If you are considering getting engaged this Valentine’s Day, here’s what to expect after your sweetheart says, “Yes:”

People will ask if you are pregnant. People you never really got along with in high school will tell everybody you are pregnant. Your excruciatingly honest friend— the one who honestly doesn’t care for your new haircut— will tell you she doesn’t think the relationship is going to last.

Most of your friends will be genuinely happy for you, though. It’s almost like turning 21: everyone wants to buy you a drink or at least a cigar. Your best friend from the third grade will suddenly turn up to ask, in a hopeful voice: Who is in your wedding party?

Your family will be happy for you, too. It might be kind of hard to tell when your dad moans about how much it is all going to cost, and your older, staunchly single brother tells you he’s just not ready for you to get married. Your mom has a funny way of expressing her happiness, too. She sobs, “My baby,” over and over again.

You’ll experience your first compromise with the in-laws: setting the date. Don’t expect to find a mutually open weekend for at least three more years, which is approximately how long it will take for everyone to make their final guest lists, anyway.

Not to worry, there is no such thing as a final guest list. The week before the wedding, your mom will call every day to report all the people she invited because she saw them in the grocery store.

When you go to the grocery store, to class, out to eat or anywhere, you will get interrogated about how to meet your One True Love. As if you can just give your single friends the password (dither?) and suddenly they would understand, recognize their perfect match and ask that wonderful person out. Of course, if you knew how you did it, you could tell them, but then they wouldn’t call it love, would they?

At this point, you only have two conversations with your fiance: wedding plans and how sick you are of wedding plans. The minutia of making plans will be maddening. You will be blown away when the bakery asks for a sample of your bridesmaids’ dress fabric so they can exactly match the color of the frosting. (What, a shade off and you are doomed to divorce?)

At this point you will consider eloping. Seriously. Your father’s reaction: “Thank God!” Your mother’s reaction: “My baby (sob).”

Maybe eloping is the way to go, but you decide to stick it out, primarily because you’ve already invested approximately two semesters of tuition in non-returnable deposits to the caterer, the photographer, the hotel, the D.J., the printer, the florist, the mint maker, the tuxedo place, etc.

If you analyze the amount of the deposit, it becomes apparent that these people have gone into business not to make food, take pictures or spin records, but to make money off couples that get cold feet.

You’ve been having some doubts yourself. After all, you are making a lifetime commitment to a person whose idea of a political statement is not balancing his checkbook and who sees no reason to conceal the fact that she owns all the Enya CDs. A few late night conversations with your mom, best friend or your dog restore your confidence.

Finally, your wedding day arrives, along with your wedding disaster. No matter how well you’ve planned, you will suffer a disaster.

The good news is, no disaster can possibly ruin your wedding. Even if at the rehearsal dinner, you accidentally sever the wrist flexor tendon of your bridesmaid and she gets out of orthopedic surgery with just enough time to put on her dress, puke, and arrive at the ceremony.

It will still be a beautiful wedding. Really. It happened to me.

Laura Helle is a junior in graphic design from Victor, Iowa. She married her One True Love, Marty Helle, on August 2, 1996.