Just before Christmas, my boyfriend surprised me with an engagement ring and proposal. Since then, it’s been a whirlwind of holiday merriment, family celebration, and tentative wedding planning. With my 33rd birthday now passed and a firm decision on what kind of wedding we want, I find myself scouring the internet for information and advice, but nothing really seems to fit my needs. There are a lot of factors to consider.

Here’s our plan as it stands. Our wedding is going to be budget-conscious, hopefully around $10K. We’re doing a destination wedding, preferably in an English-speaking Caribbean country. He’s Catholic and I’m Hindu, so the wedding needs to be interfaith as well. But I’m not the kind of woman who ever paid much thought to her potential future wedding, so I really don’t have any patience for planning out a host of complicated details! And finally, I’m a feminist so I find a lot of the traditions revolving around weddings (of any religion) give me the heebies.

So there you have it, why I’m calling myself the Mish Mash Bride. Meshing all these things together is not going to be easy. This is just a place for me to talk through the madness.