pre-martial counseling with our church (I should make a post about that too). But, besides that, there isn’t much going on that needs our immediate attention. When you’re not too focused or worried about what type of bottle you need to serve some fancy ice tea, you don’t have a whole heck of a lot to do.

So, at church on Sunday, I flipped open one of the worship books in the pews. It was from 1941 which is 3 editions old at this point. I looked for a table of contents and there were none. I saw prayers and ceremonies for funerals, births, going on extended travels, etc. I didn’t see anything about getting married. I flipped open the 1978 edition and saw their wedding ceremony. It’s short and simple and leaves space for a few readings, some hymns, and even gives us the option to say our own vows (gross). Too bad I didn’t have a 2006 edition because I would have liked to see what the modern day ceremony was going to look like.

And as I looked at the books, I thought about the ceremony. My fiancee and I haven’t really chatted too much about it. My fiancee was thinking of asking her mom to pick some nice hymns to be sung at our wedding (to get her mom involved with the planning if she wants). That got me thinking. When you are getting married in a church that has a structured ceremony, your options for personalization is limited. Now, I personally think that is a GOOD thing theologically and culturally. Being married in a traditional ceremony carries with it the baggage that you are not only creating something new but also you are apart of something that spans history. And the vows to God, if taken seriously, are an added external reinforcement to what marriage is and should be. I like it. But when it comes to reading and hymns, the two parts of the ceremony that my fiancee and I have some options with, which ones should we pick?

So, now, every Sunday, I listen to what the choir director has chosen and see if it’s appropriate for my wedding day. Both my fiancee’s family and my family come from non-Lutheran religious traditions so I figured that we could sing A Mighty Fortress is Our God. You don’t get more Lutheran than that. But do I really want to sing so much about beating Satan on my wedding day? It’s a great tune and the theology behind it is fantastic but it’s my day, not Satan’s day. Why can’t the hymns be about me? :p

Yeah, I know, that’s a ridiculously bad attitude to have when you’re getting married in a church. I don’t believe like the Catholics that marriage is a sacrament but I do approach marriage with an attitude that matches that level of seriousness. Man is not to be alone as God is not alone in the Holy Trinity. So maybe I, or my fiancee, or her mom, can figure out some hymns focused less on defeating Satan and more on God’s relationship to us, Jesus’s love, and maybe His experience with Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Or maybe we’ll just break out in A Mighty Fortress because I know that would make all our Lutheran pals pretty happy. We’ll see.