Engagement Story

I don't want to be a total downer about this engagement thing, but it's been hard to find a new way to think about it. Just the whole state of Being Engaged has been so uncomfortable. Does it come naturally to anyone? I guess it's just kind of weird to have, in a way, backed out of being engaged while remaining engaged.

Which brings me to common wedding universe terminology: The Engagement Story. Every couple has an engagement story - it should be romantic and sentimental and memorable and unique and sweet and blah blah blah. They meet, they fall in love, they have some cute little quirk or whatever, boy presents girl with beautiful ring (bonus points if it belonged to someone's grandmother), she plans the perfect wedding (bonus points if they overcame personal tragedy/hardship during engagement) which leads to a perfect wedding day filled with family and tradition and unique details and pretty pictures.

Puke.

Actually, except for the whole aftermath, I think H and I have a pretty cool little Engagement Story. I imagine telling the grand-kids at the beginning of every NFL season how Papaw proposed to Mamaw when the Saints won their first Superbowl. It's kind of fucking awesome. Will I tell them about how our wedding planning imploded almost immediately? Probably not, though I may advise my progeny to elope for their own sanity.

I find myself thinking about our tentative date and wondering whether I should just stick to it and put together some small little wedding. Seems like every wedding anything that I want to join wants to know my wedding date and I'd love to give them one but until then, I'm kind of out. Tried to join the Offbeat Bride Tribe today, but I don't have a wedding date. Almost said January 19th, because that was our working date when we first started planning. But that'd be a lie because nothing is for sure.

The real Engagement Story should talk about the fights and the stress, the breaking away from old family habits and expectations, the pain of realizing that even though you've been out on your own for years you aren't really grown up until you stamp out the beginnings of your new family. Laying out the boundaries and building up the protections around the sacred places where only this new bond belongs - no parents, no siblings, no childhood friends - just two. The others, they try to assert their dominance, their power. They try to pull the strings and push the buttons and follow all the old, familiar patterns to leave their mark on your lives but this isn't about them until you invite them back in. On your terms.

We're still trying to figure out what those terms are.