Wedding Band Epic

Fair warning: this post is going to make me sound neurotic, crazy, and self-absorbed. It's okay. I have been known on occasion to be all three.

The hardest thing about planning this wedding (thus far) hasn't been picking the cake pattern, or finding a DJ, or an endless hunt for the perfect dress.

No, I have all those things squared away. The hard part has been finding a wedding band to go with my engagement ring.

If you remember, here is my beauty:



It's platinum, with a cathedral setting, and alternating round and baguette diamonds down the sides. It's a hard ring to match.

I've been going into every jewelry store I pass trying to find "the one". I haven't been having any luck.

I have quite a few considerations, too. First of all, I'm kind of superstitious-- I want to wear the ring that S. puts on my finger on our wedding day for the rest of my life. So getting something "for now" doesn't really work for me. I also want to be able to wear it both with and without my engagement ring. Because my e-ring is so large, a band will probably only look good with it if it's narrow. But a narrow band won't look good on its own. And I do want to continue to wear my e-ring where it belongs, and I do want to look married when I do (so no moving it to my right hand or only wearing it).

Secondly, I work with animals, specifically large, unpredictable animals. I don't want something that's going to break or fall out if I have a bad day at the ranch. I want a band that will lay flat against my hand and not cause a danger to my animals, or itself.

Thirdly, I love sparkle. I really, really want more diamonds in the band if at all possible, and besides that, plain metal looks strange with my ring.

Fourth: I have sensitive skin and all the women in my family have had reactions to their wedding jewelry. My engagement ring is fine so far, but it's platinum, whereas theirs have been white gold. I don't want to have to buy a platinum wedding band but I'm worried about long term wear-ability if I don't.

And fifth, but really key, is cost. S. already spent way more on my e-ring than we thought we would.

So, to sum up, my ideal ring:

-Will look good both with my e-ring and on its own
-Won't cost much
-Will be made of platinum and have diamonds.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. I've been thinking it too, lately. Such a ring doesn't exist!

I'm coming to terms with this. Right now, my best solution is to get two bands, one to wear with the e-ring, and one to wear without.

Here are my contenders if I go this route.

This one has a slight curve in it, but it lies nicely along my e-ring:

Source

And one of these for everyday (animalday) wear:


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Of course, none of these are platinum (sigh) but I think if I want to keep it under budget I'm going to need to give up on that particular dream. My mom has this old trick of painting the inside with nail polish to keep it from causing a reaction. Hopefully that will be enough!

S. has also expressed an interest in maybe getting matching bands, so that might be an option too.

Did you have any trouble finding a band to go with your e-ring? What do you think of my choices so far?

Vending MACHINE-- The DJ

I feel like a little kid who hasn't done their homework.

Tonight we have an appointment with our DJ. He didn't give us any explicit instructions, but S. and I had both agreed we should have a tentative music list ready to go anyway.

Notice I said "agreed", by which I imply that we haven't actually accomplished said task. I've been putting songs on the list for a little over a month now, but S. hasn't added anything. Odd, because music is definitely more his thing than it is mine. So, we shall go before the DJ tonight with only a sparsely-populated list of ideas, and hopefully he won't give us detention for not having done our assignment.

Our DJ was really a simple decision-- he's a co-worker of S's. It's actually quite funny how many people he works with that do wedding stuff on the side (see future posts about a possible day-of-coordinator). S. has seen this guy's work at parties before and agrees that he's quite capable, so I have confidence that he will give us his all on our wedding day.

Was your DJ an easy choice or a hard one? Did you have to look very long to find them? Did you have your music list picked out fairly early?

Wedding Dreams?

I've been having my first wedding dreams. Last night, I had one where it was as if we were having the wedding now-- everything that we haven't figured out was the stuff that was missing. I had to buy S.'s suit twenty minutes before the ceremony. We had no food for people to eat because we had no caterer. I was trying to buy candy for the candy buffet without S. seeing me. But-- I was incredibly, amazingly, fantastically joyful. All in all, it was a pleasant dream.

Odd, because usually wedding dreams are stress dreams. Clearly, there was stress, but I wasn't worried throughout the course of the dream. I was just happy to be marrying the love of my life.

I sincerely hope I can actually be that fancy-free on my big day. It's inspiring, to have gone through a practice run in my mind, and having felt that good about everything. I promise myself that I will try to let the little things roll off me that day, and instead focus on my happiness!

What about you? Do you have dreams about your wedding, and if so, have they taught you anything?

Jewelry Dilemma

When my mom and I were out buying up teacups, we happened across an absolutely stunning neck piece.

When I saw it, my heart started racing-- I'd had dreams about beautiful, big neck pieces like the Ancient Egyptians wore. This piece was gorgeous, but it was also huge.

I didn't care, and I didn't *really* think it through. Instead, I put it on and marveled at how sparkly it was, and my mom agreed to buy it for me. I got it home, and took some pictures, and tried it on again, and. . . I began to have doubts.





It's stunning, but my dress is simple. My veil is simple. My venue is a garden. This necklace doesn't exactly scream "afternoon tea" to me-- much though I wish it did. Which is a shame, because I still love it.

Once my dress arrived and I tried it all on together with my mom there, we both agreed. With the other things I had going on, it was too much. Sigh. So, I'm going to go plain in the neck area and have a colored ribbon sash around my waist instead.

But, there is hope after all-- I'm thinking this will be just the right piece to add some funk to my rehearsal dinner dress!

What are you doing for wedding jewelry? Have you had any dilemmas with pieces you loved but that just didn't "go"?

Going for a ride on the...

Teacups!

I love antique teacups. My grandmother had a beautiful collection that included several child-size sets. Whenever my family came over for dinner, she would take down a regular-size cup and saucer for herself, and a matching child-size one for me and my sisters, and we would drink from them. It's one of my most cherished memories of her.

So when I picked a "Victorian garden tea-party" theme, it was only natural that tea cups and saucers play a major role in the decor. Unfortunately, when my grandmother passed away, her collection of teacups was whisked away before I could say otherwise. Therefore, for my wedding, I'm starting my own collection.

My mom and I have been scouring antique stores for several weekends in a row looking for teacups. I have this grand plan to use them as candle holders on the reception tables (so people aren't tempted to play with or drink out of them) and then keep them afterward for my own personal collection. I've been very picky about what cups we'll buy, as a result, but I'm really happy with what we've found!

I don't recommend this for everyone. Antique teacups can be expensive-- most of the ones we've bought have been between $12-$25 a piece. And I only buy on the higher end of that spectrum if it's a cup that I really, really love.

It's been a blast to do this-- I'm learning more about famous names that I've been hearing all my life but never understood until now: Limoges, Wedgewood, Noritake have all become personal favorites.

Take a look at the spoils of our first trip-- we found seven "useable" cups and one tiny little miniature Limoges set that will be staying home the day of the wedding.


Aren't they adorable? I can't wait to display this collection in our home after the wedding, too!

I believe I'm up to 18 or 19 cups. The one in the middle in the picture above is called "Dragon Ware" which, while I adore, doesn't really go with my theme, so that one will probably stay home, too. But I'm thinking at least two or three teacups per table, some like they're supposed to be, other sets flipped over with the saucer on top of the cup and the candle on the saucer. I also have a few plates (without cups) that I'll set pillar candles on, and we have some crystal wine goblets I might use as well to add some height and dimension.

My dream for the centerpieces is to find teapots to use as vases-- but teapots are far harder to find! I haven't found one yet that I really like.

What do you think? Are you buying anything for the wedding decor that you'll keep and cherish afterward?

Sangria, anyone?

One of the many wedding trends that S. and I are jumping on is the signature cocktail. Our reception will be primarily wine and beer, and neither of us are big liquor drinkers. Only a handful of our guests are hard-core drinkers/ partiers, and they can all make do with beer and wine.

I asked S. if he wanted to do a signature cocktail and he immediately came up with sangria. We both love sangria, and I've tried to make it (albeit somewhat unsuccessfully) once before.

So why, might you ask, am I crazy enough to try making my own sangria for 75 people? Well, I've learned a lot about sangria since my failed attempt nearly two years ago. I've learned a bit more about wine, and a lot more about food and cooking, too. I think a bright, berry-infused, fruity wine would be the perfect touch to our garden tea-party.

Last weekend, my mom and I made a stop at BevMo for some wines and fruit-flavored liqueurs to experiment with. Today, on my way home from work I stopped at the grocery store and picked up some fruit. I got lemons, granny smith apples, bartlett pears, raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries. We had five different kinds of wine but that included two merlots, and I only had four pitchers. After tasting both merlots, we opted to use only one.

I plan to wind up with a red sangria and a white sangria, unless one kind is a clear winner over all the others. We'll be tasting the final results at a dinner party next weekend.

Here's the recipe I used; keep in mind that it will likely need some tweaking. I will probably use this much fruit per 2 gallon jug of sangria, whereas here I used it for a 1-liter pitcher.

Per pitcher, I used:

-A half lemon, cut into wedges and de-seeded
-Four strawberries, tops cut off and cut into slices
-One bartlett pear cut around the core and into chunks (minus the stem)
-1/3 of a granny smith apple cut into chunks (de-cored and stemmed)
-Handful of raspberries (yeah, I know, real specific measurement, huh?)
-Handful of blackberries
-2 shots of blackberry brandy
-1 shot pomegranate schnapps
-1/2 shot peach schnapps
-1/2 shot raspberry liqueur
-1 whole bottle of wine. I used one each of a tempranillo, a merlot, a chardonnay, and a vinho verde.

We had found over the course of the last week, by throwing a splash of the fruit liqueurs into our regular drinking wine to taste, that the raspberry and peach flavors were too sweet and overpowering. The blackberry brandy is great, and since sangria typically has brandy in it, I opted to use a little more of this one than the others. The pomegranate was pretty tasty too, and I did want the raspberry and peach flavor in there, but just a hint of them.

I'm going to let it sit for a week (hopefully untouched) and then I'll post the results for you, and our winners!

Are you doing a signature cocktail? Are you going to make it yourself, if so?

And now for a dress you can see

My rehearsal dinner dress!

I found this sassy little number at Sears, in the Juniors Prom dress department. Which was kind of depressing at first. I automatically assumed they wouldn't have any that fit me. And then was surprised when they did.

I didn't buy it right away, just decided to keep an eye on it. We went by one night a couple weeks later on a whim to look at suits for S. and there was a red sign above the rack where they were.

On sale! On sale! It was on sale!

I ran over and grabbed the biggest size they had (a 9), deciding to try it on, because, well, even though there was no chance in heck it would fit-- I have hips, and a large chest, and it often seems like *nothing* fits-- if by an off-chance it did, I was getting it now.

Well, it fit. Mostly. It, um, is rather small up top, as I feared, but-- I can work with it. Unfortunately I only have hanger pics for right now as the pics with it on me are a tad obscene, but once it's altered I will happily post away.

Check this cutie out!





It's kind of hard to tell, but the overlay material has little sparkly polka dots all over. It's darling, and very garden-y, which I adore.

So I wasn't planning to buy it when I did, but I'm so glad I did!

Where did you find your rehearsal dinner dress? Did you go hunting on purpose, or just come across it?