A question on engagement and marriage

[maithkano]

Let me preface this post by saying, I full well know this is a question for my local priest. As such, I will be asking him about it in time. It will come up inevitably anyway. Before I ask him however, I wanted to see if anyone else has had a similar experience or knows someone with a similar experience.

I have been attending some orthodox services over the last month and met with my local orthodox priest with my fianc? recently. I am not yet a catechumen but I do feel I am on the right path, and I would like to be a catechumen eventually.

A question that is on my mind is my engagement and lifestyle and how that will effect becoming a catechumen and full orthodox Christian in the future. For context, my fianc? and I have been together for the last 4 years and lived together for 3 of those years. We have been very secular people with no real interest in God during that timeframe, up until the last few months. Our wedding date is not until another year and a half.

Would we need to cancel the wedding venue we have already paid for and just get married at the Orthodox Church to become catechumens? Would we have to find a way to live separately for a while and then become catechumens and then get married in the church?

This situation seems somewhat unique, two engaged adults already living together being drawn to the church. So I would just like a heads up on what to expect when I broach this topic with the priest.