The Rules of Engagement

Hello everybody, I’M GETTING MARRIED!!!!

Ok, now that’s out the way let us proceed…..

Getting engaged came as a complete shock.  Ok so we’d talked about getting married one day, but let’s be honest, my other half still thinks he’s a teenager so the thought of marriage was a distant dream.  Consequently the last thing I was expecting when I stepped out of the shower after netball training one Tuesday night was to find him down on one knee holding an engagement ring! 

My initial thought was, ‘what are you doing?’ closely followed by ‘I’m not wearing any make up’ and ‘good thing I hoovered earlier’.  Surprised wasn’t the word, I was completely gob smacked!  Even more so that he’d managed to keep this under wraps for the past 3 weeks.  But we got there in the end, he asked the question and I said yes and thus the engagement began!

The first couple of days were amazing, 48 hours of complete giddiness and engagement high!  I went springing into work on Wednesday morning, completely loved up and happy and all was right with the world.  I felt full of energy, motivated and slightly invincible (!).  Luckily I had a busy week planned; we had a netball match on the Wednesday night which helped release some of my energy (and we won hurrah!) and evening plans helped stop me from bouncing off the walls at home.  I also had the overwhelming urge to pamper.  Belle and I attended a perfectly timed Dermalogica pamper evening at the Beauty Rooms (Newent) and I booked in for a manicure and facial.  I also lost 5lbs that week from sheer overexcitement! 

I do feel different, in a good way.  I think Dan is surprised how different he feels too.  We both thought we’d be happy, but we are happier than we thought possible!  People say you feel different and you really do.  It’s hard to explain, but it’s good. During the first week I avoided mentioning the ‘W’ word in front of my other half for fear of going into manic wedding mode and freaking him out completely but I’m totes over that now!  This is completely new to me and I forgot that he’d been planning this for weeks and actually the reason he proposed was because he wanted to marry me (*sqeal!*). 

Fast forward a couple of weeks..... You start to realise that everyone has an opinion on how your wedding should be and to be honest I found it all a bit overwhelming.  I’ve never really been one to give any real thought about my future wedding so I was starting from scratch.  Wedding magazines freaked me out slightly and the never ending questions and decisions blew my mind.  I’m not good at making decisions at the best of times so this started to look tricky.  Where should we get married?  Where would the reception venue be?  How many bridesmaids and who should I ask?  Who should we invite?  Then the big one – how much money will all this cost?! 

Ah budgets.   Budgets, budgets, budgets.  Usually you are music to my ears and the thought of making a wedding spreadsheet is like waking up on Christmas morning.  But actually putting in prospective costs was plain depressing.  I know that ‘you don’t have to have an expensive wedding’ but it was still a shock.  Following a lot of excited talk about dream weddings my estimations very quickly went from a castle venue, to a country manor, a barn, a social club etc etc.  Suddenly it looked like my guest list would need to be halved.  I went from happy, cloud nice Elle to slightly stressed, frazzled and grumpy Elle.  (Plus put on those 5lbs again).

This is where I decided to take a step back and remember what this is really about.  I want to enjoy being engaged and although decisions will need to be made and I’m sure there are stressful times ahead, I know I’ve got the best people around me for the job and that ultimately decisions will be made my myself and Dan.  I would like to enjoy this special time together, enjoy spending time with friends and family, putting ideas together and seeing them take form.  I would like to ultimately find our happy place and settle into premarital bliss.  As my sister so eloquently put it, I need to ‘own that stress’ (*girlfriend*).  And that is what I intend to do.