We've been engaged over a year now. We got engaged one minute after the millennium started. She wanted to get married last August, but I was still a student. I was just working part time at the Rec Center. There was no way we were getting married in August, not with type of wedding she wanted! It would have been South Lake Tahoe at the drive-up wedding place.

I used to think, a big wedding is for the bride, it's the bride's day. Now I see it's the guy's day, too. We're planning all these details, and sometimes I get selfish. I have to step up and say, "Well what about what I think?" It could be the smallest thing, and sometimes it's just petty... But I need a say in things also. I almost got in an argument about what the bridesmaids would wear. It was just to shoot up an argument. It almost got to a point for awhile where I couldn't agree on anything. But when I think about it, as much as it is the groom's day too, really, everyone just looks at the bride.

All the details, the planning drives me nuts. For example, we created a wedding bank account that we use to pay for everything about the wedding. We still have our own accounts, I still have my own checking account. The wedding account is there so we can do what we need to for the wedding. It bothers me sometimes when she gets a little frivolous. She gave me an invoice for a makeup consultation. Check this out: To get a makeup consultation, it's $150 just for them to sit down for 3 sessions, and work up 3 choices of makeup. They don't actually put on any makeup, they're just consulting about makeup. Then to reserve the wedding date is another $100, so that's a $250 bill right there. Then she went lunch with her sister afterwards, and that went on the wedding account too, since they got lunch while they were doing wedding stuff—getting a makeup consultation!

We have our issues like that, but we deal with them. Everything's going as planned. It's weird being on the other side this time. I have a brother and 2 sisters, and when they got married, I was always been the one to entertain the relatives. I'd take them camping or something. But I still try to think about, "What am I going to plan for everybody?" But they're all like, "Whatever you do, don't think about that. You took care of our relatives when we got married, now we're going to do the same." It's so different for me. I planned a rafting trip for everybody, and I was making preparations, and my sister said, "What are you doing?" I said, "It would be cool if we all went rafting," and she totally took the responsibility and said, "I'll take care of it."

It's good to take care of the big stuff, but it's the small details that are the hard part. Like with the in-laws, all those details. You're trying to please your future spouse, and also what the parents expect. Her parents are the big time, Catholic, big wedding type, Irish-Italian culture. It's hard, because there really is a culture clash. Originally the wedding was supposed to be in Carmel, but Liz got into some disagreement with her mom, and we got pushed out. We were thinking, "Hey, we're still going to get married in 9 months!" Liz's parents weren't speaking to us, so we basically had to make decisions for ourselves, and that's when we moved the wedding up to San Francisco. It became a big tension on the family. They're starting to make up, just in time. But Liz was really strong. I was impressed. I could just see it, the first daughter in the family to get married (she's the eldest), being proud enough to walk down the aisle without her parents. She's got guts! But everything's going to be fine. We all had a conversation just last Friday, and get this, her dad even asked permission to walk her down the aisle. I'm very proud of Liz. Everything will work out.

My family has so much experience with weddings. I'm the last one to get married, I'm the youngest, and they're just going along for the ride.

Living together was a test about getting married. I told her, "Nothing's really going to change." We're both from the Catholic faith, and she's like, "If we want to further this, we should get married." Right now it's good, but our sacrament of marriage will be our gift to God, and raising children and all. So getting married is a good thing to do. I do think it's good for people to live together before marriage. That's not the Catholic rule, but right now, people get married, and then they live together, and then they get divorced. They find out too late. They really don't know each other. I know every quirk Liz has, and how to deal with it. I definitely don't want to end up in divorce, so I think it's good to know somebody before you marry them!

Liz is my soul mate, and marrying her is telling her, Look, you're the one I want to spend the rest of my life with and marrying you puts the icing on that cake. It's to show her that I respect her Being. Being married is the commitment. You step up to the plate, and some things haven't changed, you both wake up in the same bed. But you've gained something you didn't have before. You gain the whole "for better, for worse," you gain the better and you gain the worse.

I really enjoy being around her, and it's really fun. The best thing about being around her is that she is able to deal with me. I have a lot of tricks up my sleeve and I have a lot of quirks, and she's the one person who can deal with me. That right there told me, she's the one.

May 2001

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