Engaging news

I have been engaged to be married for three weeks. I vowed not to become "the bride" for the entire year or so leading up to the wedding day. You must know the type I'm referring to. "The bride," as opposed to a woman getting married, is the girl who clearly was only pretending to care about other things in her life until the magical day she could start her wedding plans. These are the girls you stare at in disbelief, struggling to understand why anyone would talk about tulle bows or paper favor boxes, let alone actually make them. You wonder if it takes so much energy hauling around a diamond all day that the mind becomes too exhausted to consider anything more challenging than cake fillings or ribbon colors.

But as a woman now engaged, I will not defend the behavior of the bride, but I cannot point my finger (diamond-clad or any other) any longer. Something happens to you when you become an engaged woman. Something almost...sinister. As if the combination of gemstone and precious metal against your skin seeps some frothy-white, champaign-flavored poison into your bloodsteam, then interrupts and forever alters (altars??) your brain's behavior. Consider the following changes I have noticed in these last three weeks:

1. After receiving the song-and-ring combo, I was unable to focus my mind on anything for hours. Friends reported glazed, wide eyes and unresponsiveness. I remember very little of this evening; perhaps the shock of the ring knocked me unconscious.

2. Since that evening, I find that the ring constantly demands my attention. I lose several hours a day at the office, staring into the face of my diamond, thinking only about shininess and/or sparkles. I am becoming OCD in the care of my band. I shine, shine, buff, buff but never enough.

3. Good but foolish people often trap themselves in my rambling spell by asking a seemingly innocent question: "How are the plans coming?" During these half-hour talks, I am faintly aware that I have lost control of my mouth, but there's no roping it in. My mouth has no problem with revealing every detail on my mind, including wedding drama I may have wanted to keep private.

4. I have neither the time nor even the interest to read a non-wedding related book or magazine. My netflix DVD I received two weeks ago is still in its red envelope, collecting dust on my TV. I blog exclusively about wedding matters. Theknot.com knows me by name.

5. My fiance must gently explain to me that his brain won't be able to take any more wedding talk after a certain hour of the day. I respond by talking twice as fast to fit everything in.

6. I didn't hesitate one second at the switch in calling him "fiance" instead of the 4-year old title "boyfriend."

So clearly, I am bewitched! As if love wasn't mind-altering (altar?? where? when?) enough.