When Are You Getting Married?

It seems that as soon as I turned 27 earlier this year, and therefore officially hit my "late twenties", almost everyone I know has been asking me, "When are you getting married?". Or "When is he getting you the ring?" or "When are you two going to start having children?" Or in the case of FMIL "When are youse gonna give me some grandkids?" So instead of answering these questions over and over I thought I would blog about it and then just refer people to this post.

To begin with, The Boy and I had planned a date to get married, and we went about secretly organising this wedding while being secretly engaged, and then to make it all official complete with all the wedding details. We planned the venue, the invitations, I even found a wonderful dressmaker and photographer. We even designed the "official" ring and everything. However, as we approach the 12 months out mark (and the time to start paying for some deposits), we had a few D&M's over a few weeks and asked ourselves, "What's the rush?" We really thought about what we wanted, and the life we wanted to create for ourselves and as a result of that our priorities changed, and we decided to put the wedding and "official" engagement on hold.

The Boy and I have very generally mapped out how we want out lives to look, and gone into more detail for what we want in the next five years. We have some loose timeframes for events, such as a wedding, however, as I have learnt a lot this year, timeframes sometimes don't mean much at all. Often what you want will happen a lot earlier or a lot later than planned. However it is safe to say it will happen in the next five years and just as safe to say it will not be for at least 18 months. The Boy and I would prefer a short engagement for various reasons so I told him not to bother with the ring this year. There are a few other things we want that we feel would be better pursued now than planning a wedding.

And children? Well the cheeky answer would be when I get a nice big fat diamond. Before I met The Boy I was determined I would never have children and felt my time could be better spend doing something else, and whenever I saw I child I would stare at it like it was a foreign object. However since meeting The Boy and the subsequent growth of our relationship my view has done a 180. We definitely want children and I could think of nothing better to do with my time than to be a mother and whenever I see children now I smile and say "Awwww, I want one too." However, as wonderful as that would be, now is not the right time, while we might be mentally ready, I think in every other aspect we still have some catching up to do. So again, five years yes, 18 months no.

So there are the answers to those questions and a little insight into the life The Boy and I are creating. We are in such a great place right now and it can only get better.

Image: Flickr

Found!!

Well yesterday I was stressing about the reception venue. I really had nothing to worry about as the PERFECT PLACE HAS BEEN FOUND!! It has EVERYTHING we want, it is exclusive, private, outdoors and allows us to do whatever we want and set everything up according to how we want it, there are no minimum numbers, no hidden rules and no restrictions on the way the day has to run. They do request however that they only cater for daytime functions, which is what we wanted!! I won't be running into any other brides, I am really happy, when I showed The Boy last night he told me that it looked familiar, and he knows it is the right place. I have to agree with him.

However, I am keeping it all top secret right now. Until the engagement is official, I am not going to reveal anything. Besides we have not paid the deposit yet, but as soon as it is paid, I will reveal details. As it turns out the perfect location for us was staring at us right in the face, as we look back now, we can see just how symbolic the locations is, how it fits in with us, our past, present and future.

I know this is a little bit of an random post, but I just wanted to say how excited I am that we found a place, I am bursting to reveal all the details, but not until everything is official.

Now that the venue is out of the way I think we can relax a little bit. I tried to get the official proposal date out of The Boy last night, but he wouldn't budge. He said he had the date set, and nothing was going to change that. He has already spoken to the jeweller to get the deadline for when I need to make final selection of the centre stone. Oh really - this was news to me. Still haven't book in yet so I am thinking it could be May now instead of April (I did manage to narrow is down to those two months). I asked him last night what would happen if I was sick, he really should tell me so I can ensure I am healthy that day, but alas, it failed. His secret will only be revealed when it should be. In the end I want the surprise anyway, I think it is more romantic that way, don't you?

Remember Baby - There Is No Such Thing As The Perfect Reception Venue

Tocal Homestead

These were the words told to me both last night and this morning by The Boy. We have decided that we need to a least have a location agreed on by the end of the month. Our options are: Hunter Valley/Maitland, Central Coast, Sydney, Southern Highlands, Tropical North Queensland, and finally The Blue Mountains.

AHHHHH so much choice!!!! I don't even have the official ring yet! Still waiting for the official proposal! We have decided however that the wedding it going to be very small - family only, and it will be a whole weekend. Which has helped me rule out all the "reception venues" those big places with the ballrooms and minimum numbers of 100 people and where they have several weddings on the one day (which is so not my style - I'm not bumping into another bride). You would think it would make the search easier. But it is actually harder to find somewhere that will take a "small" group and be flexible to do what we want and to also be exclusively us on The Day.

I know I shouldn't worry about it, as it is so far away, but it is really bothering me. I have already planned so much stuff, I have even picked my gown designer. Usually the venue is the first thing that gets organised but in our case it seems to be the last.

Last night I had my first wedding dream, or nightmare as I recall. It was The Big Day, and I don't know where it was, but for some reason I had very dark hair (I am a blonde, although plan to go dark AFTER the wedding) and I was wearing a tiara. However my tiara was broken and was missing a large piece. No one told me, I got so upset as ALL the wedding pictures had me with a broken tiara and I was to embarrassed to use any of them, so they all had to be thrown out and The Boy told me that we would get dressed up again and have them taken again, but I said no as it wasn't the same. I also remember getting upset at the reception, I got upset about a lot, but I remember the one thing that didn't upset me was the fact that I was finally married to the person I want to spend my life with, and am only just beginning too. I really hope the dream was simply a reaction to the stress of venue hunting.

So today it was back to the old drawing board, managed to find some new places, and one I am soooo in love with, I have provided my details, and hopefully I will hear from them. As The Boy reminded me, there is no perfect venue, and he is right, even though I have spent my life dreaming about this, nothing about it is going to be perfect, except that commitment we make to each other, and at the end of the day, that is all that matters. The venue, the reception, even the dress, none of it matters, all that matters is that we become husband and wife, and if that is the only thing that goes right on the day I will be eternally happy.