An engagement....

Being engaged is a very weird and surreal experience I have decided.  I still have a hard time referring to Sean as my..ehem...fiance.  Sounds weird.  Thankfully he is having the same problem, so we have just resorted to calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend for now.  It will be even weirder to use the word husband.  ack!  

This wedding business is such a racket!  I, of course, have started doing a little planning by at least booking a venue to have the thing at.  Things get filled so fast!  In looking around at all of the things to buy, it amazes me how much people spend on weddings!  The venues alone are outrageous!  It's crazy!  I am desperately trying to keep the costs down because it kills me to spend that much money on one day when it could be used to invest in something...anything tangible!   I have decided to wear my mom's wedding dress, which will not only save a ton of money, but it will make it all the more special.  Thank goodness she picked a very classic style that is still nice for today.  I tried it on a couple of weeks ago and left her house smelling like formaldehyde.  ick!  Had to shower after that one.  She had had the dress "preserved" so to speak in this box.  It was actually still white and not discolored at all....and the seams still were intact.  bonus! I think I am still going to have them looked at to verify their integrity.  I don't want another incident like the one I had at the Mark of Excellence awards.  (my beautiful vintage dress that I bought still had the original beautiful vintage thread holding the thing together that all popped loose during the ceremony.  Let's just say the entire thing self destructed before my very eyes.  It wasn't a pretty sight.  And neither was the jean shirt I was forced to wear over it the rest of the night!)

So we have pretty much settled on a date.  May 22, 2009.  It will be exactly six years from our first date.  It is kind of weird trying to actually pick a date.  There is no real significance to any one date, and if you are trying to make it meaningful, what date do you choose?  One of my friends just picked a date because it "felt like a special date."  Nothing really came to me other than the 22nd of May.  So, it is a Friday night, but will be great anyway because (a) hopefully things will be cheaper and (b) I will be able to have an evening wedding.  

It still amazes me how many people pay attention to these types of things.  I didn't even have to tell anyone that we were engaged...most everyone just ran up to me screaming.  "Is this new?!"  "When did it happen?!"  and "It's about time!"  Mostly the latter.  With my favorite being "It's about bloody time!"  In some ways it seems like forever and in other ways it has flown by.  I can't believe we have been together that long.  All that dreaming and planning we have done is finally here.  It's very surreal.