Being engaged is an interesting thing. It's like going through a metamorphosis, and lots of the things you thought were vitally important are not anymore, and many of the things you didn't think you'd ever care about, even under threat of bodily harm, are suddenly a lot more important. Valentine's Day is one of those things that got demoted from Most Important Day of the Year to Nice Day But I'm Not Going to Freak About it.

In some ways, being engaged on Valentine's Day is somewhat annoying. Everyone expects that you're going to have these great plans, and you're mired in vendor meetings and choosing china patterns. There also seemed to be an unspoken pressure between myself and my betrothed to step up to the plate. Our first committed VD needed to straddle the fine line between frumpy married couple and nervous, excited daters. We don't want to drop the ball the first time out of the box and end up having boring VDs for the rest of our lives. This is our relationship, after all. Advice flew in from all sides. "Get her jewelry!" was a popular one, which caused me to become quite angry at those people. Pardon me, but we're paying for a wedding. The last thing I want him doing is stretching his already very tight budget to buy me jewelry. Not to mention that I don't really find it necessary to make every Valentine's Day a sweep-her-off-her-feet day. I was already swept, now it would just be nice to rent a movie, snuggle on the couch and eat chocolate, thank you. My sister laughed at me. "You're already an old married couple!" I felt the pressure.

Then we took a step back and realized, hey, this is us. Valentine's Day is about taking the time to revel in your couplehood, and we had nothing to prove to anyone. We decided to take the time to rise up from the planning, events and stresses that we've both been dealing with and take an evening to just enjoy each other's company, which is, after all, why we're getting married in the first place. We just love each other, and I feel that's what this day should be about, if you have someone to celebrate with. Life is constant in its barrage of things to do and distratctions, but the hallmark of a successful relationship is being able to team up with your lover and get through it all. So we made reservations at our favorite Japanese restaurant and will share a glass of plum wine over our favorite - bento boxes. Afterwards we'll probably go home and crash on the couch and gorge ourselves on chocolate, because that's just how we do things. And that's fine with us.