Traditionally, as far as I have understood, when two people get serious, they meet each other’s families and are brought into the ‘fold’ of each family respectively. Then, when the time comes, the man asks for the blessing of his partner’s parents before proposing.
This isn’t quite how things happened for us. We did it all a bit backwards. RJ was brought into the fold of my family, he proposed – I accepted, and then he asked for my parents blessing.
Late Summer 2017 we had a small engagement dinner at a lovely steak house in Barking called Cristina’s – in an effort to catch up with some of the steps we’d jumped ahead of.
We invited our immediate families and the people whom we were going to ask to be a part of the wedding party.
It was a bit of an excuse to celebrate but mainly for our families (in this country) to meet each other.
We had this gorgeous eggless cream topped cake as dessert (pictured above).
We gave favours of mini mason jars filled with orange, brown and blue M&M’s tied with twine and a thank you tag. We had heart shaped confetti which was cut out of romantic literature.
My parents got these beautiful flowers delivered to the restaurant in time for our arrival and my aunt in Trinidad bought us a bottle of champagne through the restaurant website to be served for the toast.
It was honestly lovely.
Of course, not everything went to plan…
One groomsman and one bridesmaid couldn’t come. The waitresses at the restaurant were rude, unaccommodating and disorganised.
Otherwise, it was really nice to have (nearly) everyone in one place and getting the opportunity to meet each other. It was nice that my family got to meet his and for everyone to meet (most of) the wedding party and get familiar with faces that they would be seeing over the lead up to the wedding.
My sister-in-law-to-be made me this lovely memory keepsake of all the engagement dinner bits and I love it! I’ve put it up in the hallway and every time I see it, I am reminded of all the best parts of that night and the excitement I felt at RJ and I celebrating our engagement with our nearest and dearest.
Tara xoxo
The Sun's Gonna Rise 