"I do... now, where are we going to be buried?"

During the course of planning, I've been trying to think of every possible thing that will make our start in this marriage easier, and generally add to our chances of making a really good go at things. I'm not particularly concerned that we won't, but we might as well address the issues that can shake that solid ground you think you stand on.

Children have been discussed ad nauseam (no morning sickness pun intended) from pregnancy timings to baby names to religion to how involved parents should be... childcare, housing, pets... you name it, we've covered it. Finances? Split down the middle, with a joint account that will serve as a bills-and-future-mortgage-paying account with us each retaining the rest of our salaries, etc in our own separate accounts. Since my parents are giving us the deposit for our first house next year, we've discussed what would be an equitable ownership split that reflects the fact that the main cash is coming from my family but also that he will be paying half the mortgage. It turns out on all these difficult issues, we're completely resolved (well, at least until they take an unexpected turn, I guess).

So, of course, I had to bring up the Last Will and Testament. At the moment, all I have to leave anyone is a bit of jewellery, my depressingly empty bank account and a six-year-old Toyota Yaris. Nice, but nothing worth murdering me for. Still, there are other wishes and requests that should go in your will, and one of those is where we will be buried...

Some time ago, we went on a date / footle / stroll through Highgate cemetary. The historical, overgrown, haunting site is the final resting place of the Rosettis, Karl Marx, Douglas Adams and a great many local residents in one of my favourite parts of London. Among all was a headstone, marked with two names but just one set of dates - obviously the other half of this devoted pairing is preparing to be buried by her husband. Against his name was a tiny, elegant Magen David. Against hers, a cross. Beneath their names were the famous words of Ruth:

Entreat me not to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried.

On seeing this, I started weeping like a baby. Startled, Ash held me until I could explain.

I was crying because it had suddenly hit home that here was this wonderful man, with whom I fully expected to spend the rest of my life though from whom I'd be permanently parted in death. He would lie in Jewish grounds and I in Christian, separated by who knows what distance.

Of course it shouldn't matter. My body will be so much worm food, and if there is any sort of after death consciousness, presumably physical distance is no barrier to being reunited. But to fight tradition and culture to spend our lives together only to be symbolically parted again after death is like saying that, try as we might to believe it, we weren't right together.

I'm half-wondering if my father will make My Big Fat Greek Wedding's "apples and oranges; we all different, but in the end, we all fruit" speech at the wedding. It would be funny. I just also want it to be true. No, I know  it to be true. So I want it to be reflected in the symbols of our death (and isn't burial just a symbol for the living?).

So I was touched beyond words that Ashley has chosen to forego his right to be buried on Jewish consecrated grounds and will, when we get round to actually sorting out our wills, request to be buried in the local council grounds, as will I.

None of these things are, forgive the pun, set in stone. Should be divorce, we can revert to whatever prior choices we like. But as a gesture of a lifetime commitment, it doesn't get much more long term than pledging the circumstances of your burial to someone else.