Go away or I shall taunt you a second time!

So I got engaged recently (woo) and let me just tell you how excited I am.  Like on a scale from moon walk to "HEE-HEE", I'm like Never Never Land excited. (This was a Michael Jackson reference in case you didn't have 10 cups of coffee this morning and aren't keeping up with me).  We were really lucky in that we were on vacation and had a good solid 2 days to be by ourselves before dealing with the world.  I kid you not, as soon as we got back, the stupid advice started appearing in spades.  And because you are very dear to me, sweet none existent reader, I would not hold endless entertainment from you.  So here are the things that I have been either asked, told or learned about "marriage" in the past month.

Firstly, we had no cell reception where we were so I was very limited in the people that I could tell.  The people I did tell however immediately asked me "did you set a date yet?!?"  Im sorry. What? I was shocked at first like geez I must have very silly friends that they would ask that within 10 seconds of me actually getting engaged.  Yet as I continued to tell people over the 48 hours following the momentous occasion, literally 98% of people asked me that and then I began to think that maybe I was the crazy one for thinking this was crazy.  Then I saw other people get engaged and discovered that this is an actual thing.  Like people get engaged knowing when they are going to get married already and then proceed to tell people the date.  So my plea to you is this... as a society can we decide that when someone tells us that they are engaged to just wait for them to tell you when the date is...there is no need to prod them for it.  If they want you to know, they will most assuredly tell you.

Secondly,  the guest list is taking over my life.  Going into wedding planning I was naive enough to think that I could get my list to under 75 people.  Then I began to draft it and realized that I was now at 48 people just within my family and I hadn't gotten to friends, roommates, coworkers or even the bridal party yet.  So then I made the mistake of asking people for their opinions about who I should invite, NEVER AGAIN IN MY LIFE! "Invite everybody in your family or people wont invite you to Christmas parties." "Don't invite people if you don't think they'll bring gifts" "More people=more gifts" "Just do a general invitation to the church and singles ward"  "make sure you invite your 3rd cousin...she'll be offended"  Basically the general theme was "DONT OFFEND PEOPLE!" and then I decided something that has changed this whole process.  I give no cares...not a single care was given by me while finishing the guest list.  I don't like everyone in my family, especially if I haven't heard from them in 15 years.  I most definitely don't like everybody at church and I don't care who feels like they "deserve" to be invited.  You wanna know who deserves to go? Me and David.  Other then that I don't really need anyone else so just pump your breaks general public, ok?

Thirdly, me setting a date has caused mass panic the likes of which I have never seen.  We got engaged the last week in July and I set my date for September 27, 2014.  Thats over a year so I will be out of school and I have enough time to plan a wedding on a budget.  So I go to tell people this (since they have been pestering me since forever) and immediately everyone is like OH MY GOSHHHH WHYYYYYY!!!! HOW CAN YOU WAIT THAT LONG?!?!?!?! ok first off, lets all just collectively calm our tits and just pipe down.  How can I wait that long? I have no money, thats how I can wait that long.  If I could afford the wedding of my dreams tomorrow, trust me when I say, it would be tomorrow.  I'm not going to compromise my dream wedding for some crappy fire hall/ cultural hall shin dig simply for the preconceived notion that long engagements are a breeding ground for problems.  A side note on this topic I told my extremely religious great aunt my date and her describing to me the likely hood of sexual misconduct while trying to not say anything inappropriate was like...the best hahaha one of the sweetest women I know and I actually really appreciated her honesty.

And finally I recently told my dad that I wasn't going to have a guest book and he told me I had too.  I was like why and he said "because everybody does, its tradition" to which I responded "Dad wheres your guest book" "....I don't know".  Which begs the question, do you need it?  Like if I had 400 people invited I totally get it but my guest list is at 150 right now and Im expecting it to be finalized at like 120.  I feel like that doesn't require a guest book.  Which leads into this struggle that I've had with a lot of things, apparently I have to wear a veil, have a guest book, do a receiving line and not see the groom till the alter. Why?  Why are these things? Can we just decide that they're not things?  Because I'm not doing any of them and you cant make me.

Soooo yeah.  Thats me today.