Catherine

I am engaged to a wonderful Englishman and am planning to move in with him in approximately 1.5 years (summer of 2014), after we are married. I'm American, and a nurse by profession, though I realize that I will not be able to work in the UK with my American license. I will have to take classes once I reach the UK, and that's fine. What I'm trying to do is determine how much money to save up beforehand, and what I can expect once I move. He lives in Surrey, near Guildford.

I visit often and have a fairly good handle on the costs of everyday items, and am doing my research on the cost of living (housing, transport, council tax, etc), but is it as difficult to find work there as it is here in the US? Is it likely I can find any availabilities within a few months, or is it common to have a lengthy job search? Assuming I had to take a low-paying job at a shop or something to start out with, is the minimum wage liveable?

Any info is helpful. My intended doesn't really know, as his profession is kind of weird and insular and has had the same core staff for ages, and he doesn't have any friends personally who have been out of work recently. Thanks!

I'm an American woman (in the US currently) marrying an Englishman (in the UK). We've just gotten engaged and are in the beginning stages of planning our wedding. However, I really need some help.

I am pretty familair with American weddings, but he's never been to any weddings at all, and his family has never really had large celebrations, so he isn't a really great source of information as to how UK and US weddings differ. I am up to my eyeballs in different internet resources, but everything says something different. The reception venues I am looking at are all mentioning something called a wedding breakfast in addition to an evening reception, or maybe it's in place of-- am I supposed to amuse my guests for an entire day and three full meals? How do I pick if it's an either-or situation? What the hell is a Toastmaster? What if we don't want toasts? Gah!

This is the bare basics of what I am familiar with in US weddings: wedding ceremony at some point between 11 am and 3 pm, with a 4 or 5 hour reception following, involving only one meal (sit-down or buffet), cake, dancing.

What is the difference in the UK? What quirks are there? What do I absolutely have to have that its' absence would be strange?

Additional details if needed: We aren't looking at having an enormous 300 person blowout, it'll be small and fairly intimate (maybe 50 people). Interested in ceremony in his village church and then elsewhere for reception. We're fairly, er, mature (I'm 30, he's 40) and we both have children, I've been married before but he hasn't, I don't know if any of this matters.. help!

Background: I'm sure I will be accused of being all kinds of horrible things since asking this question, but I'd like to hear everyone's opinions. I don't believe that anyone should be hateful towards any group for any reason, be it sexuality, religion, race, gender, belief, status, whatever, but I know that it's facile and immature to imagine that the world we live in will ever be like that.

In the wake of the Chik-Fil-A anti-gay thing that's been going on recently, I got to thinking, however this could be applied to many issues-- isn't preaching 'tolerance' by being intolerant of the original intolerance extremely hypocritical?

That sounds ridiculous, so let me use an example: the generally reviled Westboro Baptist Church. They preach against-- well, most everything-- but their big thing is, they are anti-homosexuality. That's spreading the idea of hatred. But how is it any better for pro-homosexuality groups to preach against Westboro Baptist, spreading the idea of hatred even further afield? If we as a people should be free to practice whatever religion, sexual orientation, belief system, etc that we want and accepted as we are, shouldn't that include practicing being what many people would refer to as a small-minded misinformed bigot, and accepted as such?

Some background: I am 30 years old. Have been divorced for 4 years, and in a relationship with an absolutely wonderful 40-year-old Englishman that I love very much for the past 3 years. It's long-distance, he's in London and I'm in New York, but we see each other 4 or 5 times a year and communicate a lot via text, email, phone and Skype. I am an anxious person in general, and have been all of my life. He is very understanding of this. We are both busy in our professional lives and have school-age kids, but make time to talk every day, even if it's just a few quick texts or an emailed pic of something from our day.

Recently, he called me up unexpectedly and proposed. We are seeing each other this fall and getting "physically" engaged, like, with a ring and such, and have already started making some general wedding plans. I was shocked, and thrilled, but every since then, I have been extremely, extremely anxious.

I can't pinpoint exactly why, but this to marry this man would be a literal dream come true, and I can't help but feel that it's all some sort of cruel joke being played by the universe. I don't see how I can be deserving of such a wonderful opportunity, and it's turning me into a lunatic. There were trust issues with my ex-husband, which I am now projecting into my 'new' gentleman. All of a sudden, I am acting like a clingy highschooler, analyzing his texts for hidden meaning and freaking out if his email doesn't contain a smiley face. Yes, really. He has always been honest yet gentle with me-- if he is in a bad mood or having a busy day, he will let me know and we will make arrangements to Skype the next day, for example-- and now I find myself constantly wondering if he is just waiting for the right time to dump me.

I don't want to be like this, it's driving me crazy. I also don't want to be needing constant reassurance from him-- what kind of message would it send if all of a sudden I don't believe he loves me or actually wants to marry me? I don't want to be that person who needs to hear "I love you" 45 times a day and still doesn't believe it. How can I build confidence so that I can enter this marriage in a good state of mind, and actually be happy that I've finally found the man of my dreams?

My Special Gentleman and I are discussing having a little one together, and we already have 3 daughters from previous marriages (2 daughters for him, 1 for me, if it matters). Our girls' names have one thing in common, they all have the letter "y" in them. We both love the name Alice, and I have been wondering if changing it to "Alyce" just to go along with the other girls would be cute or stupid? Thoughts?

I have been heavy for about 10 years, after having my daughter. Recently I've decided that I want to be more healthy, so I've been eating better and exercising, mostly by going on the elliptical machine at my parents' house and doing a 70-minue Zumba class once a week. I feel really good and it seems like I've lost weight-- my clothes are getting loose, my face looks thinner, and there's a significantly larger amount of room on my desk chair. However, when I get on the scale, the number isn't going down... in fact, it's gone up 2 or 3 lbs. I know muscle weighs more than fat, but I'm not doing anything that really builds muscle. And I am using a correctly-calibrated scale, the same one every time. What gives?