Match.mom – THE ENGAGEMENT and a look back.
So much has changed since the last time I contributed to Rachel’s blog. Last year, I wrote a post highlighting the merits of letting your parents play matchmaker. At the time I was at the height of a romance with Thomas – a relationship that began because his mom set us up after our parents became neighbors. Little did I know huge changes and tough decisions were just around the corner. First of all, my boyfriend got transferred to Tulsa for his job, and I quit my awesome (paying) job in Houston to move with him. With that, came renting a house together, buying furniture together, getting a new job, and co-parenting his dog Abbey and my new puppy Eleanor. Needless to say, last May brought big changes to my life.
I would like to mention that I am not a huge proponent of doing a massive upheaval of your life for a guy you’ve only dated 6 six months. And neither are my parents. But before I committed to the move, I told Thomas, “I am only moving to Tulsa if we both agree that we will be getting engaged within a year of me moving there.” And to completely get everything out on the table, I added, “from the second I move there, every single day until we are engaged, I will have a nagging insecurity in the back of my mind that there’s a chance we won’t end up together and I will look like a huge chump for moving. So if you wait around, I will probably start acting crazy.” Luckily, this revealing moment was met with love and reassurance, so I quit my job and adopted Eleanor, my beautiful Australian shepherd. Fast forward six months, and Thomas proposed on our front porch on November 1, 2010, after dating for 387 days.
To any twenty-something girl reading this blog, please consider me to be exactly like you. I have had some really good relationships that ended badly, and some awful relationships that ended terribly. I have been in love multiple times, and had my heart broken a couple. I have casually dated countless guys that I knew were bad news from the beginning, but stuck around because I liked the attention or just wanted someone to fall back on. I have first date horror stories. I have made bad decisions that I knew were bad decisions as I was making them. I once literally said out loud (while crying on the phone to my mom), “I’m going to be alone forever!” So by the time I was 24, I had lived out every single bad dating cliché and nearly became one myself.
I just want you to take that in to consideration if you’re single and wanting a serious or meaningful relationship. There is nothing about me that made me more likely to marry the man of my dreams. I’m not super sweet, overly religious, abnormally beautiful, or anything else that tricks guys into fast proposals. The only thing that worked in my favor was deciding that I would only date guys that lived up to what I deserve, and end it with those that didn’t. You can’t marry your dream guy if you date a less-than-dream guy. JUST SAYIN’!
Anyway, on to the second most awesome wedding of 2011… Within two days of our engagement, I had the church and the reception booked. I have always known that I wanted to get married at my childhood summer camp, Camp Balcones Springs, in Marble Falls, Texas. Not only did I go to camp there for five years, but my family has a lake house in Marble Falls, and it really feels like home for me. Plus, the camp has a blob and delicious chicken fingers.
Planning a wedding in Marble Falls is challenging enough when the entire town does not have one single mariachi band, and you have to do your cake tasting in a trailer home. Not to mention, I am trying to do all this from Tulsa. Doubly annoying. Luckily, my mom doesn’t work and I have no problem delegating things for her to do. Just let me say – no matter how creative or crafty you are, hire a wedding planner if you can afford it. It’s kind of too late for me to do that at this point, but I seriously wish there was someone I was paying to be stressed out instead of me. My other piece of advice: do not spend too much time looking at bridal magazines and wedding blogs. They make even the lowest budget, catering hall weddings look 1000 times better than yours will ever be. These blogs, with their selective photography, are the equivalent to airbrushing in fashion magazines. There is no way to compete. But of course, I still am, which is the main source of my stress. Hopefully, it will pay off in the end. And no matter what happens, we’ll be married and that's good, I guess.
One thing I have done that will perhaps make my wedding stand out is the way I have organized my bridal party. We are getting married in a small catholic church, with a very narrow altar. This means, there was no way to physically fit all my awesome best friends up there. So what the groom and I decided is that our bridesmaids and groomsmen would be just family members, and to make sure everyone knew how much we loved our friends, we have created a group of “Best Friends of Honor.” All the acknowledgement, without the headache and expenses. Everyone wins. This is where I will leave the post for now, and please watch below to see how I asked my pals to be my best friends of honor.
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