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Hey TL, this isn’t the sort of thing I normally talk about on here, but, uh, I’m getting married! I’ve actually been engaged since last July, I just never thought to mention it on here. But it’s Valentine’s Day, and I figure I should do something special for my 2K post, so I thought I’d talk a bit about my fiance, our relationship, and weddings in general.
Whenever I tell someone I have a fiance, there’s one question that almost always follows: “How did you two meet?” I think it’s because that’s the most stereotypical romantic comedy cute moment in a relationship, and they want to see how cute of a couple we are. Unfortunately, it’s a little hard to boil down our meeting to a single cute “I tripped and fell at her feet outside a flower shop and we were instantly in love” or “I pulled her from a burning building, dropped to one knee, and asked her to marry me then and there” type anecdote. But here goes, if you’re curious.
How We Met (And Started Dating)
We met almost 4 years ago because my best friend was dating her best friend at the time. Apparently (I found this out later), her best friend called her right after meeting me and said “oh my God, I just found the man of your dreams.” My now-fiance then looked up my Facebook profile picture and said “uh, I’m not so sure about that.” But at some point my best friend was coming over to my house with his girlfriend and asked if it was okay to bring someone else, and I said sure. I was pretty awkward the whole time – I was in the midst of building my computer when they showed up – and I was pretty sure she thought I was a dork. She asked me to show her the inside of my computer and I wound up explaining the different parts I was putting in and what they do, all the while thinking in my head “this is NOT how you flirt when you just met a pretty girl.”
I liked her pretty immediately after that, and apparently she liked me too, but neither of us knew it was reciprocal and we didn’t get together for several months. She dated another guy in the meantime, so I was unsure of how to get to know her better without intentionally or unintentionally impeding their relationship. At one point I went to a birthday dinner for her, and I wound up sitting on one side of her at the table while her boyfriend sat on the other; she wound up turned toward me chatting pretty much the whole night, barely talking to him. I didn’t get her a present (I only found out about the dinner about an hour beforehand), but I folded an origami crane out of a receipt and gave it to her, which she seemed to appreciate.
I moved into an apartment near UCSD with my best friend toward the end of the summer that year, so his girlfriend was over a lot, and my now-fiance came with her a lot. In retrospect, there were a lot of clues that we liked each other. She would come over in the morning and hang out all day, even when my best friend’s girlfriend wasn’t around. I was a research assistant in a professor’s lab that summer, but if she came over on days I was gonna go into lab I would usually just stick around and not mention I had planned to go somewhere. I downloaded Facebook Messenger on my phone just so I could talk to her during the day when I was away from my computer; we chatted for a bit and then I said something like “hey, I like talking to you more than I dislike Facebook Messenger, but I do dislike Facebook Messenger. Could I have your phone number?”
One time she stayed over pretty late and we decided to try to make something out of a pretty hard origami book I had; we settled on trying to make origami centaurs. We sat outside on the patio under the moonlight trying to figure out exactly what “crimp fold” or w/e was supposed to come next. At one point I had this feeling like she was thinking about kissing me (I later found out she was). But she didn’t, and I didn’t, and we finished our origami centaurs and she went home. A few nights later my roommate had a birthday party, and at some point during the festivities I became confident enough she liked me that I kissed her. Well, sort of. First I think I told her “I like you a lot,” which she reciprocated. Then I’m pretty sure I said something like “I’m going to kiss you now, if that’s alright.” We’ve been together ever since! 
Let’s Talk About Wedding Rings
Okay, so there’s a lot that’s weird about wedding rings and engagements. We could talk about the De Beers marketing campaign that creepily inserted diamonds into this whole business some time in the 40’s and what that says about American capitalism and commercialism, but this isn’t the politics thread. I wanna talk about how weird the rest of the ritual around asking a girl to marry you is.
Here’s the ritual as I understand it. The guy sneaks out to a jeweler, and spends 2 entire months of salary on a little clear rock that’s cut to look shiny, along with a ring it sits in. He stashes this away while he plots an elaborate scheme to, when she least expects it, drop to one knee and pull out a little black box. As she brings a hand to her mouth and gasps, he asks her to marry him. And if he’s plotted an elaborate enough scheme, she says shrieks with shock and joy, and says something dramatic like “Yes, YES, A THOUSAND TIMES YES!”
A lot of this just doesn’t make sense. I promised not to get too much into how weird it is that we’re using diamonds in the first place, but two months’ salary is a lot of money, particularly when in the best case scenario, you’re likely to have a whole wedding to pay for in the not-too-distant future (let alone if you want to buy a condo or something once you’re married). Then he’s supposed to plot an elaborate scheme, like he’s trying to pass some kind of intellectual and logistical Feat of Strength to prove his worthiness as a a suitor. Then he’s supposed to surprise her with one of the most important decisions she’ll make in her life, and expect an answer after the span of a normal pause in a conversation. All of that is actually crazy.
You might think from the way I’m talking that I’m trying to justify the fact that I went some alternate route. I didn’t. I saved up a bunch of money, I bought a diamond ring for a little over 2 months’ pay, I hid the ring until after her birthday dinner I told her I’d give her a ride back to her car since I was parked closer. She got in, turned to shut her door, and when she turned around I had pulled out the ring. Because I knew going in how weird and crazy the whole proposal ritual is, but it also made her happy.
Here’s a weird part I didn’t know going in, though. It should be obvious that by the time you’re thinking of asking a girl to marry you, she is also thinking about it, and is on the lookout for when you’re going to ask her. In our case we had talked plenty about marriage, and she had even explicitly told me what kind of ring to buy, so she knew it was coming at some point. That meant she was always looking for signs that I was about to propose. And you know what crazy part of this process hadn’t occurred to me before? That magic little box you’re supposed to dramatically open while you’re down on one knee is bulky as hell.
That means there is absolutely no way you can keep that thing in a pocket. Even when I put it in the pocket of a pretty bulky jacket, the form factor was definitely visible. There was a little while where I was thinking about some real harebrained solutions like wearing a polo shirt underneath a sweater and keeping it in the breast pocket, or taping the thing to my side or something. I eventually settled on the car thing, partly because I thought she’d spend the whole dinner expecting me to propose and might have given up by then, but mostly because that way I could just stash the thing in my car.
The wedding is set for January 2019, so we’ve got a little while to prepare. Washington State coach Mike Leach tells me I’m in for a rough time, although so far I’ve found that if I actually take an interest in the wedding planning, instead of giving whatever answer I think will allow me to go do something else the soonest, it seems to go alright.
If this is unreadable garbage, sorry! That’s probably because I didn’t have a chance to edit it. That’s because she just arrived, and I have to go celebrate. Happy Valentines’ Day, TL!
 
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It's a little scary that you seem to share most of my doubts of the insanity called marriage yet decided to do it anyways. You sound like a sane person, which could mean that I'm prone to do the same if I fall for a girl hard enough.
Anyways cute and funny writeup, good luck to the both of you. Had to laugh at the proposal in the car.
I'll definitely remember the "I like talking to you more than I dislike [...] but I still dislike [...]" line for asking for someone's phone number. That's a smart way of giving signs of appreciation while dodging the social media bull.
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Congratulations!!! I agree with you that proposals and weddings can be awkward or even uncomfortable to plan or execute, but I found them to be fun and romantic because my wife and I were both excited and in agreement on pretty much everything (we got married last year). Happy (belated) Valentine's Day, and I wish you and your soon-to-be wife a long and happy life together
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Nice story, dawg, I'm going to propose to my lady here in a few months myself, though we may get married in secret and then pretend its a long engagement so we can put off having to pay for a fuckin wedding as long as possible.
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Yeah... depending on where you live and how big and extravagant you want to make it, weddings can be crazily expensive. Tens of thousands of dollars, easily, and for many couples that's a tough price point, considering they don't want to start off in debt or broke at the beginning of their lives together.
That being said, my wedding was absolutely the happiest day of my life, and I wouldn't change a single thing. For us, it was well worth the money and planning
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Thanks, guys! $10,000 certainly is a lot of money (apparently that's the average cost of a wedding these days). I think a lot of people wind up fantasizing longingly about eloping. But not many wind up occasionally fantasizing about having a Mormon wedding!
Let me explain: my parents and most of my extended family are Mormon; I grew up Mormon, and still attend my parents' church sometimes when I'm home. And let me tell you, when Mormons get married it's so fucking cheap. You hold the ceremony at temple (or just at a church building if one or both parties can't get a temple recommend) free of charge. Then for the reception the ward all get together in the gym of the church building and pull all the tables and folding chairs out of storage like at any other church event. Basically the only cost is the food, and even then you could probably convince Sister Warner to cook that good stew she makes for parties and that sort of thing.
When I was younger I'd go to Mormon wedding receptions and think they were depressing. It's supposed to be one of the most important days in your life, and here you are eating mediocre food on fold-out tables with plain white tablecloths, paper plates, plasticware, and basketball lines on the floor. More to the point, I'm not Mormon, my fiance is not Mormon, and associate Mormon church buildings with a slight sense of stifling dread, so I'm not really trying to get married in one.
But I do fantasize sometimes about it. Imagine, a whole wedding with your friends and family and everything, but all you have to pay for is your fancy clothes, a cake if you want one, and gas to and from the building
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I wish my wedding was only $10,000! Depending on the state, the average wedding is typically $20-40K. In New Jersey and New York, for example, it can be insanely expensive. My NJ wedding was $50K, and it had everything we wanted but was far from "extravagant" or "over-the-top".
A Mormon wedding sounds like the kind of price range that plenty of people prefer though, even without the religious part
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51434 Posts
Haha i love your wording about wedding proposal, one of the funniest/nicest paragraphs i have read in a while! You make very good points too which i think the world should probably look at.
However, congratulations and i wish you a happy and successful marriage!
Oh the paragraph on trying to hide the ring box also had me laughing out loud, imagining you trying to get some duck tape and stick it to you haha! Then to just do something sensible in the end and stick it in the glove box haha :D
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Hahaha yeah, I thought about it for a bit, but eventually decided that plan most likely ends with:
-the box coming untaped and falling on the floor at some inopportune time
-the little magic box having some shreds of ugly gray tape stuck over the top as I pull it out
-me inadvertently waxing myself trying to covertly pull out the box
-her noticing a box-shaped lump under my clothes anyway
-some other cringeworthy outcome I didn't even think of
As a rule, I am not a slick person, so I figured any plan that depends on me being slick should probably be workshopped a bit more.
A couple other thoughts on wedding ring boxes:
Could jewelers cool it for, like, a second with the branding? I get you wanna get your name out there and all, but in that magic moment where she's looking at this ring you're holding out, I'm not super into the fact that on the inside of the lid, sitting right behind the ring in big bold letters is "Kay Jewelers" or whatever. I understand how that seems like the choicest product placement you could imagine, but I really wish they wouldn't.
One more thing: what the hell do you do with the box when you're done? At that point the ring is on her finger and it's just a little black (probably cardboard) box with obnoxious branding. It's kinda bulky, and doesn't seem good for much. Can you just throw it away? Or am I history's coldest, most emotionless wedding monster for even considering throwing away the box I used to propose to my wife?
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Are you referring to the box that the ring case came in, or the actual ring case that one stereotypically opens up while down on one knee? Feel free to keep the ring case (she should be able to wedge it into the ring slit when she takes off the ring, for safekeeping) unless she already uses another jewelry box or container and wants to add the engagement ring (and eventually wedding band) to that collection.
Just let her decide what to do with the box or case; if she doesn't want it and isn't going to lose the ring, then she can just throw it away.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
First of all, congrats.
On diamond rings, I have to say that I'm opposed on principle, not so much as a result of the marketing campaign, but something a little more subtle: how closely the price of a diamond reflects its size. It ends up being a pretty direct show of money spent more than anything else, a shitty kind of present. Everything else is priced with nowhere near as much of this price fixation, and the communist in me does not approve of this pretty blatant show of money spent.
As far as fancy weddings go, though, I'm a bit more sympathetic. Not so much because I like huge parties but because it seems a more appropriate environment for that kind of ritual. It was not even a year ago that I had to help plan my brother's wedding, which was made really awkward by the complete and utter lack of forethought to major decisions such as the venue and wedding dresses and the like. Ended up finding a place for the ceremony like two days before the event, spending most of the rest of the time dealing with last-minute drama, and having to make do with an awkward restaurant choice that was barely appropriate for the occasion. Took lots of last-minute work to keep all of the guests from being completely puzzled by how absurd the entire situation was. It's easy to say "I just want a simple, inexpensive wedding" but when it comes to the actual event it never really quite works as well as you would like. Well-planned weddings with an appropriate level of grandiosity do have their merit, especially since you'll film it and make endless pictures of it and so on and so forth.
Then again, another tradition I'm used to is that the wedding guests bring money rather than gifts for the newlyweds to help offset the cost, which really helps.
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On February 16 2018 12:31 LegalLord wrote:
First of all, congrats.
On diamond rings, I have to say that I'm opposed on principle, not so much as a result of the marketing campaign, but something a little more subtle: how closely the price of a diamond reflects its size. It ends up being a pretty direct show of money spent more than anything else, a shitty kind of present. Everything else is priced with nowhere near as much of this price fixation, and the communist in me does not approve of this pretty blatant show of money spent.
As far as fancy weddings go, though, I'm a bit more sympathetic. Not so much because I like huge parties but because it seems a more appropriate environment for that kind of ritual. It was not even a year ago that I had to help plan my brother's wedding, which was made really awkward by the complete and utter lack of forethought to major decisions such as the venue and wedding dresses and the like. Ended up finding a place for the ceremony like two days before the event, spending most of the rest of the time dealing with last-minute drama, and having to make do with an awkward restaurant choice that was barely appropriate for the occasion. Took lots of last-minute work to keep all of the guests from being completely puzzled by how absurd the entire situation was. It's easy to say "I just want a simple, inexpensive wedding" but when it comes to the actual event it never really quite works as well as you would like. Well-planned weddings with an appropriate level of grandiosity do have their merit, especially since you'll film it and make endless pictures of it and so on and so forth.
Then again, another tradition I'm used to is that the wedding guests bring money rather than gifts for the newlyweds to help offset the cost, which really helps.
I would have to say that the cut, color, and clarity, are equally as important at identifying cost. If you want to signal wealth you can go for a huge rock with shitty color and a shitty clarity and no one will be the wiser unless you put it next to another diamond (or a white piece of paper). But for a real value diamond color, cut and clarity are king. I was blessed to have gotten what I call the holy grail of engagement ring shopping from an anal accountant friend of a friend of a friend. Id have to dig up the email to post it here but it really helped in the search.
I dont even want to talk about the whole engagement ring box market that has sprung up recently. theres ones with lights in the background, some with cameras that record as you open it to show her the ring. low profile boxes.... the list goes on and on.
My wife and I were just planning on having a small dinner with family and doing the court thing. but once her mother and my sister saw her in the wedding dress they wouldn't accept us just doing dinner and convinced us to do the whole big wedding thing. I spent 20 ish for about 150 people. and the only reason it was that low was alot of personal favors from photographers and the florist. they were absolutely key. We also got lucky that the venue didn't have anything booked for that day and it was only a month away so they just wanted to get anyone into the room and we managed to cut a great deal. maybe 60% what other places were charging. sometimes last minute does pay off.
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Netherlands6175 Posts
On February 15 2018 21:27 farvacola wrote:
Nice story, dawg, I'm going to propose to my lady here in a few months myself, though we may get married in secret and then pretend its a long engagement so we can put off having to pay for a fuckin wedding as long as possible.
omg faaaaaaaaaarva! Eeeeee!
@ChristianS
Awww great blog!
Congrats and best wishes to you both!
I also think of it as a really weird tradition, and I would be SO awkward. But where you say you and your fiance had been talking about marriage for some time in advance, I think she would have already made up her mind on how to answer you by the time you asked, hence the short answer time for such a life changing question.
But yeah, a lot of my friends have gotten engaged on special occasions, like birthdays, Christmas, dating anniversaries etc that it hardly felt like a surprise.
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Norway28517 Posts
Me and my wife didn't get wedding rings. It happens that people ask why I'm not wearing a ring when I'm married, to which I reply I think that is stupid and I hate wearing rings and then it's okay.
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EPT
