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Weddingbee Blog
It seemed innocent enough. Go to wedding show last weekend, enter contests, see if you win, and while you do that search for a florist or at least floral ideas. Right?
Apparently not.
Not even four hours after departing the wedding show I get a call from the show sponsor saying that I have won some toasting glasses and a hotel stay for two nights. Well hooray… oh wait.
Because then the kind lady says that to get these “prizes” Mr. Robin and I will have to show up at a cooking demonstration at this particular time (Monday night) and in this particular place (all the way across town). And the longer she talks the more it sounds like a timeshare presentation. Not that I am knocking them - when Mr. Robin and I were in Mazatlan pre-engagement, we went to an awesome timeshare presentation for a resort and received $150 in restaurant credit (to amazing gourment places) and $100 cash. Plus french toast!
I wish that I could say that my desire for a ring without a diamond was due to a higher sort of emotion: a concern for the growing problem with conflict diamonds, and the ways in which the diamond trade leads to violence, war and death for the peoples of the African Continent. Or from a desire to say no to consumerism in a culture that urges us to have too many things.
These things are definitely a part of my feelings about diamonds, and are some of the reasons I told Mr. Robin pre-proposal that I would want to help choose the ring together. But the truth is that it was my plain affinity for color that had me passing on the diamond ring. I’ve just never been awed by the sparkle of a diamond like I have for the way that light refracts through emeralds, or dances across sapphires.
This is not my ring, as mine is set in a band that is thinner and a little more feminine, but the stone setting is the same. Five amazing blue sapphires set together in a rectangle. I wish I could show you, but my digital camera is insisting that it is broken:
Ring by Divinti
I sort of knew the proposal was coming. The minute Mr. Robin told me that we would spend the rest of our lives together on the phone, I knew. We had been very careful to make no statements of commitment that we could not back up out of respect for each other. This is mostly because last February we took four months apart while Mr. Robin lived in Mexico to figure out our relationship, because after a year we had reached the point of either committing to marriage or not dating any longer. We were not together as a couple during these months (though after about a month we began talking over Skype at least once a week for several hours). Sometimes when I am feeling silly, and people ask “how long have you been dating?’ I answer: “Three months.”
So for him to say something about “forever” was Major (with a capital M)! And then he started saying things like “After we are married…” or “In a few years…” Ummm, did I miss the proposal? But no, little did I know that Mr. Robin had sneaked off to my parent’s house, in far away Sherwood, and asked their permission to marry me. However, the question plagued him about where to do the formal question popping.
Getting this event together in only a few months means there are a few things that I have to keep in mind as I proceed.
First, priority. Decide which things are important to you. For Mr. Robin and myself, this is setting and food. With only a little over three months after we arrived back engaged from Mexico, a venue was actually the first thing that needed attention. I would definitely recommend making the decision quickly as possible because wedding venues tend to fill up sometimes as far as 18 months in advance. If you only have a handful of weeks like me, don’t lose hope, think outside the norm. I was looking at barns, warehouses, empty retail space downtown - if you could pack 140 people in it and have it look pretty cool, I looked at it.
What I ended up with is the lobby of a theater. You’d be surprised at what you can find - a family friend got married underneath the Broadway Bridge. And spaces like these are often available much closer to the wedding date.
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All-Inclusion Invitation Suites
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And We’re Going Get Married!!
Mr. Robin and I went to see a Cabaret (with Storm Large!) production at our venue last Thursday, and it was so fun to see it filled with so many people. It really helped us imagine that in a few short months, this space shall be filled with our closest friends and family. We sat in front of the red glass wall where we will say our vows and smiled big huge grins at each other.
(the red wall, picture by PCS)
I saw this picture on Sonya Naumann’s website Thousand Dollar Dress (that Miss Dahlia also featured earlier this week) and loved it. From a cultural standpoint, I really like what she is doing with these photos of women and what they think they should do in her thousand dollar dress. I love this girl, who you can tell from following photos is a librarian, sitting alone in front of the card catalog looking tired and a little surly.
But I must confess I’m a little obsessed by the cardigan over the wedding dress. I’ve been thinking that it can be awfully cold in Portland in January, and a nice warm cardigan might be nice. Also it could be so cool in a retro funky way to wear over my glam 30s style dress.
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Hello to all bees and readers! I am so amazingly excited to be a part of WeddingBee!
I had never really thought about getting married. I mean, I thought about the actually being married part and sharing my life with someone, but the planning aspect was never something I gave too much thought to, which is strange because I love style, color, planning… and pretty dresses. But then one day, I figured out that Mr. Robin was going to propose, and it struck me how little I knew. That freaked out planning little me, and so to the internet I went, and found the most fun, informative, helpful site - WeddingBee. Now that I am a part of this wonderful site, I can’t wait to inflict my crazy ideas upon you all!
I guess the first thing for you to know is that Mr. Robin and I are tying the knot with a little more speed than your average American couple. From proposal to altar there are exactly four months. However, we only have three months to plan, because Mr. Robin asked me to marry him at the beginning of a three week trip where we were visiting friends in Mexico. This makes the planning and plotting of this once in a lifetime day just a bit more complicated. We have to make sure that we make the right decision the first time, every time (but mistakes will happen).
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