I’ve had a few friends get married already and I had several candid conversations with them leading up to my own big day to help me get a handle on things. I figured I would write up what I learned and my thoughts on the whole thing after I had done some reflection in the offhand chance that someone stumbling upon this may get some piece of mind in knowing that they are not alone in going through the ups and downs of getting engaged and getting married. I’ll also be forwarding this to “the fellas”, my best friends from high school, who helped me out through all the stages below.

The Preamble

So you date and date and finally think you’ve found someone you’d like to spend the rest of your life with. Ideally your parents are supportive, your friends think he’s/she’s great and you find yourself stopping to think about how lucky you are. Great! While you may think the hard work is over, it’s really just beginning.

If you’re doing the proposing, you go through the gyrations of hunting for the ring, a nontrivial task that is only marginally complicated or eased by your significant others’ preferences. Learn your 4C’s if you go the diamond route, prepare for awkward looks and conversations if you go the non-diamond route. Contemplate what you want to put into a ring versus what you want to have for the future.

Getting engaged is really a trial run at how comfortable you are with that serious committed feeling. After the emotional high from popping the question and telling everyone the good news wears off, you really have to confront how you feel about spending the rest of your life with this other person because you just took a serious step toward making it a reality.

The F word

All of a sudden, you’ll find yourself referring to your significant other as your fiancé. This was a trip for me and it took me a while to get used to it. I think for the first few months I couldn’t say it without feeling a bit silly. Ultimately it seemed awkward to be communicating that serious aspect of your relationship with pretty much anyone and everyone. After a while, I just defaulted to referring to Katie by name as opposed to the F word.

Hopefully you have enough time after getting engaged to get comfortable with that and then work on setting a date. Expect to be asked a million times, as soon as people find out you are engaged, if you have set a date. This got to be pretty annoying to me after some time. What’s their rush? They’re not the ones getting married!

Planning (a.k.a. Figuring Out Who the Wedding is Really For)

Speaking of those not getting married, as we progressed in planning, there were times where I felt torn between whether we were planning the wedding primarily for ourselves, our family or our friends. It turns out to be a balancing act as you want all the important people in your life to share the moment with you but you also want things to get done your way. Instead of focusing on making everyone as happy as possible, focus on trying not to make anyone feel bad. It’s MUCH easier and more realistic that way. We did that and I think we pulled off a day where pretty much everyone walked away happy after having a great time.

There are already a million sites dedicated to helping people figure out the details to plan for so I won’t really get into that. I would just say, never take any list as a hard and fast set of “must-haves”. Katie was keen on tailoring everything and not feeling beholden to every single tradition and I’m glad we did that. Also, hire a good DJ. We did, at the last minute, and it was the best money we spent on the reception.

The Big Day

Finally, the big day arrives and all the advice I got from my friends who got married before me can be summed up as:

  • Expect little things and big things to go wrong
  • Take it in stride, the important thing is you are getting married
  • Try to take it slowly during the day
  • Be sure to eat
  • Enjoy everything!

I don’t think I have much to add to that list, I tried to keep all those things in mind in the days leading up to the wedding and the big day itself and it helped a lot. The main thing I would add is to make the most of your bridal/wedding party and don’t be shy about asking for help. My groomsmen and Katie’s bridesmaids were so helpful and so instrumental in helping us pull everything off and best of all they really enjoyed helping out.

The Aftermath

Well, I can’t say too much about the aftermath, after all, I’ve only been married a few weeks. Expect to be in a financial world of hurt. Any budget you set in advance will be out the window when you start looking back and really adding up costs. Of course, it’s all worth it (unless you went nuts with doves and stuff like that). We’re planning our honeymoon for the end of December given our schedules but we have a mini getaway planned this week. I would recommend not going back to work right after, which I did and thoroughly regret. Even vegging out at home, playing the Wii and surfing the Web would have been enough to help me decompress from the preceding week.