keep holding...

There hasn't been much to report here lately, because Eldan and I have been so busy with our respective research. Also, we're both speaking at notacon in a couple of weeks, so we've been putting our talks together. Both of us are also attending and volunteering, so you'll see all kinds of meldan action at notacon.

Hold your horses!

A lot of people want to know a lot more about our wedding than we can actually tell you right now. Not because it's some big secret, but because we just don't know. We both have a lot on our plates—Melinda must graduate before starting work (for which she already has a date, in July), and I would be in a very awkward situation if I don't manage to defend my thesis proposal by the time we leave Cleveland—and planning a wedding can take up an awful lot of time and energy. So we're pretty much holding off all wedding-planning activity until after we settle in a little in Seattle. Until then, here is as much as we do know:

Certainties

• We will be getting married. I realise this is a statement of the obvious in its context, but I'm re-stating it because it's so much more important than any of the things people are asking us about. We will be getting married, and the rest are just details.
• When we do manage to fix a date, we'll be announcing it well in advance, so that people who live far away and want to join us have a chance to organise travel. You'll all get at least 6 months' warning.
• The wedding will be in or near Seattle. When it wasn't clear where we would be living, there was some doubt about whether we'd have it where we lived or travel elsewhere to get married, but now that we know we'll be in a nice place, it doesn't make sense to go elsewhere to get married.

Likelihoods
We both like the idea of having the wedding outdoors, though we have as yet to give any serious thought to what kind of place. Because of this, and because it just makes more sense to get people to travel to Seattle at a time when it's also nice to take a holiday in the Pacific Northwest, we'll probably get married in Summer or late Spring. That's Summer or late Spring next year, just to avoid confusion. There's no way we can do this right this Summer, but I would also like not to delay this for multiple years.

The party won't be as formal as they come, because I just don't enjoy that kind of event. There will be good food and wine and beer, but don't ask us about cake flavours, at least not until the wedding is close.

For now
I hope I can say this in the right way, because I know that all the attention is well-intentioned, but please don't expect any more information or decisions from us until we're comfortably settled in Seattle. I am a firm believer in enjoying the process of planning a wedding, but it's a thing that can easily become very stressful. I think that if we are given time and space to do this our way and without excessive hurry, we can enjoy the process and enjoy the day when it comes. But when people bombard us with questions and suggestions—however well meant—it becomes easy to lose perspective, become distracted by all the details, absorbed in the stress of everyone having their own ideas about what a wedding should look like, and lose sight of the fundamentally good thing that this is supposed to be a celebration of.

For the time being, the most helpful thing that a well-meaning friend or relative can do is just to be patient and leave us be. When we start making plans, we will let you know, and when there are things we want help or advice with we aren't afraid to ask. And when the wedding does happen, I know that it will be good.

Future In-Laws

It occurs to me, as I write this, that there isn't a name (such as "future daughter-in-law") for the relationship between the sets of parents of two people who are getting married. That seems weird, for some reason.

Anyway, the meeting went as well as anyone could have hoped, and I think that everyone involved had a fantastic time, travel mishaps notwithstanding.

One of the nicest things about being engaged is hearing all of the stories from my parents and Eldan's parents, about what their relationships were like in the early days, the things they did, when they bought a house, how they felt while planning to get married and move in together. It's so interesting to hear about, and these are things that I'm inclined to pay attention to- after all, both sets of parents have been together for over 30 years, which leads me to believe that they've done something right.