A friend of mine sent me this link last week.  I hadn’t heard of it, but I guess it has been circulating the internet since early this year.  Check out and please let me know what you think.

http://www.spelhouse.com/gray/

I suggest reading this afterwards:

To read the story of the engagement from the photographer, click here:
http://rossoscarknight.blogspot.com/2007/06/most-elaborate-engagement-i-have-ever.html

1. After you get engaged, put a moratorium on planning — or even talking about planning — for at least six weeks. Or longer. Take time to let things
soak in.

2. Once you decide when and where you’re getting married, pat yourselves on the back. If you accomplish that, the two of you can handle anything else in
this process.

3. Take marriage education courses. I give detailed descriptions of this somewhat mysterious (but growing) field and specific recommendations in the
book, but www.smartmarriages.org is a great place to find a class to get you started.

4. Limit your consumption of wedding media. Take magazines and TheKnot.com in small doses.

5. Treat your in-laws like family from the moment you get engaged. But remember: Blood fights with blood. Let your husband-to-be handle his side of
the family; you handle yours. And no matter which side of the aisle they’ll be sitting on, the people who love you and want to be a part of the wedding
deserve your caring and consideration. Be as diplomatic as you possibly can be. It’s not just your day.

6. Find a candid, caring, recently married female friend who can be your sounding board. Go to her first when you’re upset.

7. Make time for yourself. No matter how busy you get, don’t abandon your old routines. In fact, guard your “alone time” even more fiercely. Work out
at least once a week; don’t even think about skipping. Yoga is the ideal engagement exercise. I also recommend keeping a journal.

8. Try to take the long view: Don’t let your imagination stall at the wedding day. (That approach is good both for keeping things in perspective
and for keeping you out of debt.)

9. Honor glances backwards at previous relationships — yours, and your fiancé’s.

10. Don’t be afraid of or discouraged by fighting with your fiancé. Allow for ebbs and flows in every kind of emotion during your engagement —
including how fondly you think of each other.

— from Kelly Bare’s book, “The F Word

Writer Kelly Bare gives her tips and advice to fiances in her book “The F Word: A Fiance Shares Her Story From ‘I Will’ to ‘I Do’.”

Engagement Gift Ideas

When you find out those you care about are getting married, you may want to get them a gift. They may be having an engagement party, and if they are, this is the perfect time to get them something special, especially if you think you will not be able to make it to the wedding. Many people like to give gifts even when the couple does not have a party, and they are always looking for new engagement gift ideas that will work for just about any couple.

You can find these engagement gift ideas online if you know where to look. For the most part, you have to know the couple’s likes and dislikes before you buy. Most of these gifts are meant to celebrate love, whereas a gift for a wedding is more about celebrating the long journey of married life. When you look for engagement gift ideas, you don’t have to limit your imagination to find the best gift. What might be considered the best gift is going to be different for every single couple, but if you put enough time into it, you can find exactly what you are looking for, even if you don’t know what that is at first.

People often say that they want to find unique engagement gift ideas, but the word unique is tricky. If there is more than one of something, it is no longer unique. Even though people misuse the word, the idea behind it for most people means that it is something out of the ordinary, and there is plenty of that out there to be found. There are a lot of specialty websites that can give you a multitude of engagement gift ideas that you may never have thought of on your own.

If you are stumped for engagement gift ideas, think about what they couples likes, and try to find something they don’t have. I know that is not as easy to do as it sounds. You may want to find something you can get personalized for the couple. This might be a set of luggage, or perhaps a set of bathrobes. As long as you take some time and put some thought into your engagement gift ideas, you really can’t go wrong. When you take your time, it is going to show in your gift, just the same as it is going to show if you go and grab the first thing you see in the store and wrap it up.