Catch-up

Hi everyone, welcome, welcome.

I guess I'll start by telling you a little bit about myself. I just turned 27, I live on Long Island (not really by choice), I've been engaged for a while now to a truly fantastic person, and an unbelievable amount of people I know are planning their weddings now, too.

I never considered myself a feminist- quite the opposite, actually. I think it takes a lot of guts and unconditional love to take on the "traditional" female role of caring for everyone and everything that lives and breathes, or collects dust. I was raised to believe in traditional gender roles but only to a point. My mom played the role of mother AND father quite well but I grew up knowing that she really just wanted to be the mother/wife role and was forced into the other role. She is also impossibly stubborn and VERY independent, despite her deep desire to be a wifey/mom. Classic Irish. Strong- willed. Makes for mixed signals, though.

My sister has always been a bit more extreme when it came to the feminism issues. SUPER strong willed and would be no ones "wife" or "just a mother." Thankfully, she's mellowed. I was always laid back and thought I would be a kick-ass mother and wife, but as I get older, I see how much we live in a society that holds men and women to certain standards. And I gotta tell ya, it bugs me more and more.

So. This blog is meant to be about the wedding planning/ marriage planning process. Also with a tinge of observation about how it all falls on the lady. And how that makes me mad. Luckily, as I mentioned, I have a fab guy who totally is planning with me AND agrees that "wedding planning" is, how you say? bull and what really needs to happen in the coming months is "marriage planning." So that is what we are doing. We are "marriage planning" because from what I understand, a wedding goes well beyond The Day.

I'm actually pretty well into the wedding planning process at this point. Our wedding is October 3rd, 2010. So you can imagine that some things are already taken care of. But definitely not everything. I'm actually not the best wedding planner when it comes to my own wedding. And I can't believe how much I've learned along the way about myself, my fiancee (there should be an accent there, right?), and about the society in which we live. Please don't groan. I'm not trying to be preachy- I just have a lot of observations about this whole sha-bang. And I have a hunch that the way the world works isn't going to magically change AFTER I'm married. I imagine it might get a little worse..... house-wifery and high expectations here I come, whether I want it or not.

That being said, again- welcome to my blog. I promise it won't be too cynical. A light whisper of cynicism never hurt anyone.