To shoot or not to shoot...

I've been spending quite a lot of time lately looking for a photographer for the wedding. I have a pretty specific idea of what I'm looking for...more photojournalism and less posey posey shots (I hate those). But it's hard to find a great photographer that doesn't cost a million bucks...but then I did! And I really like them! And I'm excited now!

They usually provide a wedding album with the package but I figured we would never look at the thing so she said she would change it out for an engagement session instead, which is what I had wanted (yay). But then I talk to the boy and he'd rather have the album, saying that the engagement session pics will never be looked at again while the wedding album is something we will want to have later.

So now I don't know. Is he right? Will we never look at the engagement photos once we get married? But we have no pictures of us as a couple where we don't look like drunks or idiots, I'd like some shots of us before the wedding...

Did you do an engagement shoot? Was it worth it, or did you never look at the photos afterward?

Can you be friends with a guy?

I'm a very social person, it's obvious that I wasn't an only child cause I cannot entertain myself for the life of me. I always relied on my sister to keep me entertained, I get bored alone, and I hate it. Now that we've moved and the boy is working oh well about 10 hours a day I'm alone a lot. I've been going to coffee shops and perusing the stores downtown to no avail, there aren't a lot of ppl down here who have any interest in being friends with a stranger.

Cut to the boy and I shopping at banana republic over the weekend and me making friends with one of the salespeople...a dude. I'm pretty sure he likes guys, but in this day and age and in this city you never really know. I walk by a million guys these days wearing shoes I own and jeans tighter and skinnier than mine so everyone is a mystery at this point.

So we set up a lunch date, banana boy and I, and I'm really excited. He seems really nice and I'm excited to have a friend. But what if he isn't gay? Is it ok to be friends with him?

Now at first when the boy and I had this conversation I got all pissy and called him possessive and a controlling weirdo but when he said, "If I met some random girl out and about and she and I had lunch together and started hanging out all the time how would you feel?!"

Point very well taken.

I've always had guy friends, often when I was younger I had more guy friends than girl friends, less drama, more fun, but I also wasn't engaged to be married. I have a very good guy friend from college that I still keep in touch with, the boy has met him, and he and I are still pretty close, if I could make him a bridesmaid I would. But I always made it very clear to said guy friend that we would only be friends, even when the boy wasn't in the picture yet, and even now the boy has never felt threatened by him (it probably helps that he lives in Indiana...and has a gf he adores).

So this brings up a question...can you be friends with newly met guys when you're in a serious committed relationship? If he ends up being gay is it better than if he isn't gay? If it turns out he isn't gay do we have to stop being friends?

I know that the boy trusts me, but I get it, I also see it from his point of view. When it really comes down to it though, I really would love someone to go to coffee with ya know?

Our engagement story

We haven't really spread the news like wild fire about our engagement, most of the announcements have been made out of necessity or force by our parents. We're kinda private about our relationship and I know what it feels like to have to hear someone rub all their personal love life info in your face all the time so I try to avoid doing that. I hate those people.

Things pretty much have gone like this convo the boy had with one if his very good friends the other night...
Friend: "If wedding bells are sometime in your future then..."

Boy: "Oh, yeah, I guess I didn't mention it...we're engaged..."

Friend: "Oh, wow, you guys are doing things super low key. I had no idea, I like your style."

Boy: "yep."
But I wanted to share the engagement story because it's exactly what I would want, private, quiet and just the two of us.

I have never wanted some huge over the top proposal, I would just die, plaster my face on the videotron at the basketball game and I'll leave you, cause you don't know me at all. I would be so embarrassed having tons of people watch me try to make a decision that's going to affect me for the rest of my life, not to mention the pressure to say yes...sigh. There are a million videos online of public marriage proposals gone right and wrong, and even in front of family members I would have been mortified. For me it would take away from the moment and I would be more embarrassed than excited, though I admire the girls that can go with the flow in such a situation, I'm not sure it would be me.
I drove to Long Beach from Carmel on Wednesday and it took me 7 hours to get here. I hate long drives alone, I get bored too easily and fidgety and with no one to talk to I start to lose it. For me long drives alone are the driving equivalent of water boarding, I just can't take it. Two of those hours were spent on the 101 South and the 405 in direct sunlight, never going over 20 mph...so by the time I finally arrived I was sun burnt, had a migraine, starving, sweaty and irritated. I knew we were going to a nice restaurant for dinner to celebrate my belated birthday so I took a nap to chill out before we went out to eat.

When the boy got home from work he suggested we take the dog on a bike ride through town, something he and I enjoy doing together and do quite often, so I agreed and off we went. When we moved all of our stuff down here he had had to take his bike apart to fit in his car and put it all back together again when he got here, so while on the ride he started complaining about the chain and said something must be broken; but it was ok cause he had brought some tools with him just in case.
So we stopped and he handed me the dogs leash and got off his bike so he "could fix it." While he was rooting around in his pocket he casually asked me what I planned to wear to dinner ( I should have known something was up then, cause I could wear sweatpants to dinner and he couldn't care less...) I mentioned some ideas and he says, "Well I think you should wear this..." he gets on one knee and pulls out the ring and asks me to marry him, right there, on the street, just the two of us. Of course my reaction is to ask, "Why are you doing this right here?!" and then I proceed to burst into tears and say yes.
While he's on one knee putting the ring on my finger a big black SUV full of girls drives by with the windows down and starts cheering, and clapping, and "awe-ing" down the street. He got back on his bike and away we went. It turns out our dinner was a birthday/engagement celebration and there was champagne for toasting when we sat down to eat.

I think he did a pretty good job.

"I faked a sonogram today...can you do that?"

While we're on the topic of milestones I suppose I should announce that I'm engaged.

I've been engaged for approximately 31 hours now and I don't feel any different.

I'm happy and I know I wouldn't want to be with anyone else but I'm not giddy. And I think that's ok. At first I felt guilty about it, that I wasn't jumping up and down with joy (I did cry with happiness when he asked me) even when everyone else was but I've come to grips with it.

Does anyone remember the Sex and the City episode where Miranda finds out she's having a boy and fakes how excited she is so the doctor doesn't think shes a freak?

I think there is some expectation that I should be jumping up and down and freaking out and furiously thumbing through wedding magazines but I'm just not there. All the ladies I have talked to about it are thrilled, maybe even on the verge of freaking out and I feel like I should act that way or they're gonna think I'm a weirdo or unhappy with the decision I'm making; not the case at all.

I think for me I'm still in shock and mildly overwhelmed with all the changes that are taking place in my life, it's still taking a while to sink in for me. I'm also more focused on the lifetime commitment I'm making to someone and less on the dress, cake and DJ. Getting married is a huge commitment and that responsibility overshadows what colors I'm gonna make the tablecloths.

To top it all off I know NOTHING, I mean NOTHING about planning a wedding. I don't even know what I'm supposed to do next (other than enjoy this and let it all sink in) and neither do my friends (that's why I love them so). So here we go, the wedding blind leading the blind.

Did you have any surprising reactions to events in your life that surpassed the traditional expectations of emotion?