Picture in the Paper
An important part of the engagement process, is the public announcement, and in smaller towns, that means putting your picture in the paper. There are of course wedding and engagement announcements in big city newspapers as well, but they play as pivotal a role as the small town papers. When I go home for a weekend or even visit for an evening, I'll try to look through the most recent paper and see if any of my friends have married off. I wanted to announce my engagement as widely as possible, and the best way to hit as many casual acquaintances at once is with a picture in the paper. The pictures are always at the end of the paper too, so that when you're done catching up on the local news, you can ask everyone around you who the people are because their names sound familiar and are they related to so-and-so. Good times. The significance was brought to mind again when people starting telling us, "you've gotta go through with it, it was in the paper."

Seeing my picture in the paper also put me in a bit of a high school reunion type of mentality. Based on the picture and the write-up, what will people say after not having seen me in close to ten years? Assuming people my age still read the local paper or at least have this kind of announcement passed on to them, I think it would be interesting to see what kind of comments people would make. I know some would say, "Wow, he's doing pretty well for himself!" or "Wow, look at her! He's marrying pretty well." I mean, come on, look at her!

I hope that people will say, "He's aging well", "He looks really happy", or "I'd like to get ahold of him again." I am more afraid however that people will say other things:
"He's a pastor?!?" - Some people will be surprised because I was such a high achiever in math etc. in high school which would lead me down a different and more lucrative career path. Some people would not be surprised, as I was part of the evangelical Christian social circle in high school. This leads me to my frustrations about the pastoral identity. Everything I say and do is filtered through my title. I am avoided and my opinions dismissed because people presuppose what I will say based on my profession. Which other careers get the same stigma?
"They have a website? How cliche/geeky!" - We aren't the first couple to make a wedding website, so perhaps some of the coolness of that has passed, and it won't be the prettiest or most technologically advanced website, but it's fun for us to do and it's a great tool to keep people informed. With my mathy background though, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that I'm prone to geeky behaviour.
"I guess he's not a good Mennonite after all" - It seems to me that every Mennonite community has their own idea of what a Mennonite is. Fretz is not a common Mennonite name back home, so people might wonder why I didn't marry a Mennonite girl like all the other good Mennonites do. True, I'm not marrying a dietsche mijal but her Mennonite convictions are as strong and stronger than most girls I grew up with, so I'm not at all worried. I'm slowly teaching her Low German now too.
"It's about time!" - Most folk back home marry a little younger than is the custom in the big city. After about 25, people start to worry if you'll get married at all. It's a few years late, but my relatives can breath easy now. I'm still marrying well younger than the national average.

   [ posted by William @ 1:38 PM ]