Yeah, take a quick double take at that headline, that’s OK. Because yes, Katie and I are now married. What about March 19th, you ask? Weren’t you getting married in a couple of months? Well, the short answer is that yes, we were getting married in a couple of months, and that yes, we are having a ceremony on March 19th still, but that we got married on Friday here in Los Angeles.

The long answer goes something like this: As most of you know, I was offered and accepted a job in Simi Valley, CA, so that I could be closer to Katie and move in with her once we were married in March. In the meantime, I was planning on staying with a friend in the area. Because of some very bad circumstances, I won’t be moving in with the person I was planning to. The story behind all of that is too long to go into and this really isn’t the forum. If you don’t know the story by now, you probably aren’t close enough to all of it to care, so I won’t go into all of that here.

The problem is, the situation changed just before Christmas, and as most of you know, I moved two days after Christmas. When I got here, we went ahead and moved my stuff into Katie’s apartment, since most of the big stuff would be going here eventually anyway. We proceeded in trying to find a place for me to live for the next two months, without much luck. The only solutions that presented themselves were either too expensive, too far away, or in parts of town I didn’t really want to be living. As most of you know, Katie is a Seminary student. So that ruled out my living in her apartment, as it is not allowed by the school and, given her chosen vocation, wasn’t really appropriate.

After weighing all of our options and talking to both of our parents and our pastor, we decided that it would be best if we just went ahead and got married old-school style at the Justice of the Peace. We talked it over and did some further soul-searching, and both decided that getting married now was what we wanted as well as being the best solution. So, on Friday, January 7, 2005, Katie McClung gave me her hand in marriage in a small chapel in the L.A. County Courthouse. It was the best gift she could have ever given me.

So, what about March, you ask? Actually, the party will go on. We’re still going to have the ceremony as planned, because we really want to share the gift God has given us in each other with our friends and family. So, keep March 19th on the calendar, and we hope to see you all there.