FAQ's for the wedding!

These are the questions I’m receiving most frequently, so I will address them now for everyone’s information.

Q: Your wedding is outside. What if it rains?

A: We get wet. Haha. There is no ‘back up plan’, or secondary indoor location. If it is lightly raining, I would highly recommend bringing an umbrella. We can still BBQ, bounce in the bounce houses, and hang out, even if it’s a bit wet outside. We did not rent tents, because it was WAYYYYY to expensive.

If it is pouring, or thunder and lightning, then unfortunately, the block party probably won’t happen. The actually wedding ceremony would then be performed inside my church’s office, and because it is very small, it would be for family and the wedding party only. But that is only if it is absolutely horrible weather outside.

Q: When is your reception? It wasn’t listed on the invitation.

A: Read my lips: OUR WEDDING IS NOT TRADITIONAL, and therefore we are not having a ‘ceremony’ followed by a ‘reception’. We are having a BLOCK PARTY. That means we will be BBQing food, having games and entertainment for kids and adults, etc. All of the festivities will run from 12 noon – 4pm.

This is the general timeline:

12:00-2:00—Food is served. Hula hoops, games, face painting, and bounce houses.

2:00-2:30—People are seated for the ceremony.

2:30-2:45—Wedding Ceremony. (yes, it will be that short.) No food is served and bounce houses are closed during the ceremony.

2:45-4:00—Bounce houses re-open. Hula hoops, face painting, and games recommence. Any leftover food from the potluck food table and food that has already been grilled will be served, but the grills will be turned off and put away. DJ starts music and we all dance!

Q: How should I dress for your wedding?

A: Casual. Very casual. Come in shorts and tank tops. I’m telling ya, the only people even remotely getting dressed up will be the wedding party and maybe the bride and groom’s parents. But that’s it. A very important point to remember: we’re not having our wedding as a block party just for the heck of it, we’re doing it to be able to open up our celebration to our community and invite them to celebrate with us. Our surrounding community is not affluent, and so any neighbors who come to the block party and the wedding will probably not be dressed up. I don’t want to make them feel out of place or uncomfortable, so please, don’t get all dressed up.

Another important reason why the ladies specifically shouldn’t get dressed up (in other words, wear a dress or skirt): there will be a BOUNCE HOUSE and a VELCRO WALL. And these are not just reserved for the kids; it will be for the adults too. When’s the last time you got to jump in a bounce house, huh? You’re gonna kick yourself if you wear a dress and then can’t bounce. Just saying.

Q: I’m reading these FAQ’s on here, and I wasn’t invited to the wedding. Can I still come?

A: Yes. Please. And bring a friend or 6. I’m not kidding. This is another reason why we made our wedding a block party—we wouldn’t have to restrict the guest list. We did send out invitations, but that does not make it exclusive to just those who received them. We did the invitations for the sake of those who needed the memorabilia or for those with bad memories that needed a paper reminder. Lol.

I know that I’ve probably forgotten a few friends, and I didn’t want to send out a billion paper invites, so please don’t feel as if you’re not invited.

Q: No, really—Are you sure its ok if I come and didn’t get an invitation?

A: Yes.

Q: Really, really?

A: Yes.

Q: Your invitation said that you don’t want wedding gifts. What if I still want to bring one?

A: Then bring one. I’m not going to stop you. Haha. However, we would still prefer that you donate to our Block Party Wedding Fund instead of bringing a wedding gift. We set up the Block Party Wedding Fund so that we would be able to open our wedding to the community (i.e. purchase enough food for 300+ people, rent the bounce houses, buy face paint, rent hula hoops, etc.) You can donate to the Fund via PayPal right from this blog. To donate by check, please email me at MattRochelleWedding@gmail.com and I will give you more information.

Hope that helps everyone!!! See you on September 4^th!!!

We're Engaged! Officially!! (Finally!)

The proposal was simple, but perfect. He asked me, and I said yes!

(I tried to get a closer picture of the ring, but my webcam, blackberry, and digital camera won't let me zoom that close. sorry!)

How Our ‘Wedding’ turned into a ‘Block Party Wedding’

As I start to write this, I wonder, how does the ‘perfect wedding day’ come to be? Is it born from a girl’s fantasies and dreams as to what her big day will look like? Is it only if (most) everything goes smoothly? Is it if the weather is perfect and the in-laws don’t fight? What makes a wedding “perfect”? Or defined as a success?

Soon after Matt and I started dating (read: 2 weeks) we realized that we were whom God made for the other, and that we were going to get married. Then came the discussion of, When? How soon? How quick is too quick? How long is too long? We agreed, ‘when you know, you know’ and ‘don’t drag out the engagement’, but we also did not want to be irresponsibly hasty. At first Matt talked about getting married next spring, the spring of 2011. I told him I wasn’t waiting that long! Haha. We worried whether or not getting married within the year would make people think that we were insane…. Then we realized we didn’t care what people thought. We wanted to get married, and as long as we were following God’s lead and timing, we would get married exactly when He wanted us to.

We talked about our ideas of a wedding and what we wanted it to be. We both agreed that we wanted something simple, inexpensive, non-traditional, and God glorifying. We knew that it did not matter if we were married in a church building, because God’s church isn’t a building: it’s the people. We didn’t want to be indebted to our parents, and didn’t agree with the huge wastes-of-money kind of weddings; so inexpensive was the way it would be. Both of us are part of an inner-city church that focuses on building relationships within our community and helping those in need, and we could not justify spending thousands of dollars on decorations, cake, and other material things when we knew families down the block who could not feed their children. We also both agreed wholeheartedly that there is nothing worse than sitting through a long, drawn-out, ‘traditional’ wedding where you read the program and silently check off the things on the list, impatiently waiting for all of the prayers/blessings/candles/vows to be over. A wedding is supposed to b

e a celebration, indicating that we are coming together before God to glorify Him more than we could apart. That’s huge! That’s awesome! So let’s celebrate! Have fun!

As we discussed how to make our ideal wedding celebration a reality, I started to think… we could throw a block party. Invite the neighborhood to celebrate with us. Provide games and food. Our friends and family would be able to see an example of us ministering to the community. And the community would be able to see us coming together before God. I didn’t know if Matt would agree, so I didn’t say anything…. but lo and behold the next thing out of his mouth was, “Hey, maybe we could throw a block party!” My jaw dropped. It was just one of those God moments. So we agreed, a block party it was. If we wanted to have a block party wedding that means that it would have to be during the summer… and we weren’t going to wait until next year…. So this summer it was! We picked a tentative date:

September 4^th. And we knew where we wanted to have it: right outside his apartment, on the median park of Eutaw Place, where so many neighborhood block parties had been thrown in the past.

I checked with the Baltimore City Parks & Recreation Permits office to see if the date was available: it was! So I applied for the permit, and the date was set.

Now, at this point, we still weren’t officially engaged. (In fact, as I write this, we still aren’t.) You see, we had to get the park booked and therefore the date set before Matt had a chance to get a ring made. He’s having it made right now (right, honey?!?!) and we will soon be ‘official’, but in our minds, we already are. Yes, it is a tad backwards, but it wouldn’t be truly Matt & Rochelle if it wasn’t. =)

Then we realized, Hey! We’re getting married! So we should meet each other’s parents! Luckily, I had a week off in June and Matt was able to take the week off as well, so we spent 3 days in Buffalo, NY meeting my family and 3 days in Andrews, NC meeting his family. It was a great vacation, and we received the blessings or ‘stamps of approval’ if you will from our parents. We also revealed to them that “Oh by the way, we’re getting married on September 4^th! Hope you can make it!” haha.

As planning began for the wedding, we knew that we wanted to focus on the block party / serving the community aspect more than wedding aspect. We want people to come and enjoy themselves, and ‘oh btw we’re getting married too’. We want to be able to provide free food and drinks for everyone that comes, our friends, family, and also everyone in the community who comes by. We want to be able to provide entertainment for the kids: a bounce house, face painting, games, etc. We want a place where people from different socio-economic backgrounds are brought together and can interact, so barriers are brought down and relationships formed. We then realized that to make this block party a reality, it would require a lot more money that we had first anticipated. Still no where near the budget of most weddings, but now we took into account the cost to feed a possible 300-400 people who show up and also the cost to rent ‘large inflatables’ (bounce houses). It is expensive.

And that brings us to our big idea, the main reason why we have set up this website for everyone’s reading pleasure. We have decided that in lieu of setting up any wedding registries (we’ve both lived on our own and between us have just about everything we need already), we have set up a Block Party Donation Fund. We are asking you, all of our friends, our family members, our neighbors, our brothers and sisters in Christ, (or even strangers who happen upon this blog!) to help make our block party wedding celebration a success by donating money to the fund, which will enable us to buy the things needed. First and foremost, the money we receive will go towards purchasing the food and drinks, face paint, crafts, and renting the bounce houses. If we receive more money than that, we will put it towards other wedding costs: cake mix to make the hundreds of cupcakes, (which yes I am doing myself with the help of friends!), the cost of the many permits needed to hold a block party, and other misc. small decorations. And if for some reason, we are blessed beyond measure and receive more than we need for the wedding, we will graciously accept it as a gift, and use it towards the few household things we don’t have between the two of us.

If you would like to donate, you can do so in one of two ways. First, we have set up Donate button right here on the blog, so if you have a PayPal account or would like to set one up, you can donate just by clicking on the button. If you do not have PayPal or would just like to send a check instead, please email us at MattRochelleWedding@gmail.com and we will let you know where to send a check.

Thank you thank you thank you everyone, in advance, from the bottom of our hearts. We know that God is faithful and will provide us with exactly how much money and provisions we need. We can’t wait to celebrate with you on September 4^th!

And so I conclude with my answers to the questions I first posed. What makes a wedding ‘perfect’? A ‘success’? If it were to be my fantasies, my dreams growing up, it would have been in a church building, and I always said “there is no way I will ever get married outside! What if it rains?!” Well look at that…. I’m getting married outside. And if it rains? It rains. We get wet. (Or bring an umbrella.) If the success of my wedding were to hinge on everything going smoothly, well then I could just throw it out the window right now. Not only do I have the worst luck, I always manage to break something, forget something, or do something wrong. I’ve learned to just go with the flow. What I’ve learned these past few months, from Matt and from growing together in our relationship, is that our focus should never be on the success of the wedding, it instead should be on the success of the marriage. We want our wedding day to reflect our focus for our marriage: we want to honor God above all, and be an example of Christ’s love to the community by building relationships and blessing them.

The "How We Met" Story, via Matt

Once upon a time, I was bouncing around the mushroom kingdom, punching bricks and throwing fireballs, trying to save the princess from imprisonment in some castle. The first seven castles I went to had NO princess, just some weird little guy wearing a mushroom hat, telling me the princess was in a different castle. Finally, the eighth time was the charm (but what a doozy of a castle!) and after knocking this big turtle freak into a pool of lava, I found Rochelle, saved her, and we decided to get married. The end.

Or maybe not. Maybe it happened more like this...

I had been an inactive supporter of The Garden Community for quite a while, but I had been attending a different church in the city. Back in February, the Garden put on an art show featuring pieces painted my kids to be auctioned off with the proceeds going to Haiti. This was on a Friday night, and I wasn't busy, so I decided to trek down the street and hang out. I ended up buying a couple of pieces of art, but I found something even more beautiful. I wandered around for a while in my socially awkward way, chatting with the few people I did know, but a girl back in the kitchen caught my eye... A little later, knowing I had nothing better to do, Joel (pastor of the Garden and an old friend of mine) told me to sit at watch the money box for a while so he could go talk to people. I gladly accepted. Lo and behold, minutes later, the cutie from the kitchen wanders over and sits down next to me. Rather than tensing up with anxiety, I felt completely comfortable talking to her, and she seemed like a very cool person. I found out she had good taste in television, with such favorites as The Big Bang Theory, House, and Lost, and that she enjoyed curling up in her pajamas to watch them. That's all well and good. I don't really watch that much tv, and it's not that important to me (particularly when choosing a mate). What really got me was at the end of the night, when she was back in the kitchen packing up leftover PB&Js, I boldly meandered over to continue chatting. I joked that it looked like she had lunch for the next week or so. She responded that she'd really like to give the remaining sandwiches to the homeless. I was floored. Not only is this girl attractive and fun, she has the same kind of ministry ideals as me. I called a couple of my good friends that night to talk to them. "I...think I'm interested in this girl..."

I'd already been wondering if I should change churches and throw my full support behind the Garden, but the presence of a girl I really wanted to get to know better sealed the deal. Sunday morning, I went to the Garden. No fireworks happened. I think sometime that week, Rochelle messaged me on facebook and invited me to become a part of their Thursday night house community. Um YES. Next Sunday, I went back. They'd been doing something called "Garden interviews", where a regular attender got up and talked about how they came to know Christ, how they came to Baltimore, and how they came to the Garden. That day was Rochelle's turn. (This was perfect for me - a way of getting information without having to ask for it!) I found out that she had originally come to Bible study with a college friend under the promise that there would be "cute guys there." Hehe. I'm sitting there in the audience thinking "I could be your cute church guy..."

Then I was invited to her birthday party...I went, I had fun, it was great. We thought we were going out dancing, but little did she (and I) know that her friends had planned a surprise party for her. So we ended up at that. My socially awkward self resolved to have as good a time as possible...but every few minutes Rochelle came up to me and said "Matt...are you having a good time? You don't have to stay, it's okay..." But I did stay, because I wanted to stay, because I wanted to be around her. (And besides, once they started playing Lady Gaga, I did have a good time!)

Then there was Easter Sunday. This was the day that really changed everything. We had grown attracted to each other a little, and perhaps both cautiously suspected that. That day, we went to church together, then went to an after-church dinner and hung out some more, then immediately after that dinner she texted me - even though we had just been together all morning/afternoon. She informed me she was taking a nap. Fine. Three hours later, I'm over at a friend's house, and she texts me that she has woken up from said nap. (Okay...why are you texting me all this...?) A few exchanges later, she asks what I'm up to tonight. I'm not doing anything, so I let her know that. (What the heck? Is she gonna ask me to hang out? Nah, there's no way. Don't get your hopes up, kid.) Then she replies... "I'm bored. Want to hang out?"

After picking my jaw up off the sidewalk, I asked what she wanted to do. She came over to my place, and we spent the next few hours playing Mario games, including the classic Super Mario Bros. 3 on the NES. Now, I've been playing that game for 20 years. I grew up with it. Yet in less than an hour of playing, she had shown me two 1-ups I never knew about and demonstrated that you can kill the jumping flame things with your raccoon tail. Wait...this girl, in addition to all the awesome qualities I'd noted thus far, is also awesome at video games?

That did it. The next weekend, we spent 33 hours together (we counted), and it wasn't enough. Every weekend thereafter, we spent as much time together as possible. By mid-April, it was clear we needed to be together, so I asked her out officially on the 14th.

Last piece of the story: five days after I asked her out, on a Sunday night, we were snuggling in my living room and I blurted out what I knew, but couldn't hold in any more..."I love you." Her eyes bugged out and she said, "Are you sure you want to say that?" I said, "I have to." She thought it was too soon. The next night, I went to her house, and suggested - nay, insisted - that we do Bible study together. This had a major impact on her. The next night, I was at a concert, about to head out of town the next day to a conference in Atlanta and then to visit my parents, so I would be gone for a week. I got a text from her asking if she could call me for a minute. I stepped outside so she could. She stated that she had to call because she couldn't wait a week till I got back to let me know... "I love you."

Then, we decided to get married. The end.

The "How We Met" Story, via Rochelle

Once Upon A Time... I lost my glass slipper at church on a Sunday morning... Matt found it and knew his One And Only was the girl who was wearing it... He waited until the next Sunday, tried it on every girl... and as he put it on my flip-flopped tanned, stubby-toed foot, he knew he had found his wife. The End.

No, not really. haha. But our story is just about as quick (and awesome), so prepare yourself. :)

This past February, the church I am a part of (The Garden Community of Baltimore) hosted an art show to benefit Haiti, with artwork done by the children in the Rec Center where we hold church. I helped make coffee and serve food during the event, and towards the end of the art show, when everything was winding down, I decided to sit down and relax my feet for a bit. I saw a guy (Matt) sitting by himself, so I of course sat myself down right next to him and started talking. Just small talk... about the church, the art show... and eventually we started talking about The Big Bang Theory and how great of a show it is. I thought, 'he's really cool. I hope he starts coming to our church.' Well guess what? He did. And he also started coming to my house community ("small group", "Bible study") and I started thinking, I really like this guy. He's awesome. I want to hang out with him allllll the time. I invited him out to my birthday party, which he came to at a sushi restaurant even though he hates sushi. A few weekends later it was Easter Sunday, and we both celebrated with our church family at a couple's house who goes to The Garden. I found myself drawn to him, I knew I liked him and I just wanted to be near him. (Oh, the schoolgirl crush was in full effect.) Later that night, as I was sitting home bored and wanting to see him again, I texted him and asked him if he wanted to hang out. I ended up going over to his apartment and playing video games with him... in fact I taught him 3 secrets about Super Mario 3 that he didn't know. Oh yeah. :) All that week I finally came to the realization.... I think I really like this guy. More than a friend. I wonder if he feels the same way, hmm....

That next weekend, we spent 33 hours together. We counted. Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday... I only went home to sleep. By Sunday night we basically looked at each other and said, "are we dating yet? because we need to be." He 'officially' asked me out on April 14th, and a month later we celebrated our 6 year anniversary. (A joke we made to accommodate the fact that by a month, we felt like we had been dating for much, much longer.)

So long story short, we knew a month into dating that we were exactly who God had provided for one another. This was IT. I knew that I had found the man I was going to marry. I couldn't have asked for someone better... a smart, funny, talented, romantic, Godly man, who loves ME. I'm still blown away.

That's about it in a nutshell... I love Matthew Brett Matheson and I can't wait to marry him. The End. :)

Matt and Rochelle get married

We're getting married.

It's going to be a party.

Don't wear formal attire.

The end.

(Actually, not the end. More details to come in the near future.)