Engagement FAQ
Jan. 3rd, 2011 09:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livWe both made FAQs when we got together, so might as well do it again now we're engaged. Plus, quite a few people are asking these questions and I'm sure more would like to ask them but may not want to appear nosy.
Q: How long have you been together?
A: Three years to the day :-) Well,jack asked me out on my birthday in 2007, and our first date was NYE, and then we officially decided in February that retrospectively, we'd probably been a couple since about then.
Q:Who proposed?
A:jack did. He invited me out for a meal on the pretext of 15 Av (middle of August), the romance day in the Jewish calendar. Normally I am not very keen on going out for romantic meals!
Q: How did it go?
We had a really lovely meal at the Anchor in Sutton Gault. It was a weekday evening, so pretty quiet, and the food was top-notch, and thenjack asked me if I wanted to think about the possibility of getting married. There wasn't any grand romantic moment, no going down on one knee or giving me expensive jewellery, so there wasn't any pressure, it felt like an entirely reasonable way to open a discussion.
Q: So how come it took so long to decide?
A: We decided it was better to treat the thing as a life-changing decision that we needed to think about seriously, rather than a Romantic Event. So we spent some time discussing the implications (though not all the time for the last four months because we also wanted to continue enjoying eachother's company and getting on with our lives generally!) I raised the issue with some of my close friends, and had a long discussion with my parents. I think a lot of what took me so long was that I didn't at all think of myself as the sort of person who gets married, and it takes time to change your mind in a way that changes how you think of yourself.
Q: What about the final decision?
A: I gradually came to think that the reasons in favour outweighed the reasons against the plan. Advice from a few people, especially![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shreena, convinced me that it doesn't have to be a lightning flash of blazing certainty to be a good decision. I realized that a lot of the discussions, while important, weren't really getting us any further towards making the decision. So I thought I should probably come to a conclusion one way or another, and we couldn't plan out everything that could ever possibly happen in the future, we should just keep talking about it.
Q: What happened then?
A: I went tojack's family for Christmas, and we went on a couple of walks, one around the village and one in a nearby village at the coast. It's a very picturesque part of the country, just at the beginning of the Lake District. We were being a bit romantic, but mostly addressing the most important of my outstanding issues. And eventually I said, ok, I feel decided.
Q: How did you tell your family?
A: We decided to wait until 27th, partly cos it's my birthday, and partly it's because it's the anniversary ofjack asking me on our first date, and partly because we wanted to tell close family first, rather than extended family present at Christmas. So we told jack's mother and grandfather over lunch, and we called jack's father and my parents, and texted my siblings scattered around various parts of Europe.
Q: How did they react?
A:jack's mother squealed with delight, his Grandfather blew me a kiss and said "Granddaughter!", Dad wished me a hearty mazal tov, P'tite Soeur sent a very excited text demanding pictures of the ring, Thuggish Poet called me and wanted to know about wedding logistics, and Screwy asked if I was pregnant, though he did also write a long message in quite competent Swedish, including an exclamation mark, which a major thing for him.
Q: So where is the ring?
A: I had several reasons against a ring; I didn't want the decision to be influenced or complicated by shopping for jewellery, I don't want to wear jewelled rings because they'd interfere with labwork, I'm not really on board with the symbolism of engagement rings.
Q: So are you pregnant?
A: Heavens no! I've been determined not to have children for more than a quarter of a century, and nothing has changed about that.
Q: But you were also determined for years not to get married, why should we believe you?
A: Well, one of the reasons I changed my mind is because, to my continued surprise, I found someone who doesn't think you have to agree to have children if you want to get married.
Q: Why didn't you tell me this exciting news when we met at Limmud?
A: Sorry about that. It seemed that the right thing to do was to tell close family first, and then tell everybody at the same time, so that we wouldn't be giving anyone priority over people who might feel more entitled to be the first to know.
Q: What about telling everybody?
A: We made the announcement at the Relativity New Year's Eve party, just after everyone had gathered together to listen to the bongs announcing midnight. There was much cheering and champagne toasts and hugs.naath gave me loads of useful advice in the following half hour! And I updated Twitter as soon as the mobile networks woke up again, and we changed the relationship heart on Facebook when we got home at about 3 am. Yay technology.
Q: Have you fixed a date?
A: Not yet. We're hoping some time in early 2012, maybe 29th Feb as that's both a fun date and our first calendar anniversary. My parents would like us to get married sooner, maybe summer 2011, and we may have to put it off longer if we can't sort out a venue and other logistics.
Q: Where will it be?
A: In Cambridge. Maybe in Trinity if that's possible.
Q: Who will be invited?
A: Ideally, we want to invite mainly our actual friends, not my ridiculously sprawling extended family and people our parents have obligations to. I don't know how many is going to be possible, but we'll see.
Q: What are you going to wear?
A: I really have no idea, I've never had a dream wedding so I've barely thought about it. Nothing white (or cream or ecru or any of those colours, which look dreadful on me and whose symbolism I find offensive), nothing that looks like a Wedding Dress, but beyond that, I have to think about it more.
Q: What are we going to wear?
A: We'll have a helpful but not too rigid dress-code. It'll probably be somewhat formal but not insanely so.
Q: Is it going to be a Christian wedding?
A: Absolutely not!jack isn't Christian, and I wouldn't be able to bear a Christian ceremony myself. There isn't going to be any "love, honour and obey" or any "till death do us part" either.
Q: Is it going to be a Jewish wedding?
A: No. I know some people see things differently, but my understanding of a Jewish wedding is that it's a contract between two individuals under the jurisdiction of Jewish law, and sincejack isn't subject to Jewish law, this would not be a sensible plan. There might be some Jewish-style bits, those that have a secular or romantic symbolism rather than a specifically religious one, but we'll see.
Q: Sojack isn't going to convert, then?
A: You'd have to ask him, really. I don't have any reason to expect it, and I believe it's rude and morally wrong to try to persuade him into changing his religion. Certainly when I agreed to marry him it wasn't at all in the expectation that he would be interested in being Jewish.
Q: Are you changing your names?
A: No. We both perfectly well like the names we have, and they're family names which are somewhat unusual. Besides which I have a professional reputation under my own name. We will expect to be styled Mr V___ and Dr B___.
jack's version is shorter and funnier, by the way. I've tried to be comprehensive, but I've probably forgotten something! I'm open to most questions, but reserve the right not to answer them!
Q: How long have you been together?
A: Three years to the day :-) Well,
jack asked me out on my birthday in 2007, and our first date was NYE, and then we officially decided in February that retrospectively, we'd probably been a couple since about then.Q:Who proposed?
A:
jack did. He invited me out for a meal on the pretext of 15 Av (middle of August), the romance day in the Jewish calendar. Normally I am not very keen on going out for romantic meals! Q: How did it go?
We had a really lovely meal at the Anchor in Sutton Gault. It was a weekday evening, so pretty quiet, and the food was top-notch, and then
jack asked me if I wanted to think about the possibility of getting married. There wasn't any grand romantic moment, no going down on one knee or giving me expensive jewellery, so there wasn't any pressure, it felt like an entirely reasonable way to open a discussion. Q: So how come it took so long to decide?
A: We decided it was better to treat the thing as a life-changing decision that we needed to think about seriously, rather than a Romantic Event. So we spent some time discussing the implications (though not all the time for the last four months because we also wanted to continue enjoying eachother's company and getting on with our lives generally!) I raised the issue with some of my close friends, and had a long discussion with my parents. I think a lot of what took me so long was that I didn't at all think of myself as the sort of person who gets married, and it takes time to change your mind in a way that changes how you think of yourself.
Q: What about the final decision?
A: I gradually came to think that the reasons in favour outweighed the reasons against the plan. Advice from a few people, especially
shreena, convinced me that it doesn't have to be a lightning flash of blazing certainty to be a good decision. I realized that a lot of the discussions, while important, weren't really getting us any further towards making the decision. So I thought I should probably come to a conclusion one way or another, and we couldn't plan out everything that could ever possibly happen in the future, we should just keep talking about it.Q: What happened then?
A: I went to
jack's family for Christmas, and we went on a couple of walks, one around the village and one in a nearby village at the coast. It's a very picturesque part of the country, just at the beginning of the Lake District. We were being a bit romantic, but mostly addressing the most important of my outstanding issues. And eventually I said, ok, I feel decided. Q: How did you tell your family?
A: We decided to wait until 27th, partly cos it's my birthday, and partly it's because it's the anniversary of
jack asking me on our first date, and partly because we wanted to tell close family first, rather than extended family present at Christmas. So we told jack's mother and grandfather over lunch, and we called jack's father and my parents, and texted my siblings scattered around various parts of Europe. Q: How did they react?
A:
jack's mother squealed with delight, his Grandfather blew me a kiss and said "Granddaughter!", Dad wished me a hearty mazal tov, P'tite Soeur sent a very excited text demanding pictures of the ring, Thuggish Poet called me and wanted to know about wedding logistics, and Screwy asked if I was pregnant, though he did also write a long message in quite competent Swedish, including an exclamation mark, which a major thing for him.Q: So where is the ring?
A: I had several reasons against a ring; I didn't want the decision to be influenced or complicated by shopping for jewellery, I don't want to wear jewelled rings because they'd interfere with labwork, I'm not really on board with the symbolism of engagement rings.
Q: So are you pregnant?
A: Heavens no! I've been determined not to have children for more than a quarter of a century, and nothing has changed about that.
Q: But you were also determined for years not to get married, why should we believe you?
A: Well, one of the reasons I changed my mind is because, to my continued surprise, I found someone who doesn't think you have to agree to have children if you want to get married.
Q: Why didn't you tell me this exciting news when we met at Limmud?
A: Sorry about that. It seemed that the right thing to do was to tell close family first, and then tell everybody at the same time, so that we wouldn't be giving anyone priority over people who might feel more entitled to be the first to know.
Q: What about telling everybody?
A: We made the announcement at the Relativity New Year's Eve party, just after everyone had gathered together to listen to the bongs announcing midnight. There was much cheering and champagne toasts and hugs.
naath gave me loads of useful advice in the following half hour! And I updated Twitter as soon as the mobile networks woke up again, and we changed the relationship heart on Facebook when we got home at about 3 am. Yay technology.Q: Have you fixed a date?
A: Not yet. We're hoping some time in early 2012, maybe 29th Feb as that's both a fun date and our first calendar anniversary. My parents would like us to get married sooner, maybe summer 2011, and we may have to put it off longer if we can't sort out a venue and other logistics.
Q: Where will it be?
A: In Cambridge. Maybe in Trinity if that's possible.
Q: Who will be invited?
A: Ideally, we want to invite mainly our actual friends, not my ridiculously sprawling extended family and people our parents have obligations to. I don't know how many is going to be possible, but we'll see.
Q: What are you going to wear?
A: I really have no idea, I've never had a dream wedding so I've barely thought about it. Nothing white (or cream or ecru or any of those colours, which look dreadful on me and whose symbolism I find offensive), nothing that looks like a Wedding Dress, but beyond that, I have to think about it more.
Q: What are we going to wear?
A: We'll have a helpful but not too rigid dress-code. It'll probably be somewhat formal but not insanely so.
Q: Is it going to be a Christian wedding?
A: Absolutely not!
jack isn't Christian, and I wouldn't be able to bear a Christian ceremony myself. There isn't going to be any "love, honour and obey" or any "till death do us part" either.Q: Is it going to be a Jewish wedding?
A: No. I know some people see things differently, but my understanding of a Jewish wedding is that it's a contract between two individuals under the jurisdiction of Jewish law, and since
jack isn't subject to Jewish law, this would not be a sensible plan. There might be some Jewish-style bits, those that have a secular or romantic symbolism rather than a specifically religious one, but we'll see.Q: So
jack isn't going to convert, then?A: You'd have to ask him, really. I don't have any reason to expect it, and I believe it's rude and morally wrong to try to persuade him into changing his religion. Certainly when I agreed to marry him it wasn't at all in the expectation that he would be interested in being Jewish.
Q: Are you changing your names?
A: No. We both perfectly well like the names we have, and they're family names which are somewhat unusual. Besides which I have a professional reputation under my own name. We will expect to be styled Mr V___ and Dr B___.
jack's version is shorter and funnier, by the way. I've tried to be comprehensive, but I've probably forgotten something! I'm open to most questions, but reserve the right not to answer them!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-04 01:08 am (UTC)I've been trying to keep a list of interesting/amusing references for people getting married who don't want to buy into the Wedding-Industrial Complex; happy to share and talk if that's of interest to you?
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-04 08:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-05 08:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-04 08:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-05 09:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-05 10:40 pm (UTC)So in the presence of all that wtfery, it's encouraging to see someone not giving name-changing a second thought, and I am delighted to support your choice.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-04 09:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-06 06:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-06 06:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-07 10:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-07 10:31 am (UTC)Congrats! :)
Date: 2011-01-04 10:28 am (UTC)I do tend to think that the really important decisions (actually, plenty of moderate decisions too) shouldn't be a blinding flash of confirmation. Sure, the overall feeling probably should be, but something that large should definitely be a considered decision.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-06 06:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-04 11:44 am (UTC)And congrats!
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-07 09:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-01 05:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-04 01:48 pm (UTC)It occurs to me that the hypothesis of hasty engagement due to pregnancy is surely trivially falsified as soon as the wedding date turns out to be "dunno, not for another year or so"! (Presumably he hadn't heard that part yet?)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-07 10:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-04 03:12 pm (UTC)I can't remember what I was wearing in (one of) my dream wedding(s). However, I don't really care to, as the end result was that there was a lot of faff and then the bride just got bored, lost interest and wandered off, and I ended up not married after all. I seem to recall this was only mildly vexing as I wasn't actually that into her.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-07 10:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-14 02:50 am (UTC)Personally, the taking-a-bit-of-time-to-think bit strikes me as very romantic indeed. I've heard plenty of "romantic" sky-rockets, bended knee and ring engagment stories. They always seem to be about the joy of telling the story later and the engagee's reponse to events -- all a bit me-me-me really. Thinking about another person, their needs and your needs, giving each other time to work out how both lives will be affected by a legally recognisable life-long connection, and trying to ensure that you will both be mutually happy, suggests a great deal of caring on both sides. Quite sickly and soppy really.