Bananaversary the first!

Team Banana wedding summed up

Team Banana wedding summed up

Baron and I recently celebrated our 1 year anniversary. (Monday, April, 23rd).  Though we’ve actually been together for 11 years now, the first wedding anniversary seems to hold a bit of importance to me.

It’s a great achievement to have survived the first year. No one died, or was mortally wounded, or even suffered a major or minor injury!  Emotionally, we still are still pleased with each other so that is a plus, as well.

Seriously, though It’s great to celebrate our lives together. I can very easily shy away from and push away romance, but I love him, and am very happy to celebrate our marriage.

I can’t believe it’s been a whole year since the wedding. I look back fondly on that night, as it was clearly the best party I’ve ever thrown and attended.  The planning process was a whirlwind of fun, stress, and anxiety.  I never thought I wanted to get married, much less have a big, fancy wedding. A lot of things changed between the end of 2009, when my thoughts started to change about marriage, to April 23, 2011 when we got married and celebrated with160 friends & family.

In 2009, after introducing me to a family friend at a funeral as “wife”, we were greeted with usual “oh congrats, how long?”. Baron muttered and stuttered how we weren’t actually married, just common law.  I was a little shocked he used the term wife, but he explained “girlfriend didn’t cut it”. We had just purchased a home together, and honestly there’s little greater commitment than that.  We realized that maybe it’s ok to get married, and there’s a reason why a large segment of the population are fighting to get this right – it does still have some meaning to it.  It was at that point that I decided I was ok with the idea of maybe, perhaps, being engaged… but not getting married any time soon. We would have a really long engagement, of course. Let’s not rush anything, we’d only been together 8.75 years at that point.  It was the following February that he proposed. We originally thought of a lengthy 2 year engagement, putting us at a nice mid-winter 2012 wedding. Parents have a way of changing everything, and thus it was pushed up  to 2011.  I’m pleased with how everything turned out.

Fast forward to the big date in 2012 and Baron had so kindly started off my day by making me french toast for breakfast – my favourite breakfast food. He sent me roses at work, and then we went out for dinner at Bymark.  We ate SO much delicious food there.  We tried to do something afterwards but were too full, so we lazed around and watched T.V. It’s how us ‘ol married folk do ;)

According to wikipedia, the first anniversary gift in U.S. custom is paper. We both accidentally delivered on this, as I got him tickets to a TFC game, and he got me tickets to a concert.  It’s technically paper.

The TFC game was fun to be at, even though the team, like all teams in Toronto, sucked!

 

TFC in the sun

TFC in the sun

At least it was a nice day.

Our anniversary was nice. I often ponder how lucky I am to have met this weirdo. His weirdness is so similar to mine. He is a man who loves me for my intelligence.  We are a great unit, and I look forward to celebrating many more anniversaries with him.

 

 

Team Banana Wedding!

It finally happened. After over 9 years of dating, 5 years of living in sin, and 7 months of home ownership, I am officially engaged to my partner in crime Baron Zemm. It happened on Wednesday, February 10th. The quick summary of how it went down is at the bottom under the ‘more’ link if you wish to read.

Sparklor, the engagement Ring

Sparklor, the engagement Ring

Now that I’ve had a few days to share the news with family, close friends and then the greater internet – I must say how happy I feel. In fact, I’m actually very surprised about how happy I am. I never imagined I would be this happy to be engaged. It’s almost a bit scary. I’m thoroughly warmed by all the well-wishes and congrats from people. They all seem so genuinely happy for me and I’m pleasantly shocked.

I’ve always been a bit cynical about love and romance, even when I’ve been in this amazing relationship.  I have a bit of issue with the corporate and commercial nature of weddings vs. what the real meaning of marriage should be. There are a whole lot of bananular thoughts in my head.

Regardless, I’m really happy to make it official. I’m very touched at the fact that Baron went through the process to express himself in this way and it really does mean a lot to me. I feel so redonkulously blessed that I’m a little afraid to cross the street as I fear I may be struck down soon to even out the good karma.

Another thing? Google released a suite of wedding planning templates for google docs. What could be more perfect for my nerd tendencies? Nothing!

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