So, I’ve officially been engaged two weeks and two days. And I have probably answered the question, When’s the wedding? and Have you guys set a date? a few dozen times…at least. I’m not complaining; but I just feel so unprepared. My fiance and I agreed to not discuss “the wedding” at all the first week of our engagement. A mandate I suggested. I wanted to enjoy and live in the moment before we started breaking out spreadsheets and fabric swatches. But a few days ago, he actually (gulp!) broke out the first spreadsheet. He knows I can procrastinate and I think he just wanted to get the ball rolling. It was actually a good thing. We’ve begun to explore general thoughts like the size of wedding we’d like to have, tossed around location ideas and are beginning to see how this will all impact our budget. Everything is quite preliminary at this point but I’m happy we’ve started this dialogue (and even happier that he started the spreadsheet process because I loathe Excel). I am however planning to start a vision board this week, and not a Pinterest board either — the old school foam core kind I can hang in my home office. I’m looking forward to seeing how it evolves over the next few months.

Besides being clueless about our wedding date, being the founder/editor of Triple B has added a level of pressure about my nuptials I wasn’t expecting. A few colleagues have even flat out said to me, “You know everyone is expecting you to have some next level type wedding because of your site, right?” Um, nope I didn’t know that. I can’t lie, that information initially scared the ish outta me. But thankfully I was reminded by loved ones that the only people my wedding should aim to please is me and my fiance. If it ends up wowing folks, great. If not, we’re grown-ups and won’t lose any sleep.

As much fun — albeit stressful — as planning a celebration for me, my sweetie and all our loved ones can and should be; the beau and I are much more concerned about where we’re going to plant roots, agreeing on how we will afford to plant those roots and fusing our sometimes conflicting points of view on business matters than planning the picture perfect wedding. And even when we disagree about stuff that we’re very passionate about, we remember to still show love and affection. Ya know like even though I’m pissed that you don’t agree with me about xyz, I’m still going to fix your lunch or send you a sweet text message in the middle of the workday. I’m pretty dang proud of us for this because just a year ago I don’t think we were as mature. Some folks say how a couple plans their wedding is an indication of how they’ll navigate through marriage. Only time will tell if this applies to us but what I do know for sure is that our future marriage>wedding. That math will never change.

CONFESSION: My fiance and I didn’t — nor do we plan to — announce our engagement formally. The day we got engaged, I called my mother who happened to be with my brother, sister-in-law and nieces so I was able to tell them all the great news at once. (My mother quickly informed the greater part of North Carolina.) The next day I sent text messages and/or spoke to my closest loved ones as did the fiance. A few days later I posted about the news on Facebook and Twitter and of course wrote about it here. My maternal family matriarch sent about 50 fam members a lovely announcement via email. As a bridal blogger, I suppose an official announcement in a big newspaper is the proper etiquette expected but um…yeah. We’re a bit anti-establishment in that way. Moral of the story, regardless of what bridal blogs (Triple B included), experts and wedding magazines suggest, ultimately nearlyweds should do what works best for them.