... does that make this the "un-blog"?

So my fabulous boyfriend of 2+ years finally got around to proposing last week. (Which is another blog altogether - especially since I'm tired of repeating myself.) My last several days have been spent in a happy fog, productively staring at the sparkly new addition to my left hand ... which I violently snapped out of 2 days ago with a horrible realization: now I have to plan the wedding!!!

Before I go any further here, let me be very clear about one thing: I am thrilled to be marrying this guy. Seriously - I didn't wait (*cough) years, and put up with all the sideways stares at my much younger sister's wedding two summers ago, just to hook up with some loser. I found a really good guy. A saint, really. I publicly call him the Most Patient Man in the World. And I'm so looking forward to the Being Married. But the Getting Married ... ?

I am not the girl who's been planning her wedding since she was 5 years old. I never even wanted one -- I always thought that all I'd need was the person I'm marrying, someone to say the ceremonial stuff, and a beach somewhere. But when I floated this idea to Mr. UB, he said his family would never go for it. And when his parents heard that we were planning a 2-day getaway to Vegas recently, his mother absolutely insisted (well, threatened, really) that we stay far, far away from all officiating Elvises. Of course, on that same trip my now fiancee (!) said that he'd gotten up the guts to ask me -- his work was done. All he's going to do now is remember when & where to show up.

So: great. I get to plan a wedding ... how, exactly, does one do such a thing? I emailed my sister the following question: " Where the heck did you even start looking to plan a freakin' wedding?" (Even though she's a Republican, I adore her, so I try not to swear too much.) She called (called! meaning there's too much info to be contained in an email! gulp ...) me back and gave me some advice and 2 websites.

After one night cruising around those sites, and flipping through the 3 wedding magazines that my recently-married upstairs neighbor, Sarah, gave me, I was already nauseous.