The Wedding

Well, as you can guess, I’m married. Just to up date you all on the last few weeks, here is the whole story:

As many of you know, I have been very concerned over the fact that Nic was sealed to his ex-wife in the temple. While I know that men can be sealed to more than one woman, I wasn’t sure if we needed to take steps to make sure he could be sealed to me as well. We asked around and received conflicting opinions. We finally asked our bishop who called the stake president and we were assured that it only needed to state on his records that he was divorced. We then went to meet with the stake president two weeks before the scheduled wedding in Spokane when I made Nic ask again, just to be sure. Apparently there was a misunderstanding. Yes, it needed to state on his records that he was divorced. But we also needed a letter of “sealing clearance” from the first presidency. This involves a formal letter written by Nic to the first presidency, a formal request from the stake president, and a letter written from our bishop to Nic’s ex and her in turn writing a letter to the first presidency. All of these letters need to be received by Salt Lake and reviewed by the first presidency. Our stake president said he had seen these done in 7 days expedited. So we kept our date. Nine days before the wedding we got the bad news. Even if Annie was cooperative and did as we asked (which we anticipate she won’t), it’ll take a minimum of 4-6 weeks after Salt Lake receives the paperwork, and with the added stress of General Conference, we had no chance to get the letter in time. We were in quite a pickle. Either we could wait until we received the letter and be sealed then, or get married civilly and be sealed in a year. If we waited, we could not set a date until we had the letter in hand. Both of our jobs would require two weeks notice to reschedule our honeymoon and arrangements would have to be redone. Nic would have to continue searching for couches to sleep on as he was basically homeless. We’d most likely celebrate the reception before the wedding and last but not least, we could NOT receive clearance at all and have to wait anyway. So we chose to be wed civilly and rearranged everything to be married in Portland. Sadly our bishop and stake president were out of town so they transferred my records to the home ward so that bishop could perform the ceremony. He will be our new bishop.

We met with the new bishop and he told us he understood. He had been active his whole life, as had his wife. They tried to use their wedding to reactivate their inactive parents, but they didn’t go for it. After a discussion with their bishop, they chose to be married civilly in Portland and then drive to Salt Lake and be sealed the next day. After making all the arrangements, announcement out and everything, the bishop talked to the stake president and discovered they were not allowed to do this. In a difficult situation, they chose as we did and were married and then sealed a year later. I was comforted to know that we were not alone. I know it will be difficult, as we will be judged for the choices me made and assumptions will be made by many. But our bishop explained, the world is not perfect, the gospel is. Heavenly Father knows what is in our hearts and he has arranged back ups in case something should happen before we are sealed.

Anyhow, Nic and were married in a very small intimate ceremony on Saturday, March 27^th. We then went to lunch and headed to the coast. We were blessed with a beach house to stay in for free and we were there until Tuesday. Although the weather was awful, the coast is filled with plenty to keep us occupied including the wonderful Tillamook Cheese Factory. It was here that Nic first introduced me as his wife.