The BF’s birthday
Last weekend was the BF’s 25th birthday. He’s a whopping quarter-century old. I realize this is not actually old. Truly, I do. But I’m sitting here, all of 23 and thinking 25 just seems like it’s a boundary from young man to plain ol’ man. I still think it’s funny if I hear someone call me “that lady” versus “that girl,” since I still feel very much like a girl and not quite like a lady.
On being a lady
And speaking of “lady,” it has recently come to my attention that people used to call my grandmother, who passed away when I was in kindergarten, was often referred to as being “such a lady.” So was the BF’s grandmother, who was a good friend of my grandmother (they both worked as secretaries in the school system in our town). That’s just not something you hear about women these days. I would especially argue that no one will remember me as being “such a lady.” I’ll likely be the feisty one when I’m older. You know, after I turn 25.
Weddings and marriage
I’ve been catching up on my Weddingbee reading lately. I was about 2 weeks behind, which added up to well over 300 posts. It’s been a lot of fun reading what all those talented ladies have been writing about regarding their weddings. I’m a big fan of weddings and planning (this is no secret, let me tell you) but I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about weddings to marriage.
You see, the BF and I have been together for a little over 5 years (it’ll be 5 years, 3 months on the 6th) and have been talking about getting married for the last, oh, 4 years. We have both been very sure of us getting married for a long time, and now it’s getting to the point where complete strangers are asking when we’re planning to do it after they find out how long we’ve been together. And I don’t blame them– we’re both of marriageable age, know we want to get married, and know each other like no one else does.
So why are we waiting? Mostly because of the wedding, I think. The BF and I are very conscious of our finances and budgeting. Well, maybe not budgeting, but definitely about finances. I’ve written before about how we’ve been working with financial planners and how that’s been going (which is another update post for another instance). We both graduated from college with student loans– moreso me than him– and we each have additional other debt. We’ve determined that our two immediate financial goals are saving for a house and saving for a wedding. Because we’re not engaged yet, the planners aren’t taking us very seriously on the wedding thing, and thus have been focusing only on the house. This is a problem for us, since we want to pay for the wedding outright and still have a significant amount to put down as a down payment on a house. Oh, both within the next two years.
It’s important to us to not have a whole ton of debt because we’ve taken on so much already for our education and funding the BF’s small business. Both of our sets of parents have money issues (and both sets are now divorced… whether the money this is part of it, I don’t really know), so we’re doing everything we can to avoid that.
The big thing for me, though, is that the wedding is only the start to the marriage. I’ve come to think of it as just a big party celebrating us “making it official.” It’s not going to be the happiest day of my life (’cause it follows that it’s all downhill from there, right?), nor is it going to be the the most perfect day of my life. Because it’s not all about me. The wedding is about us. And I won’t lose sight of that. Will I go a little crazy planning it? Maybe. Hell, I did for the barbecue/drink-fest we had for his 25th b-day. Will I go mental making sure the out-of-town baskets are just so or that we have a modern-yet-vintage feel (which is a HUGE trend I’m seeing, and I’m not sure how I feel about it)? Probably not. Do I want to have great food and drinks, tons of dancing, and a rockin’ good time? You bet your ass.
But it will be on our terms, no one else’s. Which is why we’re waiting a while. Even though the BF knows it’s killing me 
