If you follow me on Insta, then you probably saw my post that I am ENGAGED! I am beyond excited to marry my person and make it official in becoming life partners and starting our own family. While I would love to tell you that I was surprised, like you see in all those action shots on Instagram with the girl in utter shock and crying happy tears, I was not because it was a discussion that my boyfriend and I had been having since a few months into dating.
After all, they say when you know, you know, and that is exactly how the two of us felt and still feel. We definitely happen to be in the smaller percentile when it comes to couples, as we have only been dating for about seven months when we got engaged, but to us, it felt like, why wait any longer?!
This summer was a whirlwind for us: we got to meet each other’s family, travel internationally, go to weddings together, spend even more time with family, and have our own time to ourselves for a few weeks in Dallas. After the jam-packed summer, we felt even closer and felt like it sped up our timeline for an idea of when we might just get married. Both of us agreed that we did not want a typical wedding. I am an ALL-or-nothing person and my fiancé is much more private than I am, which meant that we just wanted family at our wedding.
But here’s the kicker – I have over 40 first cousins and I cannot imagine getting married with just immediate family because most of those cousins, aunts and uncles have lived in the same town as me for most of my life. We are very close so I knew it needed to be at least my cousins, and their kids – I thought it would be originally about 60 guests. But, it ended up being over 90 that RSVP’d yes!!
We like to move things along, and we hate planning, so we decided on a short engagement of six weeks! We will be getting married in my parents’ barn for a fall-themed wedding on October 1st and I could not be any more excited.
Not only has it been fun to experience all these things so quickly and feel celebrated for the past month but everything has fallen into place and somehow worked out even better than if we were to have waited a year. We are just two and a half weeks away and there seems to be little left on the checklist.
Quite honestly, if you are impatient like me and are fortunate enough to do a backyard wedding or use someone’s backyard, I would reconsider the whole planning-a-wedding-years-ahead and just go for it! As I keep saying, when you know, you know!
So while I have so much more that I could say and have a little more news to share in my personal life that I will reveal in the next month, I will leave off here and for those who may be reading this who are TIRED of engagements or seeing people get coupled up, let me leave you with this.
I had been single (but dating around) from the age of 22 to 28 and entered 2022 with a whole lot of skepticism about the single men out there. I think we can all agree we go through that phase at some point and it is a valid phase to enter in today’s world.
I remember telling my mom right before my first date with my fiance not to get overly excited about any of my updates on my dating life because what’s another first date on what seemed like an endless series of first dates?! And now I find myself more than halfway through 2022 engaged and about to be married to a wonderful guy who could not be more kind, patient and easygoing, AKA a guy I needed all along but didn’t think still existed.
I remember attending a cousin’s wedding shortly after the new year, going to the wedding very single, and yet leaving feeling full of love. I was open to love more than before because watching a couple who is truly madly in love and made for each other can bring you a sense of inspiration and hope and that motivation to open ourselves up more because maybe all those first dates do eventually lead to finding our life partner.
So for those of you who are feeling single and ready to mingle, I hope that you find that heartwarming inspiration this fall to open yourself up and let the universe find you a special someone. And for those of you who are wedding planning, I hope that my tips on planning a wedding in just a month can help you with any last-minute weddings or just give you reassurance that you will end up with a beautiful day to celebrate your love no matter what! 🙂
