Oh my God! I suck! Here is some important information that I forgot to blog about:

Today is my neice’s 16th birthday.  Seriously.  This whole her growing up thing? Should not be allowed.

So Will and I have finally set a date for the wedding.  It is looking like September 12 of next year.  I was thinking about putting up one of those big glittery countdown things that you see all the time on Myspace, but in the end I decided not to.  I’m still not sure if I decided not to because those things are gaudy or because having one on my blog would FREAK ME OUT. So yep.  With any luck, in 397 days I’ll be married!

And my neice? Is 16. 16! It’s Outrageous!

Last night was one of those nights. Those kind of nights when you go to bed feeling so exhausted you might actually fall over if your bed was any more steps away from the doorway of the bedroom. Then when you get into your bed your fiance makes sympathetic noises about being tired too and then, just as you are turning your bedside lamp off, he rolls over and turns his bedside lamp on so that he can read just one more chapter, which turns into, you know, five.

And then you start talking about the wedding that will happen someday and whether or not his asshole friend from the game shop should be invited and then, the larger issue, whether or not his sisters should be invited, which leads to the conversation about whether or not we should put faith in his family to remain civil should they somehow all end up in one place for the first time in more than three years which, somehow, leads to a conversation about music to play at the wedding.

And somehow, even though it’s now an hour and a half later than it was when you fell into bed, you are suddenly awake! And talking about music! And agreeing not to play Unchained Melody and trying not to laugh about having a fiance who says “god that song is just soooo overdone” and then asking why you would want to walk down the aisle to anything other than the standard organ-played traditional bridal march.

I might have mentioned that I am kind of in love with this one song that would work as an aisle walking song, no matter which direction we are walking. Will isn’t too familiar with the song and when I said “it’s the people as M&Ms song and the song from the end of Empire Records!” he still wasn’t convinced that it belonged on an important playlist (hello! It’s Empire Records! Is there a song from that movie that isn’t playlist worthy?). So he said “here, we’ll turn on the radio for inspiration.”

And he turns on the radio? And? No joke? I cannot even make this stuff up, this is what comes out of the radio:

“She’s a bitch but she’s my bitch.”

No kidding.

It was the very last lyric to either a song or what had to have been a hysterical ad. Either way, we laughed ourselves stupid. And then spent a half an hour trying to figure out what the lyric belonged to.

So yeah, it was one of those nights.

The day after we got engaged, Will and I took my ring in to be resized because Will “grossly overestimated” (his words not mine) the size of my ring finger and then took the train into the city together. Will needed to go in for a final and I had some books due at the library.

Because I had a good two hours or so to kill I took my sweet time browsing through the three floors of the library including the “growing up” area of the sociology section and the section on wedding planning. First of all, can I just say that I never cease to be entertained by the progression of the sociology section of the library? It runs roughly like this: love, dating, marriage, deciding to have kids, raising kids, divorce, feminist studies!

No kidding! That’s really how the section progresses!

After letting myself have (yet another) good chuckle, I wandered around trying to find the wedding planning section (it was hidden up on the top floor in a far corner between the books on quotes and the books on entertaining) and sat down to do some perusing.

Will and I aren’t sure when the wedding should be. At this point, we just knew it was going to happen eventually and, because my engagement wasn’t even twenty four hours hold yet, I was still very gung ho in “let’s play with the idea of a wedding!”

But you know what? Those getting married/wedding planning books? Freaked me out! Every single one of them was full of long lists and “how to handle overbearing relatives that insist you do things their way” and horror stories of overbearing friends and family, ceremonies gone wrong, dress disasters, you name it. Had Will not been taking a final exam I would have sent him a “we’re eloping” text message. Instead, I shoved all of the books back onto the shelves and hightailed my little ass right out of there. If I hadn’t been in the library I might have let out a shriek and broke into a run. Because? Yikes!

For my entire life I have known that I don’t want a huge wedding. I don’t want it to be an ordeal or even an Event. I have only wanted a small wedding with close friends and family–nothing too complicated. But then, a few days ago I was walking to the store and while I was listening to my iPod, I shuffled into a song that I love and that would be a great song to walk out (after the ceremony) to. And then I thought “wait a minute! I’m a freakin’ tech theater major! I live for putting on a show! I can’t have something simple!” and visions of projector screens and complicated lighting started dancing in my head.

Luckily, most of those visions have passed, largely because we just won’t have the budget for them. Still though, I kind of like the idea of having something really unique. Oh and I’ve changed my mind about the song. I can safely say that the music? Will probably not be settled on until I am more than halfway down the aisle at the ceremony itself.

So far, the only decisions that we have made are that the wedding will either be in the spring or in the fall and it will most likely be indoors. I really like the idea of an outdoor wedding but? I really really hate bees. And the carrying the flowers thing? Kind of leads to having to deal with bees. And? Just? No.

It’s one of those things that, because we both agreed to take our time and just enjoy being engaged, of course we cannot stop talking about it or thinking about little details. I promise to do my best not to let this blog become all wedding! all the time! but, well… I’m engaged!