By 
There comes a point in every engaged woman's life where it feels as though some sort of carrier pigeon has relayed a message to everyone that you're getting married, and all small talk ends up going a little bit like this:
Person: How's wedding planning going?You: Good!Person: Cool!
The person then abruptly turns to the non-ring-wearing person next to you and proceeds to ask him or her what he does for a living, how work is going, if he's watched Stranger Things, if she's doing anything all this weekend. You stand there, silent, a telephone pole of a human being who apparently has nothing more to contribute to the conversation than the fact that you are Bride To Be. You are nothing more. Speak not.
For the record, I do not mind talking about my wedding. I'm very excited about my impending nuptials and have embraced the fact that I'm not a Cool Bride who can brush off her wedding and say "bahahaha weddings are lame." No. I'm ecstatic to marry my fiancé, I am poring over every detail fastidiously and with delight, I've given into the industrial complex 100 percent, and I'm not sorry. But that said, I'm also not defined by my impending marriage. Further, my problem is that I don't like it that that's the only thing people want to ask me anymore.
Of course, it makes sense that people want to ask about a forthcoming wedding; it shows a general (even if it's feigned) interest in your life. But the truth is — unless you're a friend who I know is genuinely interested in my wedding — I'm probably not going to tell you that I've had night sweats over getting the right stamps and stress dreams about typos on the invitation envelopes, and even then, I may edit out some of the gory details at my own discretion. I know that a casual acquaintance does not want to know about my sweating. So I'll smile and say it's going well, I'll willingly show you a photo of my dress should you ask, and I'll chuckle and say "it's the little things you don't think about, you know?"
And so it goes.
This is a problem that I think women likely run into throughout their whole lives. A woman is married, but some people only ask her about married life, not the marathon she's training for. Someone just had a baby, and suddenly she's a mom, not a talented artist. She's pregnant, and her belly has become her. Women are more than just who they are in relation to other people, especially men.
Small talk, I know, is not easy, and there's only so much you can ask someone who you barely know. There's no need to get into a deep-dive debate about politics or dish our juiciest gossip. But if it's so easy for someone to ask the person on my right what her job is (and a deluge of other questions), why can't they ask me anything else? Am I nothing more than a bride-to-be?
I, for one, know that I am. I have a career that I'm proud of. I like exercising. I'm a comedy nerd. I love Game of Thrones. I read books. I eat food and chances are, you do, too. These are relatively surface things that don't require my medical history or a Freudian analysis. These are easy things to ask after the "how's wedding planning going?" exchange.
It's sort of like the campaign to #AskHerMore on the red carpet: It's not a bad thing to inquire about what dress a woman's wearing. It doesn't demonize you or make you a bad feminist to like clothes. But when that's all someone asks her, they assume that she's nothing more than a vessel to carry designer apparel, which is odd when she's on the red carpet because she's accomplished something.
It's the same with weddings. I am allowed to be a bride-to-be and a complete human, too. Isn't that an amazing thing? Neither of these things are mutually exclusive. I can be a career-focused woman and be excited about getting married. I can like men and be a feminist. Welcome to 2016, it's great here!
So thank you for taking interest in a major event in my life; I truly appreciate it. Go ahead, ask about my wedding. But please, please, please, recognize that not all engaged women wish to be defined by their bride-to-be status. Ask her more!
Or I'll just start talking in more detail about my night sweats.
