A Ring and A Date

Our wedding is set for Oct. 28, 2007 - the day before my birthday. It's funny. Where I am from, people don't get married on Sunday. Here, it seems to be the busiest day.

We went last night and looked at rings. There is a street here in Novi Sad with jewelry stores one after another. Rings are priced together...the woman's and the man's.

We just walked down the street, going into each store in turn. We were looking for simple wedding bands and settled on one that is brushed with thin polished edges. I really like the ring and it's not too expensive. Some of the rings we looked at were over 300 Euro, which is quite out of our league - for that kind of money, I think there should be a diamond involved...haha.

We went to Novi Sad city hall after we got back from the American Consulate to turn in our papers to be married. The lady in the office there was very kind and efficient and got our papers in order and said that since this is an "international" marriage, I will receive a marriage certificate in English and in Serbian. I also must have someone there who is official to translate the ceremony for me. That's fine with me, I want to know what is said! This marriage will be legal in America.

She will perform the wedding. In Serbia, only civil marriages are recognized and they must be done in the city halls. The service takes 10 minutes, she said. There is a special room that the services are held in.

While we were in the city hall office, young couples came and went, scheduling their own weddings. When we were looking at rings, there were two other young couples doing the same thing. We kept running into them in the stores.

After the wedding, we will either come to our apartment for drinks, food and celebration or we may be able to rent a place in our building to hold this celebration. Depends on how much that will cost. There will be 12 of us altogether. In the meantime, I am doing some deep cleaning of our little place to be prepared.

Lots of people here have a church wedding after the civil ceremony. Since my love and I are both Catholics and this is the second marriage for each of us, we can't marry in the church. I don't want to get into all of that, but suffice it to say we are doing the best that we can with what we have. I feel blessed.

I spoke to my parents and both of my kids to let them know. It was very nice when I spoke to my daughter. I thought she would just hang up on me, but she didn't. We spoke for a few minutes. My love even said at one point, I laughed. I was so nervous and excited I don't remember much of what was said. It was very nice and again, I am grateful for answered prayers. There is still a long way to go, but at least there is a crack in the ice.