As I mentioned in the last post, Karina and I headed off to an engagement encounter weekend in Constantia. The weekend is aimed to get you ready or for you to find out if you are ready to get married. There were 24 other couples just like us on this weekend – and as we found out, there were over 700 other engagement encounters exactly the same as our one happening all over the world!

These engagement encounters are run by the Catholic church, but you don’t have to be a Catholic to attend – as a few of the couples were. It’s also not a weekend about teaching you or getting you to join the Catholic faith, its a weekend aimed at finding out if you are ready for marriage, with a biblical angle thrown in for very good measure.

The weekend was jammed packed with talks and small activities. Every session is taught by one of the married couples or the Priest – and after the session, you are given a set of questions and asked to write love letters to each other in an A5 booklet. After you’ve written your love letter, you get together with your partner and read their love letter and then discuss them. It really is the most amazing way to learn about each other. Karina and I both almost finished the A5 booklet! I called these booklet the blueprint to my heart, because literally all your emotions about each other are written in them.

After the weekend, you feel emotionally drained. I literally poured my heart out to Karina for 2 and a half days straight! Its also very rewarding to spend such quality time with your partner learning, discussing and loving one another.

I’ll post the details here in this post of who to contact if you know of anyone that would like to attend an engagement encounter. They are held all over South Africa every few months, and I highly recommend every engaged couple to attend one. I think it should be compulsory for couples to attend – the divorce rate in South Africa would be far less than what it currently is!

One thing is for sure, after a weekend like this, you will know 100% if you are going to be marrying the right person or not!

Part of getting married in the Catholic church is, you have to attend a marriage encounter weekend. It’s a great way for the church to teach you about marriage, what to expect and also the role God should play in your lives.

I’m really looking forward to it as it feels like the first step we are taking into marriage. Most people I have chatted to are pretty negative about getting married (well in a joking way) – but I had a great chat to Dominic (Karina’s cousin) the other evening and he said he is really happy for the 2 of us and will be praying for us this weekend. Really cool coming from a guy.

On a separate note, we just had 11 family members arrive from Madeira. 9 of them have never been off the island and there were over 50 of us at the airport to greet them! One moerse Porchie family I’m in! I was in Madeira in 2005, so I know them very well, so it has made their arrival that more special.

So in a couple of days time, my house is going to be filled with 11 extra people for a week. Can you spell party 24×7?

Once we back from the weekend away, I’ll write some more about the weekend and partys and hopefully get some photos up on this site!