My fiancé and I were booked just after 7 p.m. on Friday night.

They checked our names off their list and lined us up to take our pictures.

Next, they showed us to our cells, I mean rooms, but not before they collected our muddy buddies and barbeque potato chips.

Michael and I participated in a weekend retreat Feb. 4 – 6 called “Engaged Encounter” sponsored by the Joliet Diocese of the Catholic church.

As a couple about to be married, the goal of the weekend was to examine why we love each other and why we want to get married. Given a week’s worth of hindsight, I suppose it was not the jail sentence I expected.

The word ‘encounter’ in the retreat’s title evoked thoughts of Steven Spielberg’s 1977 sci-fi flick, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

I thought Michael and I would experience an epiphany, a turning point in our relationship which would forever change the way we felt about each other. We would be deliriously happy and loathe speaking a single cross word to one another.

We checked in on Friday night, voluntarily, at the St. Charles Borromeo Pastoral Center in Romeoville.

A friendly group of married volunteers gave us our name tags and took a Polaroid of us in front of a stained glass back drop. As requested, we brought two snacks to share with the 24 couple group: muddy buddies, my finest example of microwave baking, which consists of Chex cereal, chocolate, peanut butter, and powdered sugar; and a bag of Lay’s barbeque potato chips – store bought because I was exhausted after slaving in front of the microwave.

The weekend was a series of hour-long workshops.

Each workshop was administered by a deacon and one of two couples: Ken and Judy, married 23 years; or Don and Heather, married 7 years. The sponsor couples shared marital anecdotes on topics such as money, sex, children, family and church as well as their attitudes about a spouse’s ambitions, strengths and weaknesses. The workshops ended with a question to which each person ‘journaled’ a written response which they later shared with their fiancé.

After one workshop, Ken and Judy asked the group to journal about the first time we realized we loved the other person and wanted to get married.

I had the hardest time pinpointing an exact moment in time when I decided I loved Michael.

After racking my brain and heart for an answer, I panicked.

If I could not answer this one, simple question I doubted our readiness for marriage.

While most wives-to-be were writing responses affirming their love, I addressed a letter to Michael making a case for postponing or all together canceling our wedding.

As a testament to Michael’s divine patience, he didn’t throw up his hands at my wanting to throw in the towel.

Instead we talked about how difficult it was to name a date in time when we stopped liking each other and started loving each other. Michael told me he understood my confusion and my fears.

As always, Michael made me feel OK to be me.

The retreat did not provide an answer to that question nor did it make us deliriously happy or cure us of our propensity to fight with one another – although I think we secretly enjoy it.

The closest we came to an epiphany was realizing what we have demonstrated all along, our unfailing ability to work things out together. For us, that is more than enough.

And, oh yeah, that rule about not having sex during the retreat, that was one commandment destined to be broken. 😉