At 35, I was finally engaged to the love of my life, and we were just weeks away from saying “I do.”

For the last eight months, planning our wedding had consumed nearly every spare minute of my life—venue visits, floral samples, cake tastings, invitation designs—it became my full-time passion project. I didn’t mind. It was the fairytale I had dreamed of since childhood, playing dress-up in my mom’s old gowns and pretending to walk down the aisle.

Jared and I met two years ago at a mutual friend’s housewarming party. I was in the kitchen, wrestling a stubborn wine bottle when he appeared—tall, kind-eyed, and charming. “Need a hand?” he asked with a grin. I joked, “Only if you promise not to judge me for failing at adulting.” He opened it with ease and poured us both a glass. “To barely-functioning adulthood,” he toasted, and we laughed.