BF proposed mariage to
me a few days ago. This is highly exciting.
I could never envisage how he would have
done it. BF down on one knee doesn’t seem right somehow. Then on a non descript Thursday,
about to go to bed (and after some searching questions about whether he was
planning to propose at our cancelled dinner that night) he turned around to me
while I was reading and asked “Will you Marry Me’. And I said yes. He put the
ring on my finger, we both had a cry and then spent the next fifteen minutes
feeling a bit amazed, excited and….well, a bit funny.
This isn't even an unusual proposal. I
helped my brother when he proposed to my sister-in-law by driving from Kent to
Somerset with a bottle of champagne and a bunch of sunflowers, following them
in a trench coat and trilby (I was a bit dramatic at the time) up a long, steep
hill then hiding it all in a prominent spot. My sister-in-law saw my brother
make a bee-line for the flowers and told him he shouldn't go over there as
obviously someone had died on that spot. I was sitting down the hill meanwhile
chatting to a couple who were having an affair and meeting secretly. I wonder
what happened to them…
Unusual proposals include dressing your
newborn in a onesie reading ‘Will You Marry my Daddy?’, carving ‘Will you Marry
me’ in a Pumpkin (in BF’s handwriting this would not work), recording ‘Will you
Marry me’ in a Build a Bear, shouting it out while sky diving, spelling it out
in shells when on a helicopter ride….my god the list is endless. My recently
friend actually asked her intended, ‘What are you doing down there you dick
head’ before she realized he was proposing.
Women can ask men to marry them,
traditionally however this was only meant to happen on a leap year as anyone
who lost 90 minutes of their life watching the film ‘Leap Year’ will know.
Debretts (who have a whole website devoted to etiquette when it comes to exchanging vows) state that the “location
should be memorable and the timing should be carefully thought through…remember
there can be no truly offensive way to ask someone to marry you.”
Oh contraire.
No-one can doubt that BF are a great couple – of course we have our bickering
fits and sometimes I want to kill him. But then we also have moments when we
get so overwhelmed with love, we have a little cry. So, it’s not like I
am one of those women who expect the wedding without the groom. But it had hit
us that we were ENGAGED. Actually, properly engaged. To be married. Going
from talking about it to doing it was actually terrifying. We were going to
actually plan a wedding.
I never thought I'd get married at all so
planning a wedding came as something of a shock.
I was twenty nine when I met BF. It was at
our mutual best friend’s wedding. I was a bridesmaid, he was an usher. I had
brought another date and then caught the bouquet and wound up snogging both of
them on the beach before going back to my room with the date. Luckily BF is
very open-minded and didn’t think it horrendously forward when I Facebooked him
a week later and the rest is history. I never had proper boyfriends before BF.
Lots of ‘nearly boyfriends’ and dates, but nothing that lasted past five
months.
I have been a bridesmaid seven times (this
was Bridesmaid Wedding No seven). Seven different dresses worn, five hen do’s
organised, two speeches given and more champagne than I know what to do with
has passed through my urinary tract. So I know weddings. Oh yes. I have had the
brides ring me up and screech (and screeched back, mainly truthfully) when they
got engaged. I doted over the ring. I have even pretended on
a few occasions that I liked the groom (mercifully on retrospect this has not
happened when I have been a bridesmaid). I have been happy for a lot of people,
which is not quite the same thing as being happy for yourself.
Actually there are a lot of pro’s about
being single. Being single is fun. But weddings while single? Don’t even get me
started on the whole ‘plus one’ thing (finding one or being told you can’t have
one). And having to find the money to get to places, to stay in the hotels,
afford a present, afford the HEN DO, let alone the wedding itself….. I used to
dread the inevitable ‘four a year’ invites arriving (while being very happy for
friends FYI in case I sound really ungrateful). It did not help that at the
time I was an aspiring artist and couldn’t afford a new pair of jeans. Let alone
two nights in a boutique B&B with sea views and shoes in a specific colour
requested by a tired, overwrought bride who is trying to organize her big day
while holding down a full time job AND keeping her mother –in-law happy.
You can see why I am feeling a bit funny.
Suddenly I have gone from badgering him (and boy, did I badger BF. I am amazed
the man has been as patient as he has - I have nicknamed it 'Miss Piggying' after the recent Muppets movie) to having a wonderful ring on my
finger. I have fallen in love with diamonds – driving home I get lost in their
clear, watery glimmer – never wise on the A34. I am also planning the most
political, expensive and potentially offensive event of my life to plan. And
now I know. It is as if the scales have fallen from my eyes.
This is
why those women went mad! This is why they got that
weird glint in their eyes when we went dress shopping! This was why they sounded stressed when I got pissy about the £300 hen do
and having to buy a new pair of shoes, and when I was horrifically moody about
what monstrous frock they were planning to stuff me in. Holy shoot, now I can see how Bridezilla is
made!
She starts out feeling excited and full of
good hope in the begin. But bit by bit, she is ground down. She has a full time
job, potentially a man who cares too little/much/won’t support her ideas for a
twenty foot ice sculpture of the two of them etc. and she starts to fold under
the pressure. Bit by bit this sane, calm woman begin to fall away like the
outside of a melted Easter Egg. And from the wreckage of her inner peace comes
the ‘Zilla. Monstrous to all around her. Maybe even to herself. But driven to
do one thing and one thing only. HAVE THE BEST AND MOST WONDERFUL DAY OF
HER, I MEAN THEIR, LIFE!!!!!! (count the frenetic
exclamation marks there – they are there on purpose my friend). And everything
has to be perfect. Everything. Down to the last
hair, the last favour, the last flower.
I am here to help myself and you through
this tangled, woven path. I don't believe in the art of Zen wedding. I don't
think it's a real thing. I think the arguments, the tantrums, the fights and
the stress is all part of the wonderful human package you get when you through
many different personalities, numerous bank balances, several opinions on what
makes a 'good wedding' and the expectations of most of your friends and family.
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