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Did I mention we met in February 2009, got unengaged in August 2009, got officially engaged in April 2010, and chose to wait until July 2012 to get hitched? Unengagement to wedding = 35 months. Official engagement to wedding = 27 months…
Just a bit of a heads up—we willingly made that decision. I started a full-time grad program in September 2009 while working full time, and we had no desire to make life hard and plan the whole shindig while I was getting edumacated.
There was the heart-wrenching Prop 8 passage that happened months before we met, but there is still hope. Prop 8 has been in legal limbo and is moving (albeit at a snail’s pace) toward the US Supreme Court, where it might be repealed and set precedence to change marriage laws nationwide. We were hopeful that this case would be decided on before July 2012. We are getting a skosh less hopeful that things will change before we get hitched…but we have some backup plans that I will talk about later.
I’ve read that the average engagement length is between 14 and 16 months. I completely understand the reasons why people wait over a year to get married. Some people have their hearts set on a specific date or season. Other people have a long list of DIY projects and tasks to complete. Some people live in locations where venues book up fast. Most people, including us, need some time to save up and budget.
Honestly, though, I don’t think we could ever wait that long. It already seems like Mr. Mole and I have been engaged for-ev-er, even though it’s only been about 8.5 months. And we still have three more weeks to go. Argh. Patience is clearly not one of my virtues.
We finished all of the major planning months and months ago. We found our venues, our photographer, our wedding day outfits, our centerpieces, etc., throughout the summer and early fall. The only things that are left are the small stuff that we would have had to wait on until now anyway: creating seating charts, making escort cards, finishing dress alterations, confirming times and appointments. All that the extra time allowed me to do was start to second-guess my original decisions!
If I could pick my ideal engagement length, I would pick 6 months.
Read more…
Planning a wedding isn’t easy. Let’s face it, a lot of feelings come out and relationships (and wallets) are strained during this otherwise joyous process. Sometimes this comes from tough relationships between daughters and their mothers.
I can say, now nine months in, that my mom and I are no worse for the wear despite the ups and downs that have come before us. I’m not going deep on you right now, though. Instead, I wanted to talk about how my mom’s excitement and involvement in our wedding planning has brought us closer together. You heard how she helped secure our venue, but coming up next is her best effort yet.
Granted, I am biased, but I wanted to share with you the details of our party as they may serve as great inspiration for any events you may be hosting.
To celebrate our engagement, over Easter, my mom invited family and friends north for a little soiree. I knew she was taking it to the next level when I saw this.
That’s right, my mom made envelope liners!
We chose to have a seventeen month long engagement. People questioned us on this decision over and over again like a broken record. The constant “why are you waiting so long” question got old real quick. When I ran into people they would ask me what I have planned so far, and I would follow up with a laundry list of what I have done. At the end of every conversation they would answer back with a snarky tone and say, “isn’t it a little early for that?”
This made me constantly second guess myself as to whether I was in fact planning too early. I would receive email updates from wedding websites and it would say I am 360 days out from the wedding and at this point I should start researching venues. I would sit there and think hmm, I did that six months ago. Was that bad? No, it is not.
We chose to give ourselves the precious gift of time.
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Image via Kissssing
In my last post, I began my recaps of our amazing engagement party. I think I should be able to wrap up the rest in this post.
I already talked about our beyond-fashionably-late entrance, and the setup. Once we arrived and snapped a few photos, the party really got underway. One of our groomsmen, GM Mac, was the DJ. He had his Apple laptop and his Apple iPad.
Personal photo: GM Mac with his iPad
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
I don’t know if our engagement party was really the best ever, but it was the best one I’d ever been to. The food, the music, the decorations, the guests—everything was exactly as it should be. It really warmed my heart and Mr. Kettle’s heart, too. Now we only talk about eloping when confronted with overly detailed wedding decisions instead of every time we think of the impending too-big-to-succeed wedding.
Momma and Daddy Kettle, along with some help from friends of theirs, put together a wonderful affair.
We had our engagement party at the lovely L26 restaurant, and it was better than I could have imagined. So, onto the recaps.
Mr. Kettle and I agreed he wouldn’t take any gigs the days of wedding events. He forgot this agreement and took a gig the day of the engagement party. I was concerned he would be late or miss his own party, but I didn’t request he cancel the gig. Interestingly enough, I was the one who made us late to the party because I was last-minute shopping in Orland with BM Milk. But I ended up with a great dress. I don’t have any full-length pictures of me standing up wearing it, though. I can’t believe I went all night without getting one. Recap fail.
Personal photo: This is the only photo I have where you can see the whole dress. It is lovely even sitting down, isn’t it?
After Mr. Funnel Cake proposed to me, the first soul I told about being engaged was my HR manager the next morning. Touching, right? I needed to let them know I wouldn’t be deported and that they could extend my contract without immigration issues.
Mr. Funnel Cake was a bit funny about the engagement though…he kind of wanted to keep it a secret. Obviously telling my HR was mandatory so I could keep working, but Mr. Funnel Cake wanted to keep our special news between us.
(Image via psdGraphics)
It only took a couple days at work before the excitement bubbled over and I let some colleagues know I was engaged. By the end of the week, I was dying to tell our parents.
Recently, one of my amazingly beautiful friends, Miss O, announced she is engaged! I couldn’t be happier for her and her wonderful future husband, and I cannot wait to support her in any way possible throughout her wedding-planning journey. The only issue? Miss O and her fiance are getting married six days after our wedding.
When I first got her save the date, it didn’t register with me that our weddings are so close together. I was too busy jumping up and down exclaiming how excited I was for their wedding to even focus on what was written on the card. After I calmed myself down, I realized that our weddings are going to be super close together, and scheduling and other issues are bound to arise.
First, I selfishly worried whether Miss O would be able to come to our wedding. I love Miss O and her fiance, and I would be very disappointed if they were not able to come.
For a brief moment, I entertained the possibility that Miss O chose this date knowing and hoping that we would not be able go to their wedding. About 30 seconds later I realized that this was a ridiculous, narcissistic thought and got over myself because, really?…really? I knew better.
As reality set in, I realized that Mr. Pony and I originally planned to leave on our honeymoon immediately following the wedding festivities. If we leave immediately after the wedding, there would be no way we could get back in time for Miss O’s wedding. Which would make me a sad panda.
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…is go to another person’s wedding. I’m not saying to bust into a random church on any given Saturday, hoping to crash an unsuspecting couple’s ceremony and then follow them to their reception. Although that could be kind of fun.
Image via My Movie Banners
I wasn’t that little girl who planned her wedding when she was eight. In fact, up until I met Mr. Seal, I was pretty convinced that I would end up an old spinster with 18 mange-ridden cats. That being said, even though I was (and still am) desperately excited to marry Mr. S and anxiously awaited the engagement, I was a tiny bit frightened that I didn’t possess the “bride gene.”
I did, however, manage to come across this picture of little me dressed as a bride—perhaps early evidence of bridal DNA?
If you live in Chicago, you know all about the amazing summers we have here. There are beaches to sit on, shows to attend, and street fairs to go to every single weekend. It’s pretty much awesome. But my favorite part of Chicago summertime is, hands down, the unbelievable music festivals that find a home here.
It just so happens that my VERY favorite, Pitchfork Music Festival, falls on my birthday weekend every year. I mean really, Pitchfork, you shouldn’t have. So last year, like every year, Sparks and I made our way over to Union Park to get down to our favorite tunes. Last year was especially great because one of my favorite college buddies was in town, and Sparks’s friend had (generously) gifted us with VIP passes! We spent the next three days jamming to Robyn, Tallest Man on Earth, and Major Lazer. Oh, and enjoying all the free beer. Score!
Left: My face for the whole weekend; Right: Killer view for Pavement
As much fun as it was to devise a clever “we’re engaged!” story for my mom, we brainstormed even harder when it came to our friends. We came up with some creative ways to surprise them, but my favorite “spill the beans” story has to be when we told our good friend R.
The engagement was still a secret. The few family members who knew promised to keep it a secret (and off Facebook) so we could share the news in person with close friends and distant family.
Back when I was little, probably about eight years old or so, my parents took me to the card store to buy a birthday card for my granny in England. We picked one out, I scribbled in it, and we sent it off. After Granny’s birthday, she sent us a photo of her TV set. The TV set wasn’t the point of the photo; the two birthday cards on top were. There was mine, beside a photo of me, and there was my cousin’s, beside a photo of him. The thing was? We sent her the same card! He lives in England, me in Canada, and somehow we managed to send the exact same card to our granny.
I thought about that moment when engagement cards started arriving at our house because we received two of the same card. One from relatives on my side from England and one from relatives on his side in Ireland. It made me smile. 
Then, Cinnamon Buns and I went to visit my parents for the Christmas holidays, and Mum gave me a card that had been sent to their house, but it was addressed to Cinnamon Buns and me. I opened it up and burst out laughing. This is what I did with it as soon as we got back to our house:
After we got engaged, Mr. Lox and I were just kind of confused. You would think that having both done this before we would have been more prepared. Alas, you would think wrong. What really happened was just…well…confusion.
We had to figure out exactly how we wanted to do this thing. And then we had to figure out when. And somehow, both of our experienced selves believed we had time to make these decisions. We were utterly unprepared for what would happen next. (And yet somehow I think all of you are going to see this one coming. Shame on us!)
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