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 4th. 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 4th! 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 4th!
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.
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