the bloset

Or - the 'blogging closet'. In other words, the thing I'm going to need to emerge from this week. I think it's fair to say (without giving too much away) that this is the week that I wave bye bye to blogging anonymity. I know that most of you that read this know who I am now, in some capacity at least.

But I've been justifiably careful for a few reasons. One is my job. I work in the sort of line of work where people stumble across blogs. It wouldn't have taken a rocket scientist to work out that Claire of cakes and bunting was that Claire they knew, who was also getting married on a farm in Somerset. Secondly, J works in the line of work where it wouldn't do to have your fiance/wife wittering on about you (and I've been very careful not to). And thirdly - and really, tying in to the first two - is that I've laid myself rather bare on here. I've said what I think, said what I'm worried about, and written in a way that I could not have done if I'd been aware that friends would read it. Even J has promised he never will read it, though I may ask him to write something soon.

Blogging was good preparation, in a way, for the wedding. Helping me to understand how to behave and react and how to process things. It gave me the confidence to create a day in which we took away all the things we thought were irrelevant for us and just left the meaningful parts - and the most fun parts.

And the fact is that these things, and our wedding, were different to the norm. Maybe not the bloggy norm, where getting married in a golf club is waay retro trad (I'm awaiting the first ironic hipster '1991 themed wedding'). We had some of the things that are beyond traditional in blogland. Miles of bunting. Miles of it. Top quality, mum-produced stuff. A hogroast. But it was still different to any wedding I'd ever been to and I know it was the same for most of our guests.

In doing it differently, we laid ourselves open to criticism - you take the protective layer off the top and it's easy for someone to rub salt in. We were incredibly lucky that this didn't happen and that everyone there embraced it, enjoyed it for what it was.

And it's been the same with the blog. I removed a layer of cynicism and censorship and wrote, with some careful omissions for privacy's sake, what I wanted. Anonymity has allowed me to be much more open than I could have been otherwise.

And in doing this, I've found a support network that has helped me through difficult decisions and stupid ones. I've had help developing a great sense of perspective and a healthy wedding BS filter. I've also (groan) genuinely grown as a person through the wedding experience, and blogging has been an integral part of this. And I've even made friends. Actual real friends through the internet. God bless you, Tim Berners-Lee.

So I think this might be my last anonymous post. One day soon, you'll get to read a blog post broken up by pictures, rather than just my usual long ranty streams of text. I'll maybe finally tell you what I made, how I made things (if you care) and all sorts of stuff that I'd decided previously made me too identifiable. Ultimately, I had a blast and it was (whisper it) - kinda easy, mostly. Because we only did the important stuff. Plus a bit of bunting.

But first, there will probably be some pictures. Brace yourselves.