I’m not a very romantic person. At least not anymore.

In my previous relationships, I always expected romance and love in places it was never likely to turn up. With each new love interest, I would imagine that they would be the prince charming that would solve all my real life problems and make everything okay.

I’ve been engaged before, and during that time I used to prospect of marriage as my justification that I was “worth it”. I felt like if I could just get down the isle, I would find my self worth at the end of it.

Obviously, that never happened, and it was definitely the best thing that never happened to me.

Over the years, I’ve learned that love isn’t the solution to any problem. It isn’t the thing that will fill any void in my life. It doesn’t have magic powers.

I remember saying all this to Tom over beers when we first started dating. In the middle of my rant (which probably included a deep discussion on never wanting to have kids) I stopped and told him I was sorry for sounding so pessimistic and cynical. I mean, I wanted him to know what I was all about, but I didn’t want to depress him either.

Instead of being totally freaked out by me, all he said was “you’re not a pessimist, you’re just a realist.”

I am pretty sure I knew at that moment that I was sold on this guy.

Because of his willingness to understand me and accept my crazy, a new sort of romance formed in our relationship. Realistic romance, if you will.

I’ve never expected him to fix anything in my life, but I have allowed him to open my eyes to a lot of new, really good things.

He’s shown me that I’m not unlovable. He’s proven to me that good guys do exist. He’s convinced me to finally let someone be nice to me, and not to be freaked out by it.

He’s not my solution, but he’s definitely been a major enhancement to my life and has brought a lot of light into my sometimes very dark soul.

Because of the very real and honest place we’ve always been in with each other, we have always been open about how we pictured our futures together. There was never really that questioning stage where I felt like the relationship was doomed to fail, or where I had to constantly wonder if we were on the same page.

So engagement and marriage has seemed logical for awhile now. We’ve only been dating for about 13 months, but we’ve been serious pretty much the whole time.

But even though it was expected, it surprised me how romantic and magical the actual proposal was.

Fun fact: he didn’t really have specific plans for when he was going to do it, he just wanted to wait for the right time.

I think the fact that we just happened to have time to tour the OU campus and find our way onto the field is proof that God and the Sooners approve of this marriage.

It just all feels so right.

But I won’t lie and say that I’m not semi-freaking out a little bit about the actual wedding part.

Remember, I’m a people pleaser, so that whole bit about your wedding being “your day” doesn’t really apply to me.

I want my wedding to be everyone’s day. I want everyone to love it and have fun. I want it to be the party of 2013. I want at least one person to get inappropriately drunk and make a scene (although, for once, I would prefer that person not be me).

I also want it to be practical and affordable. So… there’s a lot of work to be done there.

But I’m not freaking out about the getting married part. I will just keep reminding myself that all that matters at the end of the day is that I have found this kick ass person to marry and that’s really all that matters. The rest will all fall into place. Right?

As for the blog, it will probably be unavoidable to completely abstain from wedding-related posts here and there, but they will not be the central focus of what I write here.

I’ll just text, email and Facebook those of you who like me enough to put up with me talking about it for the next twelve months.

Thanks again for all your congratulations. You guys are just the best, ever.