So, I’m engaged. To be married. I will be someone’s wife, and should probably be learning how to bake buns and tell people not to go to the pub (I am thinking of the right thing, aren’t I)? Thanks to everyone for their brilliant calls and messages and emails suggesting this is not the worst idea we’ve ever had.You’re all lovely.
I suppose that, as the most recent and biggest event in my life I should blog about it, but this may not be the romance-fest you’re after. If not, I apologise in advance. Do feel free to leave and read a Mills & Boon novel instead; I’ll wait while you get it from your Nan’s bedside reading-and-knitting basket. Got it? Good. Want some candy floss with that? Right. What colour? Pink, ok. Bye! This is how we got here.
I have never, ever had the wedding fantasy they say all little girls (then big girls, then big women) have been harbouring to lesser or more aggressive, bridezilla extents from birth. Just never had it. On the plus side, this meant I was in no rush to get married, so I was never in danger of letting slip the kind of canapés we’d be having on our Big Day to some poor unsuspecting first date. I hear they don’t like that (even the ones who like canapés). On the downside, it’s meant that – now that I actually have met someone I’m going to spend the rest of my life with (eek!) – I have no idea where to start. I’m not even really sure what canapés are or at what point they come in the ceremony. It may be the law to have them, I don’t know.
That’s going to be ok, though, because it’s all going to be really tiny. You’ll hardly notice us and about 20 friends and family, whispering vows somewhere in North London and then having a shindig somewhere local. I will not be wearing a big white dress. We don’t want gifts. As far as we’re concerned, the vows are the important bit; everything else is just fluff and fluff makes me itchy or sneezy or both. I don’t want that on my wedding day.
Not that we don’t plan to have fun – we just don’t want our friends wasting money while we have that fun. We don’t want to waste money ourselves, for that matter – we’d rather spend it on travel. But we definitely want our nearests and dearests to share the day with us; there’s something so cool about taking those vows with all the people you love in the room. I’m feeling a little ‘motional already.
I don’t know who’s supposed to speak or when, or who’s supposed to sit where, or when invitations are supposed to go out; they’ll be emailed sometime before the day (hopefully). There won’t be any goodie bags. But I’m hoping that it’ll be as top a day as my sister’s wedding 10 years ago – 40 people in a restaurant and a mix-tape, and vows so solemn and sincere that even the minister cried. That’s what I want: a weeping registrar. That’s what I have to beat.
The ring? He didn’t have a ring yet. Turns out he had planned to propose after I’d run the NYC marathon in 6 weeks’ time. Glad I inadvertently helped to scupper that plan – there was already enough pressure surrounding the race: imagine if I’d known that it was finish, or die lonely? In the way that most proposals between couples over 30 go, we just got talking on Friday night. It was a conversation we’d had before, but this time, we hadn’t had the two glasses of wine it takes to send us to sleep these days. Eventually, he knelt down (I was at my computer, no make-up, Batman pjs, glasses on) and said “Will you…?” Long pause. “Will I what?” I said, partly because I was nervous, and partly because I really needed to be sure he wasn’t just asking me to do the late-night wee-run with the dog. Then he said “Marry me” and I said “Yes.”
On Saturday morning, we went to a local jeweller and got a plain white gold band with three teeny tiny diamonds in it. I love it – not least because the presence of diamonds is detectable only to those who get very close. It’s too big but I wore it out of the store and will wear it for at least a week before I get it sized. As far as I’m concerned, it’s perfect.
We had our dog with us (he was allowed into the shop – I guess diamond sales are so slow at the moment people will waive a lot of rules in the hope of one). Once we had the ring, we stood outside the jeweller’s, unable to move. We just stared at the ring, occasionally going “This is weird. I feel weird. Do you feel weird? Good-weird, but weird.” Nobody cried, but we laughed a lot. We took the dog to the park and played conker-bowling, and he had a top day, too.
