Remember when the boyfriend became Fiancé-friend back in September? Well, here we are, four months later with four months to go until “the wedding” and I have very little to show for it.

I thought being engaged might be a little different from being just-regular-together, but as it turns out, it’s almost the exact same. We still grocery shop in the same neurotic way (weekly mealplan and list typed out by section of the store), Fiancé-friend is still a better dish-drier than dish-washer, and I still freak out at regular intervals about nothing at all and then sheepishly apologize for my hysterics.

Now, I guess, the main difference is that we are four months away from a particularly momentous occasion in our lives and the kick-off to a fun roadtrip victory tour, and I suppose I should start getting the ball rolling on things.

So here are some updates. I happen to love reading about other people’s weddings–at least a little–so if you happen to be like me, I’ll indulge your curiosity about the details of other people’s lives.

The actual “Getting Married” part: We are solidly planning on getting married in a non-religious ceremony, preferably presided over by an impartial, non-acquaintance Justice of the Peace at a courthouse in Richmond. The date will be somewhere around Memorial Day so that all anniversaries will be on or around a three-day weekend. It is Fiancé-friend’s job to figure out which day would be best for this. [Dear Pat, if you are reading this, please remind Dad NOT to cancel your trip to Maine. The dates will work out, and we also have a degree of flexibility.] Our parents will be in attendance; obviously, my dad will be there, which means for some inexplicable reason, I will shed buckets of tears. I must remember to test out some water-proof mascara.

Dressing Up: The boyfriend wants to wear something more than his usual shorts and a tee-shirt. I am encouraging him to wear a bowtie and/or suspenders. I will probably find some kind of dress that can be worn again.

Vows: When I started shooting my mouth off about how we wanted this non-traditional, somewhat non-emotional ceremony, Kayla asked me why we didn’t want to have vows when they are, in her opinion, the most important part of the ceremony. My mom echoed these sentiments. For a good portion of our drive back from Richmond, we tried to figure out if we wanted vows and what we would say if we had them. We both are supremely uncomfortable with professing a personal sentiment in front of others and feel that anything we tried to say would either be too vague (“I promise to be a good partner.”) or would fall short in an attempt at mitigating the awkwardness of the situation with humor (“I promise to close all the cabinet doors that you leave open.”). For now, the plan is to go sans vows.

Post-”ceremony” events: My family leans towards the side of huge-normous and has many different “facets” or groups that come together. I feel rather strongly about getting to spend time with people, actually talking and enjoying their company, so instead of having a large reception, I think we’re going to split it up into mini-events on or around the date that we decide to get married. That way, we can spend quality time celebrating with my families, Fiancé-friend’s family, and our friends. On the day of, we’ve been tossing around the idea of getting married in the morning, going to brunch/lunch with our parents, and then seeing friends that evening.

I’ve had a pretty “meh” attitude towards planning these events, which is–I think–my way of preventing them from ballooning into something big and formal. Instead, I’m all for keeping things fun and casual. My mom threw out the idea of her planning a family shindig and us just showing up. I can’t say I’m against it….

Rings: We did some jewelry shopping while we were in Richmond and Urbanna over winter break. Fiancé-friend is leaning towards a cobalt chrome wedding band. My grandmother’s ring is currently being repaired and re-sized, and I’m working with a jeweler on Etsy to design a ring with a stone from Fiancé-friend’s family. (The original plan of a two-stone ring didn’t work out.)

Website: My bridesmaids web developers are two of the most talented people I’ve ever met, but this means that they are also busy deploying awesome websites for work and designing amazing projects for marketing degrees. As such, we’ve been working on the site slowly, but I will try to get at least a bare-bones site up soon to start blogging the process of planning this trip. Sorry for the wait!

Wedding Victory Tour: Everyone we know is in a state of transition this year–applying to grad school, graduating and getting a job, getting married themselves. However, we’ve set down some rough “anchor” dates and will try to fit in as much visiting and site-seeing as possible in between.

• The kick-off will be in mid-May when we head to New Hampshire to attend a wedding for one of Fiancé-friend’s college roommates.
• The next major date is at the end of June for Jessica and Matt’s wedding reception in Ohio.
• From there, we plan to spend some time in the Midwest before driving the long stretch to the West Coast.
• Mid-July, we plan to be in San Francisco before making our way down the coast.
• Returning east, we will route through Texas and the southern states.
• We foresee this taking quite some time, so WVT will probably wrap up in late-July/early August.

Alright, that’s all I got for now!