Let me just preface ALL OF THIS by saying NO FINAL DECISIONS HAVE BEEN MADE, yet.

At Easter dinner, James’ grandfather, who is easily one of the most intelligent, sweetest men I’ve even been fortunate enough to know, put me into a mild panic over not booking a wedding venue in time. I’m going to have to marry him at a banquet hall! I balked to myself, convinced that the only place left “this late in the game” (581 days to do, and all) would be in a trailer park. With pigs.

I tried not to imagine removing those stains from my beautiful dress. I tried not to imagine Maxine loudly declaring that this is the worst wedding, ever! (And, also not to imagine Rosa agreeing with her, while Kristin held both her children high above the pigs, and Renee and Christine dutifully tried to keep me from crying.) We got home that night and I pulled out my laptop. I was not about to get married at a banquet hall, in a trailer park or anywhere near barn animals. We were going to be civilized about all this nonsense.

We were going to get married like good Catholic City Folk do.

Ten minutes later I had decided that we were going to get married in one of my absolute favorite places ever, on the face of the earth: a book store.

Now, of course, it wasn’t just any book store that popped up in my desperate Google search. For any of the rest of it to make sense, I must now tell you that James and I are very uncomfortable spending upwards of $15K on an event that is really only meaningful to a very concentrated group of people. Not only does it seem a bit self-indulgent, but every day there’s something thrown in our face in this city to remind us how grateful we are for what we have, and how helpless we feel about paying those blessings forward to others.

It came down to this: If we’re going to pay all this money to hold this wedding, anyway, could we find a way to do it for the betterment of a community?

Turns out, you can. Ladies and gents: our top venue contender. We checked it out Monday evening, and both really like the space. It’s a little left of center, but so are we. I love the idea of holding a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party in a vintage-feeling book store, and  their services are all-inclusive and very competitive. As an added bonus, all the proceeds from the wedding fees themselves go to support Housing Works’ homeless shelters.

It also happens to be right around the corner from Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which is one of the most beautiful churches I’ve ever seen. St. Patrick holds a special place in my family’s religious culture (you know, being overwhelmingly Irish and all) and if I’m going to get married in a Church, I’d prefer it to be one of St. Patrick’s. I’m logical like that.

Renee and I checked out the cathedral on Tuesday, and she and I both alternately got giggly and goose-bumpy. I’ve never been married before, and we’re aiming to get it right the first time, but I’m fairly certain that that’s how it’s supposed to feel when you find the church you’re supposed to get married in.

Initially, we weren’t going to do 2 specific things. 1. Get married in a church and 2. Get married in Manhattan.

When people asked me, at first, what I wanted in a wedding, I said I didn’t care. I meant it. We had an outline, and plans have changed a little. We’re still hammering out a final wedding guest list (we want it to be as intimate as possible) and a final Itinerary of Events (we also want to do a giant pub crawl). But our type-A personalities have most of the necessary pieces in place.

And, as it stands now, I will not have to marry James anywhere near pigs. Unless the drunken Frat-boy types who drink at Gatsby’s on Friday nights count. In which case, I’ll still applaud myself for avoiding trailer parks and banquet halls.

Two out of three isn’t bad.

-M.