Engagements & Proposals

Apr 2012

This week, we wanted to explore the concept of Staying. Staying as in not moving, not making a big change, keeping things more or less as they are. We live in a culture that's pushing us to always make a big change, to always move forward, and do the next big thing. And the truth is, that's not always possible (or even advisable). And in this particular economy, we can't always move on to grand things. Sometimes the next step is a tiny one: It's learning to be happy with what we have, or making one small change. So it seemed perfect to start this week with a topic that has come up over and over on APW: waiting for the engagement. And in this post, M. has decided that she's fine with what she has. No ultimatums, no waiting—just being together and being happy. And it turns out, this post about non-engagement might be the most important post on engagement that we've ever run.

I'm not planning a wedding. Not even close.

Two years ago, a few months after my boyfriend Bo and I started dating, we went to a wedding together. It was the kind of wedding where, along with all the bride and groom's invited guests, their whole church congregation was asked to come, and the reception was just champagne and cake in the church basement. It was beautiful, and we loved how inclusive it was, but we both said that if either of us had a wedding, it wouldn't be like that. (Good—I thought—even though he says he doesn't think he'll ever get married, he's thinking about it. It's only a matter of time.)

Then, that fall, another wedding—this time for friends of mine from college. A very beautiful, traditional Jewish wedding—one where the bride and groom couldn't stop grinning out of sheer happiness. We shared their joy, but again, we said, were either of us to get married, it would be different. (Well, he's still saying "If I ever have a wedding," not "If we ever have a wedding," but if he's got opinions, that's got to be good, right?)

Last summer, we went to the wedding of one of Bo's cousins, and it was flashy, pink, and ostentatious. (There were professional fireworks! it was held in a place called "The Palace"!) We laughed and laughed—it fit his cousin perfectly—but there would never be any fireworks for us!

And by then I had realized that there really weren't going to be any wedding fireworks for us. Because we'd probably never get married.

Continue reading Relationship Vo-Tech

Posted in: Engagements & Proposals, The Hard Stuff, Wedding Undergraduates | 83 Comments »

Apr 2012

The Advent Calendar

This week, as we explore the idea of "Change of Plans," I wanted to talk about how we can choose to change the tone of our engagement when things get hard (and for most of us, there is at least one moment when things will get hard). So today, Emily is here, talking about one of the more lovely ideas I've heard of: the Engagement Advent Calendar. I grew up religious and Protestant, so this line hit me hard, "Like Advent, an engagement is a time for hope and preparation." Within the religious calendar, Advent isn't just a time to get ready to open presents. It's time to emotionally prepare yourself for hope (and preparing for hope is one of my hardest spiritual practices, if we're being honest). I love the idea of applying that to the last months, or weeks, of engagement. It's not just about getting ready for the party, it's about emotional preparation and hope for what is to come: a life together.

I always loved Advent calendars at Christmas when I was young.

For as far back as I could remember my mom always bought me one from church each November. They were small, flat, cardboard boxes and each day in the month of December I would peel back the little perforated doors to find chocolate inside. CHOCOLATE! Waiting for Christmas was exciting enough, but then in those last few days I got rewarded for my patience with tiny cocoa confections. Then, at the end of all this chocolate came presents. Could it get much better?

I’ve been engaged now for over two years. It has been kind of like waiting for Christmas as a child—it seems like that wonderful day will never come.

We moved our lives from Michigan to New York City five months after our engagement so that my fiancé Andrew could pursue a master’s degree, which he will receive just a few short weeks before the wedding. Most of our first year of engagement was spent getting our lives in order in a completely foreign atmosphere. We had most of the “big” things (the dress, the reception venue, the church, catering, and photographer) figured out by the one-year mark. With all this time on my hands, I became lazy, and put off making any more decisions. I dreamed a lot, and wasted entire weekends staring at wedding blogs, but I didn’t actually accomplish anything.

Then, exactly six months from the wedding date, I had my “oh sh*t, I actually have to plan this” moment and went insane.

Ok, it didn’t happen quite that swiftly or thoroughly, but I did spend a lot of time in front of the computer, furiously scrolling through internet searches for the perfect this or that. There was this one night my vision went completely blurry after a five-hour Etsy bender, and I had to lie down to regain my sight.

I now had to try to cram wedding planning into my already jam-packed life with a full-time job, acting gigs on the side, two cats to take care of, and a fiancé whose equally stressful, full schedule allowed him little time to help. I also ran into some difficulty with my mom, who manifested her struggle of giving up her little girl into harsh criticism about my wedding choices. I was simultaneously commanded by my family to be as budget-conscious as possible while not leaving out any of the “traditional” wedding indulgences (even the ones we don’t care a lick about). I found myself completely emotionally wrecked every single day for several months. The overwhelming stress put quite a strain on my relationship with Andrew.

Early in the year, during a moment of particular sanity, I realized the serious importance of the last few months of our engagement. Like Advent, an engagement is a time for hope and preparation. And I don’t mean preparations like shopping and decorating. It’s the time to emotionally prepare yourself to commit fully to your partner. It is a step that is too often overlooked by brides pulling out their hair over insignificant choices.

I decided to make a Wedding Advent Calendar. Continue reading The Advent Calendar

Posted in: Engagements & Proposals, Planning, Wedding Undergraduates | 45 Comments »

Mar 2012

I Thought I’d Die If I Were Single at 30

When Maddie and I first started talking about this post, she wondered how I felt about talking about invisible timelines in our heads. Is that something we've all evolved past (or should have evolved past)? This idea that you should get married by THIS AGE and have kids by THIS AGE, and move through your life with a certain pattern? But I didn't think so. I think most of us drew up weird timelines in our heads as kids, overly influenced by TV and movies, where everyone seems to be an architect or a gallery owner and live in a big loft and get married and have kids always by thirty. Which isn't to say that lots of us didn't imagine Never Getting Married And Never Have Kids By Thirty Or Ever Thank You Very Much, but it means that these timelines we draw up (and the age of thirty) have power over us that perhaps they shouldn't. Today Kristy is here, discussing. (P.S. As someone about to turn 32, I can tell you... the timelines are all a lie. You're still exactly your same self after thirty, just more confident.)

I thought I would die if I turned 30 unmarried—perhaps literally at times. I vividly remember sitting in the waiting room of the law firm where I’d just started working at age 27 when I overheard a conversation that began, “Yes, well it’s a good time for them. He’s 36 and she’s 34, so it’s just the right age to get married.” I cringed—34?!? That poor girl. Something was horribly wrong. I could never, would never, ever be that girl.

I’d almost been married once before by then. I spent years dating the handsome actor I met at college, the one my father described as “a GAP model,” dizzy in a spell of musical theatre romance and inexpensive off-brand wine. After five years together, we went to Italy on vacation and I was sure he was going to propose. I shouldn’t have been—he told me he wasn’t ready and wasn’t going to. But that didn’t stop me from wishing and plotting and ending up spending the last night of our vacation crying heaving, hysterical tears, sick with self-inflicted disappointment and despair in a rundown twin-share room in Siena.

I left him shortly after our return to Los Angeles. If he wasn’t going to marry me, then I would find someone who would. He’d had his chance, and I was going to take mine with the smart and serious fellow I’d met the first day of law school. The law student and I were together four years—long enough to move in together, to travel the world together, and to spend our 30th birthdays together. On the eve of my last night in my twenties, I begged him to take me to The Little White Chapel, so that I wouldn’t turn 30 single. He declined, and I was thrust into a new decade feeling like an abject failure. He took me ring shopping the following month, but his heart wasn’t in it. Continue reading I Thought I’d Die If I Were Single at 30

Posted in: Engagements & Proposals | 99 Comments »

Mar 2012

Something Old

Today's post is from Arin, one of (as I like to think of them) the APW Iowa Crew. I suppose it makes sense that there are a lot of Practical People in Iowa. This post is such a perfect short story that I'm going to allow it to stand on its own. It reminds me of nothing so much as my very first proper post for this site on my vintage engagement ring and why it felt right. Now Arin's story.

I tend to accumulate things that are a little rough around the edges. Captivated, always, by the story of a scratch, the history of a dent, the layers and the days that lie within tarnish and rust. There is a warmth in the well-worn that I pull on like an old sweatshirt.

Josh and I come from the same place in the world, his just a bit North of the spot that I will always call home. Born and raised on tiny map dots, our people are farmers and small-town characters, the variety of which make black-coffee conversation ritualistic and who never fail to raise their right index finger a little off the steering wheel in greeting to anyone who should happen to meet them along the gravel road. Josh knows my people. Josh is my people. And, therefore, he knows me.

In the North, yards fill up with the Lost-and-Left-Behind; rusted out car bodies and abandoned gas grills; ceiling fan blades and spent fire extinguishers and tray-less high-chairs. Tangled and broken and tossed.

As we drive, I ask Josh why he thinks this is? Why nobody seems to care? He takes my hand and responds without having to think. It is not out of laziness or neglect that these collections have come to exist, but out of practicality. After all, "someday, somebody might NEED that."

In 1955, Josh's great-grandfather Lester (a man whom I have to imagine was cut from a very practical thread, indeed) married a woman named Ruby. Both had been married before and, due to a range of unexpected twists, both had ended up alone.

But Lester found Ruby (or, perhaps, she found him). I like to imagine it was in a bowling alley on League Night, Him cleaned up in a button down shirt with grease under his nails, Her with red lipstick and an up-do. I like to imagine a slow song on the jukebox and a cold beer after a hard day's work. I like to think that their conversation lasted 'til close.

Lester was a resourceful man and times were different and so, when the time came, he took the diamond solitaire that had been given to Ruby by her first husband in the 1930s and had it reset into a simple and perfect ring, accompanied by a few diamonds of his own.

I wonder how Josh just knew. I hadn't spoken aloud how unfamiliar and cold the glass and the lights and the rows upon rows of faceted stones felt when passing by their grand stages at the mall. Did he feel me tense up? Did I squeeze his hand a little tighter? Breathe a bit shallower? But, somehow, he knew. Continue reading Something Old

Posted in: Engagements & Proposals, Wedding Undergraduates | 53 Comments »

Mar 2012

Madeline: The Proposal

Today's post is our first from APW Intern Madeline. The second I read it, I fell in love with her. Not just because she proposed to her boyfriend, but because she made me laugh so hard I did a spit take on my screen (true). So here she is, in her own words, to tell you how you don't need anything fancy (or even an engagement chicken) to decide to get married. You just need your very own couch.

I wanted a proposal story the way I wanted an origins story of the “Our eyes met across a crowded room” variety. Actually we met online dating (our eyes met in an “Are you from OkCupid?” kind of way) and I asked him to marry me, nearly two years later, on our couch. There was no one-knee-age; merely, as our friend Jeff characterized it, a “casual lean.” It's not the story I was expecting, but it's our story nonetheless, and it turns out to be a pretty good one.

Proposing is not as easy as it looks on YouTube, even though the answer was never in doubt. We'd picked out the ring together. Like many an APW reader, I'd already spent hours on the Bario Neal website and we took the Megabus down to Philadelphia to try on my favorites. (“She got the ring made by Barry O'Neil,” my U.K. friends tell each other.) We came back to New York, and at some point several weeks later, the package arrived in the mail. Now we had the ring but I wasn't wearing it yet, so we weren't engaged—what now?

An awkward pause ensued. I'd check in every now and then and we'd agree that we were still planning to get married. But something was wanting. I had a nagging feeling that he was supposed to ask. Formality would be involved, and maybe, I don't know, violins or something. The longer I waited, the bigger The Proposal seemed to loom, and the harder it seemed to move ahead without it.

Then I remembered an email from Bust Magazine about Engagement Chicken. You know, the recipe that's so good he whips out the rock and makes you his kitchen staff for life? I'd rolled my eyes along with the good readers of Bust when I'd read it, but I'd fallen into the same trap as the poor girlfriend in the apron, looking for some external event to transform me, and our relationship, into exalted, proposal-worthy territory. We didn't need it, I realized, and I didn't even want it. Everything I wanted was already right in front of me. Continue reading Madeline: The Proposal

Posted in: Engagements & Proposals, Planning, Planning: Journeys | 77 Comments »

Feb 2012

Why Being Pre-Engaged is Actually Awesome

Every time we talk about being pre-engaged, I feel like I have to write a little disclaimer. We use the word pre-engaged on APW in a tongue-in-cheek way. Once upon a time, I was sent a marketing email aiming at selling useless crap to the "pre-engaged." I vomited a little in my mouth, and then promptly reclaimed the word to describe that very of-the-moment phase many of us go through: when you're pretty sure you're going to marry your partner, but one or both of you isn't quite there yet. It's the time when you're sneak reading wedding blogs (hi there y'all) trying to figure out what you think about weddings and marriages. It's when people are pressuring you to get hitched (back off people!), and when you're continuing to learn about your relationship. So today, we have Erica talking about why taking your time is actually awesome (because it is).

The other day I was watching a morning news show and the hosts started talking about a horrifically awkward YouTube video making the rounds. In it, a girl is proposed to on the Jumbotron at a basketball game. The camera finds her and her boyfriend in the audience, he goes down on one knee with a ring box, and then... nothing. She gets a pained look on her face, covers her mouth with her hands, and then gets up and walks off screen. This was a proposal that was clearly not only unexpected, but evidently unwelcome.

And it got me to thinking about the hype surrounding engagements. If you want to see how over the top this has gotten, look no further than a recent New York Times article about “proposal planners.” It seems that, in the case of the couple at the basketball game at least, the guy was so focused on planning an unforgettable proposal that he forgot to figure out the important things, like whether or not his girlfriend actually wanted to be married to him and was ready to say so.

I had a long time to think about being pre-engaged, in fact, I had six months longer than I would have liked actually being pre-engaged to think. But now, from the other side I can tell you that pre-engagement is maybe the best thing you have/will ever done/do for your relationship.

My partner and I moved our relationship at light-speed for the first six months or so. Two days after we met I got fired from my job, which meant that I had a very short time to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. It also meant that I had an inordinate amount of free time, which I spent mostly mooning over him. A week and a half after we met we went on a three-day backpacking trip in the desert, and a week after that he dropped the L-bomb. Four months after our first date we had moved in together and had a dog. A year after that he picked up everything and followed me to graduate school 500 miles away.

But after awhile the more typical relationship timeline kind of caught up with us. Two years in, we were still living together, with the dog, spending weekends puttering around the house and watching Netflix. I started to feel like something had stalled, that we were no longer moving forward. And, more importantly, while I had always wanted to get married, I suddenly found that with my partner I was more excited about being married. To him. So I went a little nuts. Like many a sane, rational, reasonable woman before me, I kind of lost it.

Over the next few months, I dragged him to a jewelry store to look at rings, and then spent weeks worrying that we’d never be able to get married because there was no way we could ever afford anything. In an effort to soothe my anxiety, he confessed that he actually had a ring, from his family. You’d think this would make me feel relieved, but instead it threw all sorts of doubts into my head. Then why weren’t we engaged yet? What was holding him back?

And so we talked. A lot. About all of the normal things, money, kids, careers, our families, and what we imagined our lives together would look like. At some point, while I never actually stopped thinking about it, I resigned myself to the fact that it probably wasn’t going to happen for a while.

Which, of course, is when it did. It couldn’t have been more perfect. And now that I’m in the thick of wedding planning, with all of the attendant insanity, I’ve never been more glad that by the time we finally did get engaged I felt like we knew each other incredibly well. And I know that we are, and always will be, a team.

So pre-engaged ladies, take heart. And be glad that you’ll never have the entire audience of a basketball game, and the internet, watch you run away from an unexpected proposal. I mean, I hope.

Photo by: Moodeous Photography from the APW Flickr Pool

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Posted in: Engagements & Proposals, Wedding Undergraduates | 45 Comments »