I have so many wedding/marriage related questions. This is such a weird time to get engaged, which I’m sure is adding to my emotions on everything. (I weirdly even feel guilty at times for being so happy and excited? It’s hard to wrap your mind around the fact that life still goes on even when the world seems to be on pause and good things can still happen even when terrible things are also going on?)
Because this is obviously so new to me, I’ve been leaning on my friends who are married to ask a thousand questions. Would love to have you guys weigh in too. I will say, I don’t think there’s any right or wrong answers, by the way. Zero judgement. Just curious! I’ll pop what I’m thinking/leaning towards below.
Do you wear your ring all the time?
The first week I had my ring I was terrified to wear it. We were also at Mike’s family’s lake house, so honestly I barely wore it because we spend so much time outside and by the water. The next week of being home was a mix of forgetting to put it on sometimes, getting distracted every time I looked down, and lots of looking down to make sure it was still there. I am used to wearing rings on my right hand, so it felt weird to have one on my left! BUT it’s starting to feel more second nature. I’m not sleeping, doing dishes, showering, working out, etc with it on though… Curious what everyone else does! Maybe as I become more used to it, I’ll get more relaxed.
Did you change your name?
I’m planning on it– we’ve talked about it a lot and Mike is more attached to his name than I am to my own. We both like the idea of having the same last name as a family. I also think Carly Riordan sounds cute I know some women drop their given middle name and replace it with their maiden name or go for four names, but Heitlinger is long… and doesn’t quite work as a middle name in my opinion. And I love Abigail so right now I’m leaning towards keeping Carly Abigail, dropping Heitlinger, and adding Riordan.
Did you have a small, medium, or big wedding?
The pandemic is really dictating what we’re doing. We really have no idea what to do, when to do it, how to do it… Do we do something small and something big later? Do we do something tiny? Do we just completely wait?
What’s the best thing you did for your wedding day? Anything you regretted?
Can’t really answer this yet, but would love to hear from you!
Would you go back and change anything?
Again, can’t answer this myself yet.
How many wedding dresses did you try on before finding “the one”?
I tried on five gowns this weekend and fell in love with the third. I haven’t completely committed to it yet because it just feels like a ton of money to spend on a dress I’ll wear once? I am torn. I will say that I enjoyed trying on gowns a lot more than I expected to. I almost went alone, but at the last minute brought two of Mike’s sisters. Because of social distancing, I could only bring two people in, so I had everyone else (Mike’s mom, my mom, my sister, and two of Mike’s other sisters) on FaceTime. Putting on a veil is what made me cry– I didn’t think I wanted to wear one until I had it on my head– and I ended up loving a dress COMPLETELY different than what I thought I wanted!
What kind of honeymoon did you take?
A little absurd to even be thinking about travel, but… just for fun at the moment. Did you do something adventurous? Something relaxing? Did you stay close to home or go somewhere farther?
Did you do anything unique? Tips? Advice?! Something I’m not thinking about but should be?!?!
(I will ask kindly to not share any horror stories My DMs have been blowing up with bad stories and nightmares and it’s just adding to my already-high anxiety ha.)
