If you are new here, or even if you are not: congratulations! I wish I could hear your proposal story. I always love hearing them. Getting engaged is always a wonderful story in itself… one that you’ll be telling for the rest of your lives. I hope you know you don’t need to rush on to the next chapter now if you don’t want to – even if there are people in your life who are urging you to do so.

I have written about when my husband asked me to marry him in previous columns. It’s a story I never tire of sharing. It was March 2020. We were planning to go to our favourite place in Cornwall that weekend. He was going to pop the question on the beach and then we were going to have fish and chips and a chilly dip in the sea. However, as I have heard many a Real Housewife of New York say, we make plans and God laughs… and that’s exactly what happened here.

That evening, the Prime Minister came on the telly and told everybody in the UK to stay indoors. Lockdown One was here. Cornwall was cancelled. And the world as we knew it was over forever. But none of that was going to stop my husband…

So, I got sent into the bedroom and ten minutes later the sitting room had been turned into a beach. Now, don’t go getting Instagram grandiose notions here. This was not a Taylor Swift-style proposal, where Travis Kelce’s team transformed that outdoor space into the Romeo and Juliet floral garden of teenage Taylor’s dreams. This was a much more cobbled-together, Blue Peter Fairy Liquid bottle-type transformation.

He’d put a blue blanket on the ground (to be the sea, obviously), lit loads of candles, put on his navy shorts with white anchors on, laid out my collection of seashells, and put a video of a Cornish beach on the TV. He told me that he knew it wasn’t the proposal he’d planned, but that he and I always make the best of things together… and he wanted to continue making the best of things with me for the rest of his life. I know, right? Richard Curtis eat your heart out.

Obviously, I said yes. It was adorable and romantic and heartfelt and silly and fun. Everything I ever wanted, just completely not how I’d pictured it. And I have enjoyed sharing this story with anyone who will listen ever since.

Now, I am certain you have your own lovely story about how you got engaged. I really hope you have loved telling it to friends and family over the last few weeks. I hope it’s brought you such joy to share the tale of your happy, probably-imperfect perfect moment.

If the proposal was a surprise, then I’m guessing, at one point, you got fed up wondering why your partner was so adamant that you both climbed to the top of that great big hill. If you went off on a trip, then I hope you got the ring through airport security without blowing the secret! And if you didn’t, I hope you both laughed and enjoyed the perfect imperfection of getting down on one knee in the departures lounge!

However it happened, I hope you have taken the time to revel in the glow of it all. Because getting engaged is a MASSIVE life event in itself. It doesn’t mean you immediately have to have the wedding planned and finalised.

Now that BIG question has been popped, there may well be people in your life who have started popping other questions left right and centre. Have you got a date? Where’s the venue? What sort of dress do you see yourself in? For any newly engaged couple, this sudden tsunami of questions can feel completely overwhelming. Especially if you’re not done enjoying the being-engaged feeling yet.

Maybe you are going through some financial stuff right now and saving for the wedding feels like a huge mountain you’ll have to climb at some point. Maybe there are sticky family dynamics you aren’t quite ready to wade through. Maybe there’s a health thing going on with you, your partner, or a family member, and you want to gather your thoughts and see what the future has in store before going any further with your plans. Maybe you’re pregnant and you want to get through the first year or two of being parents first. Or maybe… you have no other reason than… you are not in a hurry and you’re just happy taking the scenic route to get to the wedding.

Whatever your reason may be, if you and your partner have just got engaged and you would like to sit still in that lovely space for a while longer, then you need nobody’s blessing to do so. You get to enjoy this journey and you get to set the pace you take it in. Nobody else gets a say in that.

Start as you mean to go on, down this often-tricky road. The unsolicited advice will come thick and fast when you do start planning the wedding. So, why not set some boundaries early on by making it clear to everybody that you are doing this your way… and in your own time?

If people are pushing for a date/venue/theme/anything, you can both politely tell them you’re not planning anything yet, and that they will hear about your plans as and when you choose to make and share them. You owe nobody an explanation as to why you haven’t immediately booked the whole thing. You can just tell them you’ll get there when you’re ready. If anyone continues to push for answers, then you can remind them to respect your wishes or tell them to butt out!

I have no doubt that your wedding-planning story will be filled with romance, plot twists and turns, drama, adventure, and some villains along the way! But you get to choose when you start writing those next bits. For now, if reading this issue of Rock n Roll Bride magazine is as far as you’ve got… then that’s exactly where you should be. Everything, and everybody, else can just wait while you enjoy being engaged!