What does kinda sorta pseudo-engaged mean? Well, I’ll tell you:

1. My boyfriend/fiance-to-be Robert and I established at the end of last year that marriage was in our not-too-distant future. We even determined that we wanted to get married in 2013 during a warm month. We had late spring or early summer in mind.
2. Robert already had a diamond in his possession that he had inherited. It is flawed but has sentimental value, so earlier this year he asked me how would I feel about using this diamond in my engagement ring. I said I’d be honored. (More on this story to come.) You’d think that already owning a diamond would make the process of getting an engagement ring easier. It does not. We’ve encountered an insane  obstacle course that’s taken four months to maneuver and is going to take still longer due to the special circumstances of our diamond. (More on this to come as well.)
3. Because the engagement ring process took much longer than expected, we (OK, OK, I) started to get nervous about having enough time to plan our 2013 spring/summer wedding. In particular, I was worried about finding a venue that suited us that would be available during the very popular season we wanted to be married. Sooooo … we decided to go ahead and start planning, pre-engagement ring!

So that’s what pseudo-engaged means!

Initially, I was going to wait for the engagement ring to start writing about this, but I’ve already collected so many stories that I think will be helpful to readers. So I decided, with Robert’s blessing, to start writing about the process and tell you our very own, very unusual story.

I’ll be spreading engagement ring stories over a period of time, rather than telling them back to back. I figure most folks reading this blog already have their rings sorted, and I have lots of stories for you guys as well, as a surprising amount of wedding planning decisions fell into place rather quickly. So expect upcoming posts on how we decided on a venue, a date, a wedding planner and more!

Also of note, due to shifting responsibilities at work, I will now be posting only twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, so please stop by those days to read the latest post! I’m curious myself to see how much being a wedding blogger helps this process. It might be interesting for you to follow too.

Btw, the photo above is of significance to Robert and I. It’s from a photo booth from an October 2012 wedding. While celebrating the bride and groom, we both realized, This will be us someday.

So in celebration of that moment and what’s to come, I give you this extremely goofy photo from that wedding!

I’ll be checking out our wedding checklist tool and seeing if my own advice on first steps after you get engaged holds up. (I think it does!) Oh, and this photo comes from the same wedding this photo was taken. Check out that post for a budget favor idea!