Maureen and Ian's
Wedding Page
04 January 2003


Wedding Plans

Episode V: Rules of Engagement

First solo

It's 1999, and Maureen and Ian had a strong relationship for three years. Fellow music fan Kim from choir and Ian performed at the Catholic Community Coffeehouse the previous year with Depeche Mode's But Not Tonight and decided to perform again this year. This time they would do two other songs and last year's song as an encore. Maureen showed up late to this and only caught the last song which she heard before anyway, so she asked Ian to do another one. It just so happened he learned how to play the Goo Goo Dolls' Slide from the recording just for fun. So he asked Fr. Mark Padrez, one of the MCs that night, if he could play another song. So Fr. Mark put him at the end of the show and gave a brief prologue of why Ian was playing now. Though Ian didn't realize it at the time, that song had pretty appropriate lyrics, the most noticeable being "do you want to get married, or runaway?" Near the end of the song some of their friends convinced her to run up on stage with Ian, so she did. At the end of the song she extended her hand as if to receive a ring. If he had one, that would have been the perfect time to propose. Essentially it was their proposal. He took her hand and gave her a hug on stage. Afterward some people were congratulating them.

A simple question

Sometime in the Fall of 1999, Ian asks Fr. Mark how one would go about getting married in the Church in San Diego. He explained that there was a 9-month waiting period for the Diocese of San Diego and other preparations to do. "Do you have an engagement ring?" "Actually she wants an engagement puppy."

The grass is greener

Ian's work as a lab technician wasn't really the thing for him though he did it well and his supervisors appreciated him. He needed to find new work, more related to his major of Bioengineering, or maybe at least a step in the right direction.

Maureen wanted to go to grad school. They had both took the MCATs in hopes of going to medical school, but later they decided it really wasn't for either of them. They knew they would have to be apart for school and were hoping for the best. Actually Ian's MCAT strongly favored the direction he was thinking about taking, physical sciences. He decided to switch over to Electrical Engineering. Maureen had been working in lab too and wanted to do Public Health.

So they both planned to take the GREs for grad school. Meanwhile, Ian was looking for another job, but never found one. He gave his notice well in advance that he would leave the company (on good terms) and move back home to do some serious thinking. The GREs went well but he could not go back for now.

After a difficult but hopeful goodbye to Maureen, Ian moved back home to the Bay Area at the end of January. He went back to San Diego only two weeks later to go to the San Diego Zoo. It was to be the first time the baby panda Hua-Mei was be available for a public visit, that weekend. It was also a good reason for Ian to see Maureen again.

Over the course of the year, they were able to see each other quite a bit, a Lake Tahoe weekend, Easter in Claremont, housesitting at her brother Marc's house in San Lorenzo in the Bay Area, and at Maureen's friend Wendy King's (formerly Krieger) wedding.

Last night of the world

"Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans..."


The Guaring's Christmas Party
19 Dec 1999

[The exciting conclusion: the finale...or the beginning >>]

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