Several years ago, after our kids graduated from school, their friends began to call and ask us to do their weddings.  Well, we are ministers and we do marriage counseling.  You know you have to check and make sure they understand what they are getting into – do any of us?

Our counseling sessions are a weekend affair.  The couple will come to our house on a Saturday.  They spend the day with us, share an evening meal and go to church with us the next day. Mike takes them to his office and does intense family studies.  They look at all the patterns in the families, talk about how those things will affect their relationships, what they can do to break bad patterns and begin new paths for themselves.  Then they come to the house and we have dinner.  Now the first time we did this I made a new recipe for a chicken pot pie, a salad, green beans and dessert.  It was an absolute hit, if I do say so myself!  Somehow it stuck and it became the theme for the weekend meal.  Now after dinner they are mine.  This time is spent talking about their faith, developing their relationship to a deeper level spiritually, and children. They always have lots of questions. The best part of this whole process is being a part of their steps into marriage.  Then, off course, we get to do the wedding and share in the celebration.

This past weekend was one of those times.  The day was wonderful and they were fabulous.  We talked for hours and spent time praying together. They are wonderfully in love.  They have, from the beginning, made their relationship Christ centered and are excited about beginning their life together.  We will celebrate with them in November.

You may wonder – what did you have for dinner?  Well chicken pot pie off course! We also had nectarine salad, green beans and vanilla pound cake.

* See recipes for Chicken Pie, Nectarine Salad and Vanilla Pound Recipes