Oh, 8 loyal readers, I’m sorry I haven’t posted in the past few days.

I didn’t write an update about our meeting last Thursday night with the priest because I had to sort out my feelings first.

Overall, it went really really well. He’s nice and he’s funny. None of his questions were too personal, and he’s very flexible – for instance, Mr. Sloth isn’t officially a parishioner anywhere. He was registered at his family’s church in another diocese, but that was, oh, about six years ago. And even though he’s gone to Mass in the past six years, he never went through the paperwork to join a church. Apparently that can be kind of a problem, but the good Father just marked him down as a parishioner at his own church and told him to attend at least once between now and the wedding. Problem solved!

But the meeting did cost us. Our priest suggested we all go out to dinner so he could get to know us better, which sounded great. And we asked him to choose the place (despite looking forward to La Tavola). He picked a great seafood restaurant in Pittsburgh that is a little pricey, but no big deal. At this point, I knew we were probably footing the bill. He is filling out a lot of paperwork for us, he let us know about a much less expensive pre-cana program that will save us around $200, and he’s a priest – what, we’re going to let him pay? I don’t think so. Catholic guilt :)

Anyway, the Irish-are-heavy-drinkers stereotype is so very very true. Priests are no exception. This particular man fired back two premium cocktails in about ten minutes. Yikes. Then he chose a nice glass of wine to go with his appetizer, and picked a great salmon dish as well. I don’t mean to sound cheap, but c’mon. We are saving for a wedding – is it necessary to order three drinks and an appetizer, in addition to the already expensive entree, when someone else is footing the bill? I would never, ever do that. He offered to pay, which we obviously declined. He did pay the tip, so that helped. But it was quite expensive. I also thought he was a little rude to the waiter, which is something I’m extra sensitive about.

All in all, I do like him. I’m happy he’ll say our wedding Mass. As I mentioned before, he’s funny and tells good stories. But it wasn’t the “dream meeting” I’d anticipated. I guess that’s a good lesson for the wedding – just let things be and let it go (and plan to spend more than you think you should.) So I wasn’t sure how to approach this post, but honesty is the best policy. Anyone else a little thrown off by something while wedding planning?