Why January 1st?

Many people have asked us why we choose to get married on January 1st. To be honest, I’m not exactly sure how we arrived there, but I do know that it was the very first decision we made relating to the wedding. We decided firmly on January 1st before we had a pastor and before we had a place. This is how I think we arrived at the January 1st date:

Timing. Andy proposed to me on July 23, 2004. We didn’t want to wait too long to get married (1 Corinthians 7 teaches, “for it is better to marry than to burn with passion”). But, an August wedding wasn’t really possible and my parents would have killed me since they recently gave my sister away to be married after a 3-month engagement. September would have been too soon. Same with October. November would have been pushing it, but it would have been possible. December just wouldn’t have been very convenient because everyone is busy with Christmas. So, January it was!

Saturday. January 1st happened to land on a Saturday so that pretty much sealed the deal.

The holiday. January 1st never had much significance to me. As far as I can remember, I’ve never celebrated New Years’ Eve. I’ve never been to a NYE party. I remember trying to stay up a couple times to watch the ball drop, but I don’t think I was successful at staying awake both those times. So, I thought that I would transform what was otherwise a normal day to me into something exciting and special. (Sorry to all of you normal people who customarily have New Years’ plans. Hope you can still make it!)

Easy to remember anniversaries. Andy (or I for that matter) will not have any reason to forget our anniversary.

Andy’s lease. Andy’s lease was up December 31, 2004. How convenient!

Great start. We thought it would a great way to start the new year.