When I was a senior in high school, I had a major crush on a very pretty girl named Janet. She was popular enough to be an elected member of student government despite seeming to be a relatively quiet and reserved person. Landing her certainly would’ve felt like I was dating out of my league, but not to the point of being completely unattainable, like trying to date the homecoming queen without being the star quarterback or holding similar “big man on campus” status. It took some work, but I was eventually able to convince myself that she could be my girlfriend, if only I could clear the tall hurdle of asking her out.

This was no small task. After all, I was a painfully shy boy with a small circle of friends, none of whom were girls. Nearly all of the significant female perspective I had readily available to me came in the form of either my mom or my grandma, and both could only provide so much advice for talking to girls my age.

As far as I knew, Janet was single, and I decided I would try asking her to the homecoming dance. I was a nervous wreck as I tried developing a plan, which ultimately involved having a rose and note left on her desk in the English class we had together. In hindsight, it was a bold idea, if not necessarily well-conceived. A rather public proposal to someone who I really never talked to was just begging to end in massive embarrassment. Yet somehow, I went through with it, and she actually said yes. It was a feeling of pure jubilation and victory.

That giddiness lasted less than a week. Apparently, in my state of elation, I had missed a cue as far as when to call her to start getting acquainted and discussing details about our plan for the dance. Unfortunately, I didn’t really have a plan and I called back too late, which caused her to reconsider and ultimately overturn her decision. And just like that, it was gone.

I didn’t know it yet, but that experience would wind up teaching me a very valuable lesson to be applied years later. After Mia and I had been together for a while and I began thinking about just how I might pop the big question, my focus turned largely toward envisioning that moment. But this time, I was smart enough to approach it more as the next step in the process, not as the endgame. I understood that I was essentially asking for a promotion–from “boyfriend” to “fiancé”–but otherwise, continuing the relationship as usual and simply progressing it to the next level.

Most importantly, after asking the big question, this time I was much better prepared to face what would come next–wedding planning. I knew it would be quite the large project, and that it was likely to have some speed bumps along the way. It most certainly has, and in fact, as I write this now, the big day is barely more than a month away, and it still feels like there is much left to be resolved. That feeling probably won’t subside until after the actual wedding day, and even then, there is still a honeymoon to plan, since we’ve decided to take ours during Thanksgiving week.

To be honest, the wedding planning has actually been even more challenging than I expected. It’s been very tense at times, and we’ve come dangerously close to scrapping it altogether on more than one occasion. Perhaps I will write about the process in more detail later, as it could certainly make for some great storytelling. But for now, I’ll say this–as much as we may have doubted whether having a wedding was really worth the headaches along the way, the one thing we never doubted was whether we wanted to get married. Running into obstacles and finding ways around them together has made us a stronger couple, and I think we’re now more prepared to take on whatever may come our way later.