4: Progress = Printed Engagement Party Invites!

Stop the presses, hold onto your hats, do other cliché things that indicate something big has happened: Ryan and I have made some measurable progress with this wedding thing!

So we haven’t found our venue, I have not found a dress, I still do not know what my colors will be or who any of our vendors are BUT

1. We have each asked almost all of our bridal/groom parties
2. We have scheduled our engagement portraits
3. AND
4. We have scheduled our Engagement Party!

This, my friends, is progress.

We have yet to ask my brother and sister in law into our party but after that, I think we’ve managed to accumulate attendants! Oh wait, actually, Ryan still has to find an 8th person (yes, I said 8th…this ain’t no smalltime affair, kids). We joked about posting an ad on craigslist inviting interested parties to apply. I'll keep you updated.

I have also come to the conclusion that The Engagement Party satiates my need for a wedding in general. Earlier today, I suggested with a sugary laugh that we should just bring an officiator, I should wear white and we should just do it there, while all are assembled. It would be like a surprise party. “Surprise! We’re actually getting married now! You’ve been punked! Fork over some additional money as a gift and have another drink on me!”

Not that I am in that much of a hurry. Occasionally, while flipping through Modern Bride or Elegant Bride or Sophisticated Bride or Philadelphia Bride or Freakout Bride magazine I’ll casually ask Ryan “Are we sure that we want to be married? Isn’t married just code word for “boring and unattractive”? Can I still dye my hair blonde on a whim if we’re married? Can I still go out dancing with Cindy? Can we still be wild and reckless and randomly hop a flight to wherever? Can Ryan still walk out of his jobs without giving notice? Can we still have throw down, drag out fights for no reason and then end up makingout furiously in the corner five minutes later?”

Ryan assures me that all of the above and more is still possible- "even if we're married". He has vowed that we will create our version of "Married" and that it will not be lame and boring. "Don't you remember how much you hated "Relationship" at first?" he'll ask me and I'll nod as I recall a conversation in the car when we first became "official" in which I asked the identical questions above only I used the word Relationship and not Marriage. Ryan calmed the storm of my fears then too by convincing me that relationship could be fun and exciting and that it did NOT have to mean tied down or boring.

Ryan says that our version of Married will not involve a manicured lawn, draperies that match the carpeting, scheduled date nights and long conversations about stocks. We are not planning to settle down in a house anywhere, we will not be getting a minivan or a fence. "Married", Ryan promises, is not a sentence to being ordinary and boredinary.

I believe him and it is only because I am able to trust him that I know that it will be OK. And trust him I do. He is in fact, the only person on this planet I could ever imagine marrying (which I guess is why it's good that I am?). In the words of my sister-in-law who didn't believe my brother was telling the truth when he told her I was engaged: "I always thought you would stay single forever!"

I did too. Which is why, incidently, marrying Ryan is the right thing.

I mean, it was less than a year ago that I was out at the bar in my short, tattered denim skirt, layer upon layer of necklaces and makeup with long curly blonde hair cascading down my back. I had perfected single and I loved it.

And then I met Ryan and as much as I tried to fight it, there was just something about him that made me actually fall in love. Suddenly, I stopped returning the calls of other guys, I stopped keeping my schedule open. I would commit to dinner with Ryan way in advance, I would be secretly sad if he didn't automatically assume we were seeing each other that night.

I tried to deny the truth, I tried to keep on pretending that I wasn't so smitten. I would force myself out without him and would then find myself texting him all night, creating elaborate schemes to "run into him" wherever I happened to be with my friends.

Sometimes I still look at him and wonder how it happened. Two days ago I woke up and realized I was in the suburbs and there was a ring on my finger. A year ago, that experience would have made me launch into a panic attack that was Emergency Room worthy. Now though I just wonder with amazement how all of these pieces fell into place. And I know that it is because of the fact that those thoughts dont send me into a hysterical panic that this is the right thing.

and hell, even if I do panic, there is no one else who would ever be able to calm my panic or let me have the biggest temper tantrum ever like Ryan would. That man, I swear, knows exactly how to handle me.

So anyway, all is well and we are taking this one day at a time. Ain’t nothing gonna break our stride, nobody’s gonna hold us down. Oh no.

Love and we’ve got to keep on movin,

Rhian