John Cade

On May17 at 4 p.m., I became a married man.

Meredith Herrmann (now CADE!) and I were married at St. George’s Episcopal Church in Belle Meade, an extremely nice area of Nashville, Tennessee. Episcopal weddings (and services, for that matter) are rich in tradition, and therefore are a bit longer than most weddings. However, with tradition comes meaningful rituals. And with meaningful rituals comes a side of faith that many of us protestants never get to be a part of - at least not in the same way. Liturgical services have much history and reasoning behind what takes place during them, and you can learn a great deal from talking to a priest (in my case, Meredith’s father) about them. Ever since I started dating Meredith, my faith has been challenged and incredibly strengthened as a result of finding new ways to worship God. It sounds odd in today’s average church; ‘reverting’ to old ways to learn new things. But it’s something that many of them should try.

The reception was at War Memorial Plaza on 6th Street in downtown Nashville. The venue was perfect; elegant and relaxing. Just big enough for a medium sized wedding like ours.

I’ve mentioned Meredith several times on my blog before, but I haven’t really gone into detail about what makes her so unique to me. It all starts with how…right she is. All of the time. SERIOUSLY! The whole ‘better half’ thing is TRUE. See guys, right now, you’re just the worst half (unless you aren’t meant to be married, of course) and have nothing to redeem yourself. For those of you that are meant to be married, calling your wife the ‘better’ half is an understatement. Because, as guys, we know we aren’t good to begin with. So it’s not just relative. She is great; you are not. Ha… But in all seriousness, Meredith is the cutest, most supportive, loving, beautiful, God loving woman I’ve ever met. There’s no one else like her! She compliments my procrastinating, naive way of life like no one else could. And that’s not a joke.

Getting married is fun. But the process of getting married is hard work! And I don’t mean planning a wedding, though that is extremely difficult as well. I’m more or less referring to the details behind, say, moving in together. I didn’t realize I would have to stand behind the sink for nearly an hour to wash all of the new dishes, silverware, coffee and tea potts, cutting boards and steak knives that we received as gifts. But I did. Cutting the cabinet liners to be a perfect fit for the dishes to sit on was tedious as well. I think you get the point. There’s a million details you don’t think about. That’s part of the fun though…the surprises of what it takes to get settled. Our house is still cluttered with empty boxes, out of place decorations, and makeshift furniture. It’ll be weeks before this place starts to look like a home. But ‘nesting’, as they call it, is one of the most fun aspects about getting married - at least to this point - 9 days in.

As with any relationship, part of getting married is taking on some baggage that your partner may have. Most people say baggage in the symbolic sense; in my case, however, I’m referring to the 8 huge plastic bins that are filled with every memory possible from the time she was born until we got married. I mean really - won’t you just remember the important stuff? That’s one of the things that makes Meredith so great though. She is very sentimental. It gives me quite a tough job (providing her with opportunities to be sentimental). But in reality you can never collect too many things that ‘take you back’. Nostalgia is a beautiful thing. And it’s something we’ll never be short on.

We went to Banff, Alberta and Calgary, Alberta (Canada, for those of you who are geographically challenged) for our honeymoon. We didn’t want to do the beach thing. Our take on it was that the beach is always an option on some level; splurging to go to the Canadian Rockies for 7 days is not! Fortunately we paid for all of it in cash, even after staying at the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel. I’m pretty proud of us for that. There are plenty of financial obligations that need our attention, and creating another one was not on our list of fun things to do.

Thanks to everyone who came to the wedding and/or reception. It was a great time! I hope everyone got acclimated to the New Orleans second line - it went off without a hitch, and was one of my favorite parts of the night. We are also extremely thankful for all of the prayers, time, encouragement, and gifts that were given to us.

Well, I’m off to curl up with my wife in bed and get a little rest before going back to work tomorrow.

You’ll have to forgive me - I broke my blog at some point over the last two weeks while trying to updgrade Wordpress, and I left my readers with the dreaded “php errors” for viewing.  Maybe after reading the list of what has been going on over the past few weeks, you’ll understand why I neglected to fix it.

• I moved into my new place in Green Hills two weeks ago.  Other than listening to extremely loud traffic while in bed at night (clarification:  the traffic is normal.  the windows are super thin), I absolutely love the place.  The lady who owns the house, and lives downstairs, is a great neighbor.  Thank God for that.  Also, it only takes me 10 minutes to get downtown during rush hour.  Couldn’t have selected a better location.
• During GMA Week, I attended a preview of the Music Builds Tour with Switchfoot at the Wildhorse Saloon.  For anyone who has never been to the Wildhorse, Jon Foreman said it best:  “This is a nice country bar.  That’s what this is.”   As always, Switchfoot was incredible.  I never miss an opportunity to see them live, and neither should you.
• Meredith and I also attended the Dove Awards at the Grand Ole Opry.  It was my first time in the Grand Ole Opry House, and it was definitely a unique experience.  Sitting through a live taping of that magnitude is a very surreal experience.  Even though I was actually present at the awards show, it felt as if I was watching it all through a monitor.  Everything ran like clockwork.  I was able to see Switchfoot play for the second time in one week.  They played “This is Home” which is going to be featured on the Prince Caspian soundtrack.   Do yourself a favor, and listen to it on their myspace page.
• May 1 and 2 were my first two days as an employee of LifeWay (actually, it was just orientation).  My official title is Internet Producer, and I will be working in Digital Media Publishing.  I was able to meet a lot of great people and get familiar with the 22 acres or so of land that the campus sits on.  Second only to the Tennessee state government, LifeWay is the largest property owner in downtown Nashville.  If you need any advice on surviving the hiring process with a large organization, feel free to shoot me a message.  After three entire months of conversations with one, I know a thing or two.
• Meredith and I will be married in exactly two weeks.  I can’t believe how close it is!

Please excuse the missing images and sound files throughout my older posts.  I’ll work on getting those back up withing the next few days.

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UPDATED - Jan 25th: - Added another picture below!

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Meredith and I hired the McLellans to take our wedding pictures, and as a part of the deal, we were able to have a two hour engagement session. We met the McLellans in downtown Franklin, which is a very rich and historic community about 20 minutes outside of Nashville. The picture below, which they posted on their blog earlier today, is one of the ’serious’ shots they took of us. We are still waiting to see some of the others where we are smiling and goofing off.