Pre-gagement

Hive, let's get real for a minute. I have been reading wedding blogs long enough to know I am not the only person who had a pre-gagement. You know, it's that time between when you've talked about marriage, decided this person is the one with whom you will spend the rest of you your life, and the actual, official engagement. Despite what movies and TV and romance novels would have us believe, the percentage of people who are blown-out-of-their-chair shocked by a proposal is pretty small. Enter, pre-gagement.

For us, it was made even harder by the LDR. As I wrote about earlier, Mr. Aardvark and I lived 7+ hours apart for over a year. That whole time, we were very seriously pre-gaged. We never ring shopped, but we talked about rings. We never made wedding plans, but we talked about "when we're married".

Once he moved here, every day I was convinced that was the day he would propose, and we would start planning our wedding. Ladies, (or gentlemen, but I assume it's mostly ladies reading a wedding blog) this is no way to live. It made me irritable. It made Mr. A feel bad. It made me insecure. It made Mr. A frustrated. Clearly, impatient tendencies had taken all the fun out of our pre-gagement.

After a month or two I let it go (kinda) and told myself it would happen when it happened. Then it did happen! And it was more wonderful than I could have imagined. Looking back now, I have some guilt about how demanding I had been. I have never been a very patient person, and waiting for something I knew was going to happen sometime just amplified my inpatient personality. I think our long pre-gagement is one of the main reason our engagement will be relatively short, less than a year. Yay for less waiting!

The lesson here, each stage of your relationship is important, eventually it will transition to another phase, but before it ends take a minute (or a year) to enjoy it!

And now, a goofy picture:




Mr. Aardvark and I getting ready for a Lady Gaga Concert (Personal Photo)

 He indulges my crazy whims, can you blame me for being in a rush to spend the rest of my life with this guy?

Did you have a long pre-gagement? Or where you blown-out-of-your-chair surprised by your proposal?