f13.net

So...last night I got engaged, posting this here because...why not!

Congratulations. Where's the honeymoon?  :lol:

Congratulations!

Congratulations!

Hah, dunno yet.  We are thinking something understated and quiet, but we really have no plans yet.

Congrats.

Wait 'til you start the planning.  :ye_gods:

Congratulations!

Congrats. Now save the 10k wedding and invest it instead of blowing it because you'll need it later.  It won't happen but I've said it and now you have only yourselves to blame.  :grin:

Let me be the first to say... DON'T DO IT!

As another married person, I concur.  I wish we would have done it that way.

Congratulations!


My advice here is to do whatever the hell she wants for your wedding/honeymoon.  If you don't, you'll be hearing about it for-EVER.

If she does that, then you made a mistake in the first place.

Not necessarily.

In my case, we're doing it because it'll probably be the only time our parents ever meet and that's important to her.

This is more or less the plan, not because I want to avoid a lifetime of complaint, but because she cares about it more than I do to begin with.  To explain the situation, we've been together for 5 years, and living together for 4, we aren't married yet mainly because we (and especially me I'll admit) simply didn't(and don't) feel any real attachment to the legal instittion.  In terms of the commitment side of it, that was in reality made long ago, the actual legal marriage side of it is all but a formality we are deciding to do for legal/practical reasons (hospital visitation etc), and in fact will likely get the official stuff out of the way long before we have our actually reception.  

That being said, we are still excited about it, and we do want to have some kind of reception/party as a friends/family celebration thing.  We aren't huge on tradition, so we aren't really sure exactly what we want to do yet, but there is really only so much you switch up the standard stuff (people come, theres dancing and music, theres food, and so forth).

I'd recommend Scotland

They'll have at ye.

Congrats!

Small is definitely beautiful when it comes to weddings. My sibling did a thing where the formal marriage was just a few friends along to witness, in a beautiful place, and then some receptions/vows repeated in several different places where family and friends live over the next year and a half, hosted generally by family members in those places. Spread the cost out, kept it fun and social, reduced the stress and difficulty of the ceremony.

Eh, I agree with Khaldun.  My friend did it this way and she still had a nice, lovely wedding with a wonderful reception, all dne on the "cheap".  Personally, while I can remember the big ceremony and all that stuff we did for my wedding, looking back, I definitely agree that less can be much better.  Getting married shouldn't be some sort of contest, IMO. 

Son, I'm going to give you some advice. Sit down on that barrel over there.
/me pulls a pack of tabac from his pocket and works a chaw into a good spit

You will listen to what I say here son, and it will save your marriage and sanity. Don't even think of questioning me either. This here is something you do. It's sacred. A RULE that any smart man with a female attachment needs to know - and it don't come in the handbook.

The Rule of Three

Any time you and your wife (to be) are presented with a domestic decision, your wife picks three choices that she likes and you then eliminate the one you hate the most.
/me spits again, dribbling some on a dusty boot.

"Shit"
/me kicks some dirt over the spit on the boot.

What? No. That's it. I ain't got nothing more to say. Stop looking at me like an idiot and expecting more. It's that simple.

Ok fine, more about this then...

You don't care what cumberbund you wear on the wedding day. You don't care what the invitations look like. You don't care about the fancy knobs at the end of the curtain rods. You don't care what the plates and flatware looks like. You don't care what color you paint the children's room.

She does.

But she wants you to care without letting you choose. Too late son, women are like that and you done got yourself one in a bad way. The Rule of Three lets her pick everything, and still gives her the comfort of thinking you were involved in the choice.

The good news is that you will find she's going to like the Rule of Three just as much as you do. You will be watching the game and she will bring you a fresh, cold Pabst, crack the lid for you... and then show you three patterns for the dust ruffle on your bed. I know, I know... I didn't think that much dust fell on the side of a bed either, but I've got a dust ruffle. Well four of them. Most of them have some kind of green in them. They tickle my toes and tell me I'm too close to the bed when I wander in drunk some nights.

Anyway, I digress.
/me spits

So take that beer, look at the patterns for the dust ruffle, and be honest, tell her which one you hate the most and say "Honey, I love you dearly, but if you put the one with the green vines and little pink flower buds on our bed, I'll stab children." Yes, you can be that honest. She will then pick the one she wants from the remaining two, and you can get back to your game.

She will love you more for this.

Oh, and just a friendly tip, don't let her know that you know shes actually picking something she knows you will reject so she can turn around and buy the one she wants anyway. You don't care if she games the system, it lets you pretend to care when you don't and makes her happy which is all you fucking care about my friend.

Best of luck, and congratulations.
/me tips his hat and rides off into the sunset.

Roleplaying that was too nerdy for words. I'd stab you in the head with a pack of sharpened chewing gum right now if I had such an implement on me.

True, but I never get to do any writing and the Rule of Three is worth your pain. Trust me, it works when you aren't married too.

Also - elope in Vegas and THEN have the pretty wedding for all the people who don't know. This is a major stress remover.

Edited to include: Plus, outside of roleplay, I'm never going to be able to suggest that a can of Pabst is a good thing.

Edited to include: I hit quote instead of modify. I think that earns me a one day ban. Enjoy your day. :P

Nerdy roleplay or not, that is excellent advice.

Congratulations ... may good fortune smile on you, and may your first child be a masculine child.

I myself, I don't think I'm ever going back. The odds aren't all that great to start, then you throw in the spoiled, entitled, selfish, materialistic females that seem to make up most of my generation of women ...

No more broken homes, no more children I don't get to live with, no more bending over backwards to fulfill selfish whims, no one to answer to ...

I'm really not that bitter ... only sometimes ... :heartbreak:

Grats! Getting married was the smartest thing I have ever done. Not sure my wife feels the same way, but she is stuck with me now!

Congratulations!   Enjoy the wedding and honeymoon!  After the planning and insanity both will bring out, you'll need the escape!

You should elope to somewhere warm and sandy! Weddings are designed to rape every inch of your wallet and you can get an all-inclusive two-week-long honeymoon for the price you spend on an afternoon in a catered hotel ballroom.

Two friends of mine (separate couples) decided to just skip the wedding and start right on the honeymoon, and they both agreed that it was the best decision they ever made.

Have you considered just living in sin for the rest of your life ?

Just throwing that out there.

That did worry me a little when I read Pabst.

Grats Mal, enjoy the process if you can.

Friends of mine did one of the better approaches I've seen. Took a trip to Hawaii with just the very immediate family and got married on the beach. Came back home and threw a huge backyard bbq for the reception. No rental hall or anything, just a big cheap fun party.

Yes, unfortunately its a pain to get things like hospital visitation rights that way, also, insurance issues, tax issues, and so forth.  We've been running into all sorts of snags with those sorts of things lately.  And since we are effectively married already anyway (by which I mean, have been living as a married couple would) for a long time anyway, we might as well get the legal side of it done.   The actual reception/event part of it is almost an entirely separate issue from that for us.

Pabst blue ribbon, the beer that keeps on givin.

I just hope you are prepared for the endless amounts of dramatic and sweaty sex that is about to come your way.

Grats! Also: WHEN'S THE DATE OMG. People asked that as soon was we were engaged. As in, we were engaged all of five minutes when that started getting asked.

And since we're giving the traditional unasked for advice: Whatever she decides to do with her last name, be cool with it.

yeah we have been asked already as well.  She is probably keeping her name, which is actually my preference as well, but might hyphenate.

Just don't make the kids hyphenate. It's ridiculous and they will get made fun of.

It's all about double-barrelled names  :grin:

I met a girl who's surname is L'Estrange-Snowden, go figure that one out.

Congratulations!

Let the kids alternate surnames. It'll confuse the shit out of their teachers.  :awesome_for_real:

Alternatively, you can change your name to a single word (or symbol in Prince's case).  Then last names become even more irrelevant.  

We're doing the reception at our house and putting the money saved for a reception hall towards the honeymoon and fixing up the house.  Weddings are fucking expensive.

Stef did find an awesome chapel though, and we're hiring caterers and turning the living room into a dance floor (yay hardwood!).

Also seriously considering renting a pair of those giant Sumo suits and having a sumo ring in the backyard.

ETA: Date set for July 31, we were just telling people February 30th until we set an official one.

As for the names, theres been some serious thought put into changing my last name to Awesome just before the wedding so she can't object to changing it later.
I mean cmon, Dr. Awesome has a nice ring to it.

Hyphenating is awful and a pure cop out.  If you don't care what her last name is, then why hyphenate?  Kids get your name. Simple as that.  Why? Because it will make their life easier.

I'm a big fan of hyphenated first and last names.  Yes, I've seen it. 

/gratz

Though as a friend from Alabama put it to me: "Marriage is alright for married folk, but single people ought not to mess around with it."

See, this is why I simply said "whatever she wants with HER last name, be cool with it." People love adding baggage to it, immediately fretting about ZOMG THE KIDS LAST NAME and other related garbage, and it's really nice when your husband, at least, isn't annoying about it one way or the other. If she wants to change it, cool, if she doesn't, that's cool too. If she wants to hyphenate, also cool.

But ... if you want to hyphenate the kids, the assholes who want to tell you that's a cop out even though it's none of their goddamn business? You can send 'em to me, I'll kick their asses.  :heart:

I've been engaged for almost a year now (Monday) and the wedding is in April.  .. So yeah, just wait for the planning.  Unless someone else is paying for it or you're rich, welcome to anxietyville.

Oh yeah, congrats.

Congrats!  However:


I feel I would be remiss if I didn't advise you to think carefully about whether this line of reasoning may be bullshit.  Only because it sounds like exactly the sort of thing I might have said a couple of years ago.  In my case the real reason it took us so long to get married was that one of us was not really capable of making that sort of commitment, but neither of us was able to admit that until it became really painfully obvious.

Okay, back to cheerful good wishes.  Good luck!

Well, at least the day OF, you'll be all "aaaaaahhhhh, finally." And be able to have fun! But yeah, we thought of eloping a couple of times, and we actually had a pretty easy time of it as far as the planning went. The biggest obstacle for us was forcing ourselves to care about shit neither of us cared about at all (Like the invitations, Ingmar made ME be the one who had to care about it. He cared about our actual ceremony. I got stuck on flower-caring-duty. And so on!).

congrats, and to second what Nerf and others have said: Watch your money.  

Hell, my father-in-law is paying for the wedding and we're still trying to save everywhere we can.

Like catering - holy fuck can catering be expensive.  We found a local BBQ joint that caters, with waitstaff, for $7-9 a head depending on menu.  If we've got 50-75 people, we're looking at $350-700 to cover ALL of the catering shit, not including booze.

Booze is the main reason we're having the reception at our place - the chapel actually had a really nice reception area that seated 200+ available for somewhere between $500 and $1.5k, but you *had* to use their caterer, pay whatever the hell they wanted to ask for alcohol, AND hire a security guard for the duration of the reception.

Fuck that.  I'm a college student, I can find a bartender on campus and slide him $50-100 to hand out drinks for a few hours, we can buy the booze at costco, and the /last/ thing we want is a security guard on site.  The chances of drunken shenanigans happening with the reception at our place multiplies exponentially, and I can't even fathom what happens to it when we add in the Sumo ring with inflatable fatsuits.

I'm just extraordinarily lucky to have a woman that thinks this is a good idea (the sumo ring was hers ^_^).  If it wouldn't piss off her family and cost us a bunch of awesome presents, we would have eloped to Vegas.

Just remember to shop around for the wedding stuff - it sucks ass, but spending the time calling a bunch of places and asking questions about the fine print will save you thousands of dollars.

And Gratz!   :awesome_for_real:

There's not a smiley big enough.

Bravo, Sir, Bravo.

It also fucking sucks when their barkeep looks like he should be carded and couldn't mix a drink to save his life.

Just make sure your wife doesn't find out.

I think you mean stop coming your way.

We cut out the middleman and just chose a winery in Northern CA. Of course, that means we're fucking bi-coastal for the next few months as we fly back and forth to get all the details hammered out. 

Congratulations!

Don't forget to keep going out on regular 'dates' with her after you're married...

And don't call it 'date night'.

Where are your presently living and what is your projected budget?

^ This.

<cracks her knuckles>

My curiosity with hyphenation is the inevitable escalation. If your hyphenated kid marries another hyphenated kid down the road, are they going to have double hyphenated children?

Meet our grandson. Micheal L. Doderidge-Wailen-Smith-Poppycock. Of course it only gets worse from there.

Edit; Congrats!

No, that would be silly.  One you're past two names you use a compression algorithm to generate the name.

Micheal L. Damp?  Doilthk? Do'Wa'Mi'Cock?

I have a Thai friend who had hugely long last name. Something like Changsurirothenothenom (That wasn't it, but is an example of some of their long last names.) She was marrying a gentleman with the last name Moist. They both settled and are now Mr, and Ms. Kasam.

Good call.

Though, Mr. and Mrs. Moist sound like porn names.

First congrats as well!  Being one of the old married folk here I wish you two the best.  Here comes my random unasked for general advice unsupported by facts.  :lol:
It sounds like you going into this reasonably clear headed and with your eyes open, but I did want to expand a little on what Samwise said.  Not to discourage you or anyone else but hopefully to save you some avoidable stress with preparation.    Being together for 5 years means you have already experienced a lot of the day to day stresses and strains on a relationship, but I assume there are some things you have not done which you will do after getting hitched.  Things such as merging bank accounts, sharing insurance policies, making major purchases (home, cars) as cosigners on a loan, etc.

So my advice is just make sure you have thought really hard about the person you are marrying in terms of ALL your major life decisions.  You will be trusting this person with everything of value: your children, your money, even your health decisions should you become incapacitated.  It's BIG deal, and one I don't think most people truly appreciate until long after the fact.  You'll notice I didn't mention  your heart in my list of things you value; it's not because the emotions aren't important (they are) but b/c a common mistake people make when getting married is thinking the emotions will make all the other things I mentioned "just work out".  Ain't that simple.

And as a corallary to that, a common theme I see among younger folks getting hitched is to kind of try and go half way into it so they do things like keep separate bank accounts, keep their separate cars in their own names only, etc.  It's like they are setting an escape plan for when it doesn't work out.  Unsurprisingly, most of these marriages don't last 5 years. If you are going to commit then commit damnit.  It gives you that many more reasons to keeping working at the relationship without taking the easy way out and spitting up.  Divorce is painful; make plans to avoid it  :wink:

Oh and Sjofn, on the hyphenated last name or each spouse keeping their own name thing.  Whether you intend to or not, you are setting the stage for some low level grief that will come your way from such decisions.  There are many systems your family may be a part of that simply don't handle deciphering family relationship from multiple last names very well.  Things like school systems, government agencies, and healthcare providers just to name a few.  Consider an extreme case; do you really want to fight with the equivalent of a DMV level  employee over whether  your are authorized to make medical decisions for your own children/spouse b/c you don't have the same as them and their computer system isn't clearly pointing out your relationship?   And it gets worse if there are children from previous relationships involved. working in the healthcare IT area, I see stuff like this ALL the time.   No matter how you personally feel about it, to a large degree that's avoidable with something as simple as a shared last name that all family members have.  Hell make the husband take the wife's last name, just be consistent. :awesome_for_real:

I don't agree with hypenation in any cases because it's silly.

I think all names should default to the shorter/less ridiculous one, man or woman.

Personally I'm all about living in sin and having it nice and warm after I die, but a kickass wedding is something enjoyable too. So congratulations! :awesome_for_real:

Could you dipshits shut up about the stupid hyphenization of children's names? The subject is "I'm getting married!" not "I'm having a baby!" You can give your terrible unasked for advice on the subject of a kid's last name then.


Screw it, ANNOYED EDIT: And I've heard ALL the reasoning as to why I'm a terrible person for not giving even half a fuck about having the same last name as my husband. None of those reasons are compelling to me in the least. Most women, if they didn't change their name, have reasons for doing so. Hell, most that have, have reasons for doing so. They've heard all the terrible advice because people love telling women what they should do with their own name. We've thought about it. Trust me.

All the terrible "oh god, the confusion!" scenarios have failed to materialize, by the way. People still are perfectly capable of figuring out Ingmar and I are married (although I do get called Ms. Hislastname from time to time, but whatever, I either correct them if I'm going to be speaking to them on a regular basis or I ignore it). MANY MANY MANY families have people with different last names (good example: Ladies taking their second husband's last name but leaving their kids with the name they, you know, always had), the world has not ended. It really, honestly isn't that exotic.

This is why I said be cool with it. Everyone in the world will have an opinion on it, even in this day and age. And it's really nice when the person who actually does have input that you actually want to hear is cool with whatever you picked to do. Whatever that may be. Because I do know some guys who adamantly DON'T want their potential wife to take their last name, and leaning hard in that direction is just as annoying (although far rarer).

You don't have kids, though, which was where the "zomg confusion" scenarios were coming from. Also medical emergencies, but hey I don't know if you've had to deal with it or not.

IMO it makes more sense to just change both your names if either objects to taking the other's name, but I'm OCD like that.  It's also just an opinion, like the others expressed here.  Getting all bent out of shape about it says more about your problems with other's opinions than anything. Sorry you feel so picked on.

My fiancee wants to keep hers, she likes her initials.

I, however, am changing my name to an entirely different name.

It better not be Awesome, I don't want to get you confused with Nerf.

In this area at least different-named spouses are so common that there are really no big issues that come up - everyone I've ever dealt with in the context of medical care, government, etc., does not blink an eye at our last names being different. Also, again locally, the area is so ethnically and culturally mixed, not to mention filled with people who give their kids weird names just because, that the idea that somehow a kid with a hyphenated last name, or a name different than his mom's, will stand out in any special way for being picked on is pretty silly. Hell I grew up going to school with a number of people with hyphenated names and I can't remember a single incident of that being what someone got picked on for.

Basically the only people who are a pain in the ass about it are our moms.

Gratz!  Hope you all have a great time and it goes great for you all.

I love that all my friends couldn't wait to change their last names, then go ballistic when someone refers to them as "Mr and Mrs Hisfirstname Hislastname" on Christmas cards. 


Along with you being called Ms Hislastname is him being called Mr Yourlastname at times, too.   :)   

The only time my not changing my last name had a potential to confuse was when I was in the hospital to have our son, and that was just because stuff like his hearing test was addressed to Babyfirstname Momlast name.  I think we just asked them to change it...

I'm some places, I'm looking at you Quebec, it's standard for the woman to _NOT_ change their name!

Um, no. You broadcast your personal shit on a forum, you're getting unasked for advice. Get a fucking helmet.

Also, I disagree with your naming policies on the whole, but I'm a traditionalist, and you're already married. The world will go on.

I dunno. Imagining that rant being read by Sjofn's violently twitching avatard made it a thing of beauty.

You DO NOT want me to turn this thread around. :oh_i_see:

Are we there yet?

Congo Rats man.

Congrats!

I think I've settled on never getting married.

I thought I had too. Life has ways of pulling wacky shit on you when you least expect it.

Her name is vastly different from any baby's name was my point. Giving terrible advice about her name, that's on topic.

But whatever, my point was pretty clearly illustrated. Time to ask for pictures of the engagement ring, if there was one. :P

There wasn't as it was a proposal as such, it was more a discussion that ended with "Well I guess that means we're engaged now."  We plan on going shopping together next week so she can pick out something she'll like, I'll post once we have one.

Congrats!

Out of curiosity, which one (if you don't mind me asking, cool if you don't want to say)?  Friends here got married a few months back and went shopping all around for a winery to get married at.  They went through hell finding a nice one one that had decent prices and didn't act like snobby assholes.  So was just wondering which one you guys are running off to.

They actually had a great wedding at Andretti Winery (as in, the winery that Mario Andretti owns) in Napa.  Which I'd recommend because it was actually very lovely there, the prices were very reasonable (compared to the surrounding area), and the staff was great to work with.  This was a very small low key wedding however.

And they say romance is dead.

Like I said, when you're already committed to a lifetime of partnership, the actual decision to make it legal isn't exactly momentous.  We are taking the occasion also to celebrate the former with family and friends though, which I think is much more meaningful to us.

Clearly all of us in the Bay Area should crash it.  :drillf:

Malakili: I hope it's fun picking out a ring! I have no patience for that sort of thing, Ingmar and I spend about 45 minutes looking at rings so he'd have some vague idea of what style I like, but he totally picked out my ring himself. Shopping for wedding bands went even quicker. I'm terrible at being a girl!

Thomas Fogarty Winery (http://www.fogartywinery.com/) in the Santa Cruz mounains. We saw the view and fell in love with it. It's a private estate, so there're tons of rules, but it's too nice a place to pass up. It's going to be a small wedding too, so that helps as well. The fact that the wine is pretty good and it's close to Cupertino is also a bonus.

We're on a plane out there in the morning for a week of meeting caterers, cake people and florists. Fun, fun, fun.

As for the ring, I posted a picture a while back, a dear, departed friend designed it for us and the missus loves it.

I've been there a few times, it is a great site.

Once you have the ring, get down on one knee and propose with it at a suitable time/place. My wife and I went through over a year of immigration bureaucracy before I bought a ring, making the 'engagement' something of a formality, but I got points for doing that properly anyway. You won't regret it :)

Truly. It will be an inspiring romantic moment and probably the last willing blowjob you get.

Eff that. I won't break!

Even Schild gave in for a brief spell...

I may share your sentiment, however I do not actively proclaim it lest life decides that it wants to spite me.

Schild got married ?

No, but he thought about it for ten minutes, then spent all his money on hookers and blow.

Then he's a more intelligent man than I was when I was young.

If Mrs. Ironwood has your password to this place, you're more fucked than you already seem to be vis-a-vis domestic bliss.

As an old married (25 years!), I'll say this: any relationship that goes on for a long time, under whatever legal covenants, involves a certain amount of work, but it also becomes like your favorite blanket: comforting, a bit ratty around the edges, something you're unreasonably attached to and couldn't imagine doing without. That's what romance in the long haul is really all about: mashed potatoes and pot roast, not caviar and champagne.

I agree with Sjofn.  Hyphenation IS a bad idea.

Personally, I told my dad that I loved him dearly and always would, but I was moving up the alphabet and to an easier to spell last name (maiden name started with N and has 8 letters, married name starts with H and has 6 letters).

There's also the option for the married woman (or man too, I guess) to do the "maiden name is now middle name" change as well.  My MiL did that and I was asked several times by folks if that was what I was planning on doing as well.  So instead of being Betsy Ann Williams I would have become Betsy Williams Jones, which makes no sense to me, tbh.  But plenty of women do it and it's not hyphenation.  I suppose the couple do do that for both of them, if they decide which name they want last.

Ingmar's mom did that, and once in a while attempts to peer pressure me into doing the same (and we've been married SEVEN YEARS at this point, build a bridge, lady!). I have no idea why it's so important to her that I change my name, sometimes I wonder if she thinks I am SILENTLY JUDGING her or something. My parents dropped it, and my mother even does the proper addressing of "Mr. Ingmar and Ms. Sjofn" you're supposed to do now.  :heart:

One of these days I'm going to tell Ing's mother I didn't change my name entirely because his last name with my first name makes me sound like a farmer's wife, and I hate farmers. If that doesn't work, I'll try "I was too lazy to file the paperwork."

It's pretty common in Quebec to not bother with getting married in the first place, especially if you don't plan on kids. 

Trust, me...she wants you to give her the moment. And suit it to her, don't do it on a basketball jumbotron (unless she's a basketball freak). I proposed while hiking, had this giant box in my pocket for an hour before I got to the spot, and then it was wicked busy on the trail, so I rambled on about how much she meant to me while waiting for the trail to clear. It was pretty funny, but oddly she's used to me doing that and wasn't suspicious at all. The look on her face when I pulled out the box and got down on one knee was so worth it. The 18k white gold diamond claddaugh didn't hurt my chances, either.


She did notice that I proposed on a cliff's edge. I think she felt pressured to say yes to continue existence. Really, it wasn't so much a cliff as a chasm. And there were too many witnesses. Really.

That's entirely regional, btw. Just wanted to point that out.

Miss Manners was quite clear on it when I looked it up, and Miss Manners is awesome. When I said "now" I meant "when the lady doesn't change her name, which happens more often now," I see now I was unclear! Shame on me.

I'm kinda with the dudes who say Malakili should re-propose. Ingmar and I had discussed it and such and the conclusion seemed inevitable, but it was still nice when he dragged me off to a secluded spot near our campsite in Yosemite (just us and a pretty lady duck) and surprised me. He didn't go down on a knee and I am glad he didn't, but the asking part was sweet.  :heart:  Before he asked he was acting all crabby and weird and I distinctly remember thinking, "Great, is he going to be a bitch all weekend?" Turns out Ingmar is a major crabbypants when he's nervous and can't say why.  :drillf:

It was kind of difficult for me to propose when my wife picked out her ring at the Tucson gem show then called me to ask if it was OK to get it.  She even insisted that I ask her dad's permission afterwards.  :headscratch:  I was somewhat busy with grad school and incredibly broke, so it wasn't something I was really thinking about at the time.

But yah, if you can, give her the moment.  Don't think that I haven't heard from her several times just how unromantic it all was.   :awesome_for_real:

One of my best friends:

Takes his fiance to Long Beach on the Pacific side of Vancouver Island (very famous spot) gets a nice ocean view room at the famous Inn there. Has it all planned out, going to do it on the beach under moonlight, the surf crashing, etc. She has a headache and doesn't want to go outside.

So he proposed to her in the motel room.

My husband and I went out to dinner on the anniversary of our first date to the same restaurant and he ended up propsing to me by card (he'd written a nice verse in it) over the dirty dishes still on our table.  I still occasionally poke him about it, but you know - he asked.  And I accepted.  In the long run, that's what does matter, since unless the man does it in front of other people, the couple involved are the only ones who are going to know how things really went down.

My proposal was supposed to be on a peak in VT overlooking our favorite Inn. Sometimes you take what you can get, we vacationed in Finger Lakes that year. First we didn't have money for the VT trip, I pushed hard for it ( :grin: ) and then our Inn closed down for updating the week we take for vacation. So we hit the Finger Lakes on a whim. We went on a couple hikes before I found a spot I liked, and even then we had hiked all the way up the gorge and halfway back down. I had spotted a couple nice spots on the far side while hiking up. In the end, it's not how I envisioned it, but it was nice nonetheless and the good memory was formed.

Worst part is, the Inn we stayed at in the Finger Lakes was a pretty awful experience and we don't want to go back.

Mine was in the same sake bar we'd had our first date. The bartender bought the whole place a round to celebrate.

Sadly, that place no longer exists.

About to hit my second round of wedding cake tasting for the day. I may be a diabetic by the end of the week.

I've been seriously thinking about proposing to my girlfriend in March.  Trying to come up with a good idea of how to do it is starting to stress me out a bit though as I don't want it to be something cheesy.  

Well that and the fact that I have the one friend I've told (and her parents that she told and a friend of hers that she told that knows me) yelling at me that a year is too short of a time (even though we practically live together at this point since i always sleep at her house and have been together literally every day for the last 8 months).  

Oh yeah and a large segment of my side of the family has accused me of "finishing what Hitler started" because I'm Jewish (even though I don't practice nor believe any of it) and she's not.  

Wait, what now ?


How many people have you put in the oven ?

There's no magical set time that's good to propose, your friend probably means well but that's the kind of thing you have to decide yourself. The thing with your family is pretty :ye_gods: though, man.

A Godwin on page four of a marriage thread.

Well, that does make sense I suppose.

My girlfriends Dad has 0 idea I exist and my girlfriend's Mom insists that me meeting him is not in my best interest. Yay traditional values of Portugese people!

This thread only reinforces me resistance to this "joining" process.

Again, I'm going to go with ;  Wait, what ?

You people are all strange.

My ex-wife did this.  It was relatively odd and strange now that I look back on it.

Tell her that losing the alliteration would make the both of you sad.

I am going to go out on a limb and guess that you married someone from the same ethnic and religious background, yes?

Can you think of anyone who'd marry a Scott other than another Scott?

I don't know Scott, but in most places around the world Scott could not marry Scott.

Seriously, all my names start with the same letter, I can't go screwing that up just because I married someone!


EDIT: I will say that I did promise that if I ever competed in some Scottish Highland Games, I would totally register using Ingmar's last name so people wouldn't wonder why the Polack was there (even though I had a Scottish granddad, no one ever KNOWS that because, well, my last name is Polish).

Sounds like they are flipping out over the kids not being Jewish. I'm assuming you're relatively young and have younger friends, so I want to say kudos on the choice of March. The means you won't be scheduling the wedding in the fall during football season. I can't begin to describe how much of a PITA it is to explain to people that people will not show up if you have your wedding during a home game.  :oh_i_see:

Or just say, you are a progressive man and wanted her to propose to you!

You could have a sex change and then it wouldn't be an issue :why_so_serious:

I always found this "Only the mother counts to determine if the kid is Jewish or not" thing refreshingly feminist.  :awesome_for_real:

Fail to see the relevance of my own choices versus Insane Parents.  Perhaps it's because I have the most sane parents on the planet.  Elena is free to marry whomever the hell she chooses as long as she's happy.

(Should the unfortunate situation arise where she isn't happy, it will be an awful shame when her partner goes missing.  I'm sure we'll all do all we can to find them thereafter, searching everywhere.  Except there.  There's nothing there.)

It's one of those Jewish laws that was simply logical for the timeframe. Given the absence of parental testing, they could only prove who gave birth to you. Therefore, the mother became the standard.

Just make sure there's no there there.

Last day of vendor visits this month. Pretty much got the cake and flowers nailed down. Now just to zero a caterer.

Get a videographer.  If you care to remember any of it, that is.

No, you make sure there's a place there.  It just was happenstance that you'd contracted a building to be built in advance, then the day before the slab was to be poured; missing person.

NORDBERG!

I have never heard a woman complain about a proposal being too cheesy/romantic/whatever.  If it seems a little cheesy to you, it's probably just right.

Also, a year is a perfectly respectable timeframe.  I went on the theory of waiting a long time (6 years in my case) before proposing so that we'd both be really sure about the commitment we were making, and it didn't help a damn thing.  So if it feels right, I say do it, and if it turns out to be a terrible mistake, take comfort in the knowledge that waiting longer wouldn't necessarily have made things any better.

Nah. There're plenty of videos of me hammered in a tux already.

Others might want it, but I hear you.  Haven't watched my tape and it's been twelve years.

I want to hire the local newspaper photographer who does the sports beat. He's got an amazing eye and cat-like reflexes, he's a font of amazing pictures of people head-down vertical seemingly balanced on a soccer ball or flipping over the top of someone with a horrified expression, or some other perfect shot of a funny frozen moment. Who better to have at the wedding?

Just get married inside Second Life.  Not even a sub. fee, totally free.
And instead of a honeymoon you could just buy an entire virtual island.   :drill:

Tbh, I do believe we're headed down this path.  Marriage is becoming more and more streamlined as the generations go by, till eventually people just wont do it at all.  :awesome_for_real:
What's the divorce rate up to now btw??  70%?

Grats Mal!

A guy who doesn't have to lug a 18" long 10# lens and monopod into every room but can instead stay out of the way?  :grin:

But then the wedding wouldnt look as bling-paparazzi-ish.  Half the reason for the photog. is to give the occassion a redcarpet feel (which women love), which wont happen if the photog. is changeling that blends into everything sight unseen.  Cant feel like a Queen if there isnt a blatant audience.

/me is now confused.

I bet half you unmarried peeps are stuck in "Common Law" states anyways.   Shhhh, dont tell your gf's.

Ugh God.  If my husband set up anything for my proposal, I would have complained of it being too cheesy!  Nothing need be staged.  Just ask already! 

Just don't.

You need a woman chained to you for the rest of your life like you need a fucking hole in the head.

So cynical.  So depressing.  So true.

Haha, seriously. Really, the asking in a pretty spot thing was more than I expected, anything more would've definitely pushed into "wtf, who are you and what have you done with Ingmar?" territory.

This does remind me though, I learned Ingmar, deep down, can be a gigantic sap. We were looking at our judge's GIANT PILE of ceremonies he had done to give us some ideas what we should do, and half the time when I went "Bwhahaha, oh my God that is so corny" he would be all, "I thought it was sweet!" Who knew?

*reads thread*

I am so glad I met and am getting married to an awesomely strong and independent woman.

Translation:  you got a pre-nup?

A pre-nup would only help her, in that lame chest-beating sense. She's going to be making a lot more money than I will.

I won't bring someone else down because of my point of view.


Nah, I don't live with her and am well aware of that status to know better.

So you're taking her name? She's taking your name? Hyphenation? Double Hyphenation?

EDIT: Also, in what region of the country, or different country if not the USA, do you reside good sir?

Whatever she wants. I don't really give a shit about that stupid changing the name stuff.

I tried to persuade her to change it to some other THIRD name. Like "Awesome" or merging the two names into some Name Voltron.

Also, in California.

Wouldnt it be cool if marriage required you come up with an original family name?  Estate laws be damned... every name should die out every generation and only be maintained if you stay Single yet bear children.

At the moment.

I'm sure she'll still be that way when he's a beaten-down, henpecked, broken shell of a man.  He'll still like it because she says so. :drillf:

She strikes me as just about perfect for sickrubik.  There'd have to be a radical personality shift not to, and even then he's so laid back that it'd still work out.

 :heart:

Turns out our cake person won Food Network Challenge twice. I'm psyched.

We haven't even started looking for a cake person yet, but we found an awesome cake topper that we'll have them put on whatever we buy.

(http://cachicdesign.com/images/blog-uploads/bride-and-groom-cake-topper1.jpg)
 :awesome_for_real:

I need one like that....but reversed...  :oh_i_see:

Close....

http://kustomaccessories.com/WILTON-RUNAWAY-BRIDE-HUMOROUS-TOPPER-10067142/M/B001E2ALC0.htm

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41oJyptOnLL._SL250_.jpg)

or

(http://www.yacanna.com/images/AWS/funny-cake-toppers-race.jpg)
http://www.yacanna.com/ProductDetail.do?cid=170&pid=107

Or for the ever popular 'I knocked her up and have to do the right thing for a few years before divorcing her and working shitty cash-only under the table jobs for the rest of my life to avoid paying child support' wedding..
(http://supergiftplace.weddingstar.com/images/products/large/8654.jpg)

That last one needs an old man standing behind him with a Remington.

Plenty of room there for a Landlord Action Figure.

This one is delightfully creepy:

(http://images.esellerpro.com/2243/I/132/51/medscalereluctant-bride-cake-topper%20(2).JPG)


HELP I DON'T WANT TO MARRY THE EVIL DUKE

Crazy people in here.