The fact that I even feel a need or desire to write this post in the first place is just plain sad, and yet, here we are. There are perhaps a thousand questions I actually enjoying answering about the wedding and wedding planning. The question I do not enjoy answering?
“You’re STILL engaged?”
Of course I have to temper that question with an explanation because the question alone might not seem that bad. I work with kids, after all, who don’t always understand that you don’t get married overnight and that marriage prep requires waiting. People ask me this question as though they are surprised that the engagement hasn’t ended yet. Sometimes people go as far as grabbing my hand to make sure the ring is still there. What a sad reflection of the world today that people expect engagements to end.
People continue to tell me how most people’s first engagements never actually work out. The stories I hear are sad and heartbreaking, but that doesn’t mean that’s how my story will end. The “you’re STILL engaged” question frustrates me but more than anything it saddens me. It saddens me that people just assume, even after we’ve been engaged only a few weeks, that we would have already ended things. It saddens me that commitment means so little to people that the default setting is “Oh, of course they’ve broken up by now.”
Normally when I write a post for this series I like to give suggestions about what TO say, not just what not to say, but when it comes to this question there really isn’t anything to say. Just don’t ask if I’m still engaged as if you assume that it has all gone to hell in a hand-basket by now. Ask how the wedding plans are going, if we’ve picked a date, planned where we are going for the honeymoon, or if we know where we are going to live. Ask who is in the bridal party, where the wedding will be or the flowers we are going to use. Don’t grab my hand to check if the ring is still there because I’m here to tell you that it is. That ring isn’t leaving my hand EVER. Grab my hand if you want to see the ring, if you can’t get over how beautiful it is, or if you want to know more about the design. Don’t grab my hand and nearly yank my arm off because you assume the ring has been tossed in a river in a fit of rage. Don’t joke about breaking off the engagement or running away because that’s not funny, not now, not ever.
No matter what trials may come in the coming months, my answer to the “are you still engaged” question will always be the same: YES. Unequivocally yes, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Next question?