Lessons in Love

            Sometimes, couples take ages to make decisions.

Take Brawny and I. You’ve paired the woman who can’t pick a nail colour out of her 80-plus polishes with the man who makes Harvey Dent look impulsive. We live in a miniature-scale nightmare.

  But then sometimes we both have the exact same thought. One example of this is our Wedding ceremony. Like a bizarre episode of The Wonder Twins, when it came to picking a ceremony we both sat up straight, and looked each other straight in the eye.

“Jonathan,” we chorused.

The chap in question is the Vicar at Brawny’s family church, and the reason for our joint moment of clarity. He’s such a lovely guy that we couldn’t imagine anyone else marrying us. And that’s how it works: when something makes sense, you do it.

So imagine my surprise when I bumped into a friend in town who had recently been married by Jonathan. As soon as I said that we were looking to book his church, she offered some sage advice.

“You need to book ASAP,” she said. “If you’ve got your heart set on it, make it the first thing you book.”

Fantastic. I pictured walking down the aisle in front of the stained glass, affirming my vows in front of a close friend of the family I was joining…

“Oh, but you’ll need to go to marriage lessons.”

Eh?

“Yeah, Jonathan will ask you things just to make sure you’re compatible and stuff.”

I was confused. Was it going to be like one of those love quizzes in Cosmopolitan? Or do we simply sit under a giant Love Calculator? WARNING: Under 50% compatibility means your relationship will be TERMINATED.

Though I know where all Brawny’s freckles are, his favourite film and the face he makes when he’s about to sneeze (of which I can do a wicked impression), that’s probably not the sort of things we’ll be asked.

So what makes you compatible? I’m pretty sure that although I may have liked the same books, films and music as any of my ex-boyfriends, we obviously weren’t very well suited. One partner didn’t share my religious views, one didn’t want the same sort of relationship as I did, and several couldn’t keep it in their pants didn’t view boundaries in the same way as me. Those issues never reared an ugly head with Brawny – or if they did, they were immediately scuppered by our willingness to see things from each others’ point of view.

Jonathan was kind enough to drop a pamphlet through the door which contained not only a few hymn suggestions and biblical passages but lots of little ‘reasons’ to marry. I’m going to hold off on those now, because we’ve got an actual meeting with Jonathan soon and I’d love to see how it goes and report back.

For now - Bride out!