Recently my domain was due to expire, I decided to change registrar and in a lot of ways wished I’d never bothered. The site was down for around 10 days but as I haven’t posted since August 2011 I doubt anybody noticed. This whole experience has, once more, brought me to think I should start blogging again. I’d like to pick a direction for the blog but don’t really know where to go with it so for now it would be a meandering wander through my brain (business as usual). However when deciding what my first post in nearly 9 months should be, it was a real no brainer.

In less than 5 weeks I will be getting married. Breaking forth into this undiscovered territory with my future bride is one of a multitude of ‘first’ experiences that I am glad to be doing with her. I had never truly 100% lived with a woman before, I had never had children with anybody before, I had never had a joint bank account with anybody before and I had definitely never, in my entire experience of relationships, thought I would spend the rest of my life with somebody before. At least not to the extent that I would buy them jewellery symbolising it, then have a massive expensive party in order to receive a document that states this as my intention. For numerous reasons the last 4-5 years of my life have been the most interesting, challenging, ever changing period of time I can recall, and I have loved every minute of it.

Weddings are stressful, that’s right you heard me right, all these people claiming that weddings are dead easy, stress free and don’t cause any conflict between family members are all lying to you. I always wanted a simple wedding, no fancy dancy bells and whistles, just us declaring our love for each other in front of friends and family. I say always, that’s a bit of a lie. What I always wanted was a massive ridiculous theme wedding where I got married in a kilt and chain mail holding a custom made axe with my long hair flowing in the Scottish breeze outside a castle with a plait in my beard. I began to realise not only the financial constraints of this plan but also that this might not be what my prospective bride wanted, it was at this point I began to want something simple. Weddings in the UK in this day and age however have advanced from simple affairs into the mass complex staged performances that would have seemed fanciful and ridiculous 20 years ago, thanks to the money machine behind weddings driving budgets into the stratosphere and beyond. I have no need for seat covers. Pieces of material that add no further practical advantages to the chair itself are pointless people pleasers. If a guest has their nose put out of joint because they have to sit on an uncovered seat, I will offer them recompense in the form a free realignment. Thinking this sort of stuff matters baffles me, it is fluff, window dressing a façade if you will.

I am pleased to say I think we have managed a balance somewhere in the middle and I am really looking forward to wearing my wedding ring, my wife wearing hers and not having to stand in front of a twinkly LED lit back drop. We don’t need all that, because we love each other, it’s that simple.