These two perceptive commentaries offer very different interpretations of the significance of the evidence presented in “Chance Encounters”. Crudely put, Richard Wall suggests that I have gone too far in placing chance, kinship and economic irrationality at the centre of my reconceptualization of marriage motivations. Individual calculation and economic motivation cannot be placed in the background of explanations of the individual or aggregate nuptiality experiences in an English context. By attempting to use autobiographical evidence to try and understand both the process of “getting married”and wider changes in marriage ages at the “national” level, I have written an article with two imperfectly related parts, and thus achieved neither end. Equally crudely put, John Gillis suggests that I have not gone far enough in my attempts at reinterpretation, and that I needed to talk more about the meaning of marriage ceremonies, contemporary understanding of the courtship process, and the role of Fortuna in the process of “getting married”. I shall consider all of these issues below. The one thing which unites the commentaries is a concern over sources, and it is apposite to use this question as a launch pad for restating and refining the analytical line opened in “Chance Encounters”.