I apologize in advance for what will be a hella long post, but since this will be my final one, I want to make sure all the bases are covered.
I always knew that the endpoint of my blog would be when I got married, as much fun as I have blogging, when I conceive of marriage I always think of the whole spousal privilege thing (too many gangster movies I guess) so me tying the knot would be the end. Of course I never thought i’d be tying the knot anytime soon so what the hell.
8 Months Ago
When I wrote this post about engagement ring shopping with my friend Drew, I left out one small part, the jeweler showed Drew a lot with 3 stones, they were fantastic and the price was great, but better for all 3. The issue was Drew only needed 2 (one for her ring and one for his band), the deal was so good though that I bought the other stone. I figured what the hell, it’s not like it could go bad or anything.
1 Month Ago
I decided that I wanted to propose. I thought it through sober, drunk, high, drunk & high and I realized it feels perfect. I talked to her dad (patriarchal I know, but i’m old school) and he was happy, he actually hugged me, not the cool, one handed chest bump, manly-type way, but a full body two-armed hug. I then talked her sister to set up a time and place.
Last Week
After the crap with her sister and her boyfriend, I was not sure if the plan was still in effect, but her sister was great about it so Thursday while sitting on a terrace overlooking a lake at winery I proposed. She accepted. While driving home and in bed that night we talked. The more we talked, and the more we thought things through we realized that with our families, any engagement period will be full of parties, decisions and stress. Short of running away, which we don’t want to do, we had the crazy idea that instead of prolonging it, how about we just do it blitzkrieg style and shorten the period to contain to craziness. Around 4am we picked a date in late July, sent out text’s and emails to all of our friends and family and decided to make it happen then, wherever we could manage.
Today
Things since then have been a blur. Tons of phone calls from people confirming the validity of this and more calls double checking that this is indeed happening. One thing making it all easier is that her dad insists on paying for everything wedding related and he even pulled strings to get his daughter the dream location that she wanted, but we never thought would be available on such short notice. My folks are paying for the honeymoon (My dad says my mother damn near fainted and he thought she’d had a stroke because she was quiet for so long).
Condensing our timetable has only made things mega hectic, her family trip to Europe will give her a chance to find a gown, and my trip to Jamaica will be my extended bachelor party (plus the one for my work colleagues, and the one for friends). We still have 2 engagement parties (here and one my folks want to throw in Chicago), a honeymoon to plan,flowers to order, pre-marital counseling to undergo, tastings, musicians to screen, gifts to register for, although I hope for envelopes of cash Goodfellas style, and maybe even house shopping or at least putting her condo on the market (her dad being the mega-developer he is wants to put us in a McMansion, which is crazy, but he assumes we’ll soon populate it with progeny, which is not in the near future). When we decided to go this route I promised to be fully engaged in the process, so we make it through sane. All in all it will be a hellacious next few months and the blog will be a casualty, not that there was much whoring going on anyway.
When the dust settles I plan to continue checking you all out, but that may be months from now, so in the mean time be well and have a drink or put one in the air for me when you get a chance.