Goodness, I know I'll probably get torn to bits for this, but ah, screw it. (Fair warning: I'm at Starbucks typing this with my second almost empty 20oz coffee next to me. If I jump around or just plain don't make any sense, blame it on the cccccaffiene! Also, it's long. Sorry bout that.)
My boyfriend and I have been together for five wonderful years as of Feb. It's no secret to anyone who knows us that we will be getting married in the future, whenever that may be. His mother has even been introducing me to everyone as her future DIL since year two. Even his co workers and boss (all men) bug BOTH of us on a regular basis about when will we finally get married! We know we're going to, they know we're going to, it's only a matter of time. Everyone else seems more anxious than we do.
We went ring shopping together last weekend. We each picked out both of our rings at only the thrid store. I'm going to a bridal show this weekend with my best friend, my boyfriend knows all about it and is all for it. He's talking about writing vows, cake, which church, and what time of the year he wants a wedding. I'm on here and he's on The Plunge. We are doing this pusdeo planning, but we aren't engaged yet. We talked about it, and he says we aren't technically engaged because he doesn't have the ring yet (he wants to save up and pay in cash so we don't have to finace and go into debt) and he hasn't said those beautiful four words, but for all intensive purposes we kind of are. I brought up the possibility of telling our parents about what we're currently doing (half ass planning a wedding, I guess?) cause our closest friends know and we kind of have a bridal party picked out already. He wants to wait to announce anything because he doesn't like the idea of us being engaged right now cause he wants to "do it the right way", such as asking my father and having a party to announce. He feels like an ass if I say "Oh, mommy and daddy, I'm getting married! But I don't have a ring yet. That'll come in a little while."
I am totally sympathetic to his feelings, but I feel terrible! It's like we're sneaking around our families backs. I want both of our moms to be involved in what we're doing. It's like "let's go look at rings/churches/cakes/ but stay away from this side of town in case we run into them." I'm just as excited as he is to be doing all of this, but it's ovbiously premature if we can't tell our families. We are currently looking around for a "stand-in" ring until he can get the amazing wedding set we picked out for me. He hasn't told me if he'll propose with the stand in or not, cause he's trying to keep SOMETHING a surprise.
So, to you laides I pose three questions: Should we just stop all the psudo planning if we can't even tell our families? Should we let them know what we're doing so it doesn't seem like they're being left out of the loop?
Also, his ring is substantially cheaper than mine and I could afford it soon; would it be acceptable if I bought his ring even though he can't get mine yet? I don't want to make him feel bad about not being able to get mine just yet (every time we talk about those rings he gets sad cause it's going to be awhile till I get mine) but I'd rather just get it now and have that expense out of the way. And, of course, I'm too exticed to wait.
Oui.
Thanks for listening.