Wow this has been a tiring week, after a very long drive to Northumberland and back (thank you, A1 traffic jams) last Saturday and a wild Sunday celebrating the dog’s birthday at the Doggy Diner, I’ve been collapsing into bed at nine o’clock most evenings. Oh, and I also suppose I’m a bit exhausted from carrying around this HUGE engagement ring (Phoebe Buffay, 2004). I may have left university over two years ago, but the ability to reference in the Harvard style will sadly remain burned into my brain until I die. But yes, on a far lighter note – I’m engaged!
I’m not one to air dirty laundry on a public forum (I save that for my group chats and coffee breaks at work while the kettle boils, I’m not a monster), but after almost nine years together this did come as somewhat of a relief. One of my best friends described it as ‘feeling a sense of peace ripple around the world’, so if you opened your curtains earlier this week and saw The Westboro Baptist Church skipping down the street, arm in arm with the cast of Queer Eye, don’t be alarmed – they’re all just so happy I’m finally engaged. So peaceful and relieved I was last Saturday, with an ice cold glass of M&S champagne and a hot bubble bath and a bridal magazine; feeling smug that it was finally my moment and that my wedding would be the least stressful, most fun and yet somehow chilled out day anyone has ever had and – wow, that was a nice twelve hours.
By Sunday evening, I was ready to throw my phone into the sea Carrie Bradshaw style and ask Jack if he had still had the receipt for the ring. I was just so completely baffled that one, albeit gorgeous, small piece of jewelry was capable of inviting so many unwanted opinions. Do diamonds emit some kind of hologram, invisible to their wearer, which says ‘please, tell me more about what you think a wedding should be’? Because I think mine might! While I’m not naive enough to have thought planning a wedding with someone who has a huge family would be an entirely zen experience from start to finish, I really did think that old classic – ‘it’ll be different when it’s ours’ would apply at least partially. Snowballing from that – I’m also now less certain that if I have children they definitely won’t cry unless there’s a legitimate reason, they absolutely won’t need dummies and that I’ll teach them to sleep through the night by their first birthday.
After a full week of hearing everyone’s opinions about what kind of wedding I should have and more than several variations of ‘shall we just book a registry office and get this over with?’ with my other half; I’ve drawn the early conclusion that yes, planning a wedding can be stress free; but only if you’re prepared to be brutal. I would never go as far as saying I ‘respect’ Theresa May (there’s little to no chance of me saying that about any Tory ever), but I have come to the realisation that pleasing everyone is a really, really difficult job; so in some cases it’s better to just do what you think is best and sod everyone else. At least the biggest decision I have to manage at the moment is whether to bother with a wedding breakfast or just go straight into canapes, though at times I do think it would be easier to negotiate a hard or soft Brexit. Theresa, if you want to swap, you can find my email address on the ‘contact’ page.
Clyde's Corner 