Weddingbee

…which is weird, because I don’t wear much jewelry.

Last week, I talked about renting jewelry. Today, I’m going to talk about getting jewelry “cheap” (I should say cheap-ER). I’m a frequent Overstock.com “window-shopper.” I think I’ve only bought something from there once (and it happened to be pearl earrings for my mom).

Pearls and diamonds tend to be the favored jewelry when it comes to weddings, as well as my own personal favorite.  However, like most people, I have a certain uneasiness when it comes to purchasing jewelry online.

So, here’s some of what I found while researching pearls.

1. There are many types of pearls. Here, I’ve grouped them by what American Pearl considers “investment” and “non-investment” (or I like to call “expensive” and “less expensive”).

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A little while ago, I was reading Darcy Miller’s blog about how the Today Show bride, Jessica, got to borrow jewelry from Tiffany’s!

Jewelers are alway dying to let celebrities to wear their jewelry, and they lend it out to them all the time for big award events. But, how about for us mere mortals? I was curious. I scoured the internet looking for rental jewelry.

Here is what I found.

OldCities.com sells antique and estate jewelry, but also gives customers the option to borrow the jewelry. Customers pay for the full value of the piece, and upon return, OldCities refunds all but $100. The $100 covers the rental cost as well as FedEx insured shipping both ways. Additionally, this system allows you to keep the jewelry if you find it too hard to return (you obviously don’t get refunded if you keep it). At a $100 rental fee, I think it’s only worth it for the more expensive jewelry (but then again, you do have to front the cost initially). Here are some goodies from the site.

Solid 14K Yellow Gold Emerald Bead Necklace

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One of our biggest issues to date has been the time between our ceremony and our reception. Since we are having a Catholic ceremony, the latest start time for the ceremony at the church is 4.5 hours before our banquet dinner. As guests at a wedding a few months ago, Mr. Toucan and I didn’t enjoy having nothing to do for about 3 hours, so we didn’t want to do the same thing to our guests.

So, what to do?

Our tentative solution so far:

1. Since only Mr. Toucan is Catholic, and I am not, we will not be having a full Catholic mass. We will try to convince the church to hold our ceremony half an hour later, since our ceremony will be shorter.
2. Have a receiving line
3. We will ask our guests to stick around the church for some group photos.
4. We will hold our tea ceremony at the restaurant 2 hours before the banquet and invite guests to come watch if they would like, plus
5. Hold a cocktail hour 1 hour prior to the banquet, and hire cocktail musicians to entertain the guests.

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I love, love, love tall centerpieces. They decorate any room so dramatically. Unfortunately, I probably won’t be getting them. My uncle will be shipping them from China, so most likely, I can’t have 30 centerpieces, each 25+ inches tall shipped very feasibly. So… it’s back to the drawing board.

Short centerpiece inspiration (click to enlarge):

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I was talking to a fellow bride the other day about how it’s really odd how easily we get excited about completing a wedding-related task - ANY wedding-related task. You know, even the really small things that only someone planning a wedding would get excited about.

For example:

“Hooray, I ordered my cake topper today!!!“

OR

“I found the perfect ribbon for my ring bearer’s pillow!!!”

As a bride-to-be, either of these kinds of things would probably make me sing “yay-yay-yay-yay!” inside, and I’d be giddy the whole day. I really feel like only brides understand this (who else would be excited over a spool of ribbon?). However, as a person who doesn’t have very many engaged or married friends, I often don’t have an outlet (other than blogging) to express these small victories. So as a FUN FRIDAY post, I thought we could all share what little (or big) things we’re excited about.

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A friend of mine was having trouble coming up with some floral schemes for her April 2008 wedding. Naturally, since I love looking at pictures of all things wedding, I told her I’d help her out. Her main colors are celery green and white. I was finding so many lovely pictures, so I decided to make some inspiration boards.

This first board is all green and white (click to enlarge):

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When Mr. Toucan and I moved in together, I realized we both kept little stashes of coins for a rainy day. Most of my coins were saved up from when I worked as a waitress, and always had some extra change from tips. I’m actually not sure where all Mr. Toucan’s change came from…

Anyway, Mr. Toucan kept his change in a giant glass bottle. Come to think of it, I think he’s been hoarding change because he likes the look of the glass bottle. So, we decided to combine both of our “rainy day funds” together. I put all my change into his glass bottle:

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When deciding on how to make our Save the Dates, I knew that I wanted to do a magnet of some sort so that friends and relatives would have a handy little reminder of our wedding date on the fridge. I also wanted to do something a little different that represented our personalities a little better. Here’s a hint:

You might have guessed that these are Lego versions of Mr. Toucan and myself (ok, they don’t look that much like us… but you get the idea).

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For me, picking my bridal party was quite simple. My sister will be my maid of honor, and my other younger sister, my cousin, and Mr. Toucan’s sister will be bridesmaids. Mr. Toucan had no problem picking who was going to be on his side on our big day. His issue is picking the best man.

Mr. Toucan’s Band of Merry Men (a term coined by Mr. Toucan’s Mom) includes his four best friends from high school. He has an equally close, but different kind of relationship with all of them, and therefore, has a tough time choosing one of them to be his “Best Man.” The guys already all know they are in the wedding party, and that one of them will be the best man. They’ve even joked that they should play a game of Risk or some video game in which the winner or “best” man gets to be the “Best Man.”

Now that it’s time to start thinking about programs, and such, I’ve told Mr. Toucan that he should try to decide soon. I’ve suggested that he could make them all his “Best Men,” because after all, they are. He’s still undecided on what to do.

How do you think Mr. Toucan should decide? Have any of you or your SO’s had issues picking your bridal party? What did you decide?

Now that I’ve told you about both of my truths, the proposal and “wedding expenses,” it’s time for me to come clean, and tell you what I’ve been lying out about.

I admit I kind of cheated in my little game of 2 truths and a lie. All of the statements were true, except one little tiny part in statement #2. I am indeed a extreme bargain hunter (and I just might be one of those crazy shoppers), but much to my dismay, I didn’t get a Print Gocco for free. Sadness, I know.

I did however, ALMOST get one for free. Kinda. Here’s my sad little story of “The (Free) Gocco That Almost Was”

First, the thing that needs no introduction here on Weddingbee, the gocco printer:

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