Wedding Blog

I work in a field of never ending acronyms. The government unceasingly confers long monikers onto agencies, processes, and people, then proceeds to refer to them by some sort of shortened version that inevitably is more of a hassle than some simple naming convention that could have been used in the first place. President becomes POTUS. Naval Network Warfare Command does not become NNWC, but rather NAVNETWARCOM. In the previous two examples, the acronym is pronounced as a word - po-tus and nav-net-war-com, whereas other times it merely is a combination of letters such as the EPA - e.p.a. …

The bridal world is full of them as well. The first startling one when I starting to read the blogs is STD. Did you just double take as well? I first thought that maybe I really was a fuddy duddy and then I thought, ‘what’s the matter with kids these days?’ (Bye, Bye Birdie anyone?) Turns out, a few sentences more and the whole thing is cleared up - Save-The-Date… STD…

AnySTD, ONBB is not, as far as I can tell, an accepted acronym for Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue - but it seems to fit to me, and all the extra Ss that I would have incurred seemed superfluous. So hang with me on the ONBB.

My parents’ first gift to me upon hearing of my engagement was the ONBB. It came all in one box.

They had bought this one box upon a visit to a jewelry store when they visited me during my semester abroad in Bath, England. Their trip had special significance as they were celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary.

Here’s your twofer today, the story of my parents’ wedding bands. My dad lost his wedding ring in the ocean. On their honeymoon. They couldn’t find it anywhere and for the next 25 years, they couldn’t justify the expense of replacing it during hard economic times and raising two children. On the occasion of their 25th anniversary, and since it’s uber cool to buy mementos in a foreign country, they settled on a band from a British jewelry store. For the next 4 years, my parents wore their wedding bands together once more. Then my mom fell, spraining her wrist and hand badly. They cut her rings off in the emergency room. So now, just my dad has a wedding band that he can wear. Isn’t that something????? For almost 30 years of marriage, they’ve only ever worn their rings at the same time for about 4 years, give or take a few days.

Back to ONBB. On their trip to the Bath jewelry store, they saw these gorgeous boxed sets and decided to set one away for me.

I was so touched by their thoughtfulness. They bought this gift for me before I was dating my Lamb Lovie. Before they knew who my husband would be, they were preparing for it. And that’s one reason that I love them.

Did your parents or any loved ones present you with something they’d been saving for you for your future wedding day? What was it?