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Weddingbee Blog
Mr. D and I just made one of our biggest wedding purchases recently. Care to guess what they are?
Here are some hints: they are round, they symbolize the whole reason for this planning, some are sparkly and some aren’t.
Well, if you guessed rings, you have guessed correctly! Yay! We finally have our wedding bands. Mine have actually come in, but Mr. D’s hasn’t. So what did we pick?
For my rings, I wanted something really simple and pretty. I don’t wear my engagement ring all that often, mostly because I work with children that I have be very hands on with and I don’t want to break any prongs or scratch them. I wanted something that would add to my e-ring when I wore it, and could stand along when I didn’t. So, I started to look for pretty bands. I instantly fell in love with diamond eternity bands, so that is what I narrowed my search down to. I ended up with two diamond eternity bands from Zale’s. I love them. They sparkle so prettily on their own and with my ring. Exactly what I wanted. Here are my bands with my e-ring (I wanted two to flank the ring):
When I last told you mine and Mr. Woodpecker’s story, I had filled you in on how we met and dated, but left off the most important part!
Like our first meeting and date, Mr. WP’s proposal was also pretty nontraditional. Mr. WP had talked A LOT about getting engaged and what each of us wanted. We both knew that we wanted to wait until I had graduated from school to get married, and we knew we didn’t want to be engaged for too too long, so for a while I always had the idea of a proposal in the back of my head. I never went crazy thinking about when Mr. WP would propose, but I knew it was coming soon.
In December 2010, I gave my notice at my job. It was no surprise, and Mr. WP and I had been preparing. I needed to be available to start the internship part of my program and couldn’t do that at my job at that time because of the hours. It was for this reason that I again saw nothing coming around the Christmas season. Mr. WP and I had planned to do a smaller Christmas and not go too crazy.
Because we had been open about our plans to get married, I had shown Mr. WP a couple of times rings that I liked. I had also given my sisters explicit directions on what I wanted should he ask them. I was expecting that Mr. Woodpecker would need some help, but I was not expecting him to ask me to pick it out, which is what he called and asked me to do on December 22nd.
First: I apologize for my weak attempt at a punny title.
Second: We have our wedding bands! And I could not be happier. However, it took me a while to get to that point. It is not a very long story, or even that traumatic, but let’s start and the beginning.
Months and months ago we started shopping for rings. Our first stop was TQ Diamonds, the same place Mr. Aardvark purchased my engagement band. I went in knowing I wanted something without bling that could be worn alone or with my engagement band. I didn’t want anything too delicate and if at all possible, I wanted to coordinate with Mr. Aardvark.
After a little poking around we found these:
Featured on Weddingbee
All-Inclusion Invitation Suites
“Make an elegant invitation statement without the fuss. Stylish invitation sets with matching envelopes, reception and response cards included.”
When we got unengaged it was a couple of weeks before I started a masters program, and we had a long list of things we wanted to accomplish prior to making it official.
Here are the big-ticket items:
We both had racked up some stiff credit card bills, and neither of us wanted to carry those into our engagement, let alone our marriage. We created a repayment plan to have them paid off in about one year. One of the ways we did that was to live in a little cracker-box-sized apartment that was super affordable and REALLY pushed us to communicate and live together well. (Seriously, the first time my mom saw our bathroom all we could hear was laughter because “it feels like I am on an airplane.”)
When I was pretty young I had purchased a two-bedroom condo in Portland, and my tenants had just moved out. After a huge fiasco with tenants, which included them changing my contact information with the HOA (so not an OK thing), mass destruction of the condo, and a serious flea infestation, we were rehabbing the property to get it on the market.
You know that question…so how did they ask you? Tell me how it happened…
That question is kind of complicated for me because, while she officially asked me way back in August of 2009, we both agreed we had goals we wanted to achieve before making it official. After spilling the beans a bit in my last post, I will break it down a smidge more…
On a lovely hike in Yosemite, Sweetie Scone pulled me to the side of the path overlooking Vernal Falls and gave me a beautiful box (that our wedding bands will reside in until our wedding). We had already been talking about our pre-reqs and our plans to get married and build a life together, but that day really set things in motion and we firmly created the pre-reqs.
Pre-reqs were done, we moved out of the cracker box into a cute standalone cottage, and after waiting for more than a month the rings were ready. We headed to Walnut Creek to pick those babies up on our way to SFO.
Personal picture / In the lobby of the jewelry store a split second after picking up the rings
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
In my proposal story, I mentioned that Mr. Boa popped the question with his mother’s ring. In an incredibly sweet gesture, FMIL Boa offered him her ring so he Would be able to make the proposal a surprise while still allowing me to pick my own ring. Mr. Boa left for a summer internship a couple of days after the proposal, postponing ring shopping until he returned at the end of summer.
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FMIL Boa’s Ring on my chubby little hands  It fit perfectly |
Fast forward to August; Mr. Boa is back and I’m neck deep into wedding planning. All the productive planning I did during the summer made me aware of the gap that existed between our small budget and our big ambitions. Having a wedding and a European honeymoon is costly, making it important to save every penny.
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Very Highly Recommended
These vendors went above and beyond anything we would have expected.
Fine Invitations (Paper goods)- Including invitation package, programs and our place cards. We were so happy with all of our paper goods and they were incredibly flexible. We may have procrastinated a little with our program and in the end they stayed back and Mr. Teaspoon collected them the evening before the wedding.
Once we had decided on our intentions (marriage, even if it’s not yet legal), we started hunting around to find rings we liked. At first we were looking for different rings; Sweetie Scone isn’t so much a girly girl, and I like a little sparkle on my hand. I have always loved that my parents have matching unique bands. After some discussion we decided to try and find a happy medium…
I really liked these from Etsy. I loved that you could wear them in different ways.
First interest / Image via Etsy / By Kate Szabone
We both really liked these bands from Etsy. If we can figure out a way to have that done on our rings we would be enamored with the jeweler!
…with wedding rings!!
We’ve just returned from a quick upstate NY trip to pick out our wedding rings. Mr. Turkey wasn’t the most excited about this part of the process based on our travel schedule and the overall prospect of wearing a ring (more a watch than a jewelry kind of guy). However, when I reminded him the trip would include chicken wings (from either Ralph’s or Scubber’s), a dinner at the Barnsider including their unlimited salad bar and, most importantly, saved money, he quickly got on board.
As I shared early on, Mr. Turkey had my ring custom designed with a jeweler my family has used for years. Due to this relationship (now including Mr. Turkey), it made the most sense to make the trek north to choose our rings.
Beforehand, we sent some “inspiration” for our rings so that we could optimize our visit. It would also give Eli (the owner) time to think about some options that he might have on hand and pull them out. Here is what we sent:
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First, I wanted to reiterate what Mrs. Sparkler recently mentioned: In terms of wedding planning, do whatever you can, as early as you can.
Hearing it from a married woman made me feel instantly better about my obsession with getting things done way too early (like booking everything two years out). It turns out, though, that it’s really not all that crazy of a notion. A few personal examples:
1. Our DJ. We booked him just short of two years out; in the time between when we met with him and when we actually put a deposit down (about a month), he informed us that another couple wanted to book him on the same day. We still had first dibs, so we jumped on that. Had we not met with him so obnoxiously early, we wouldn’t be having the fantastic DJ that we will (at a great price, to boot).
2. My dress. Told you all about that one. Had I waited until a “normal” time to start looking/actually buy something, I would have been stressing out a lot (I mean.. a lot) more than I did.
3. Our rings. Jared’s told us we didn’t need to start seriously thinking about them or order anything, even a custom band, until about 2 months out. Seeing as it took exactly two months to get my ring and about three months to get Foxy’s.. I’d say it’s a good thing we got started early.
Now onto the good stuff.
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And I’m gonna put a ring on it because we finally decided on Mr. O’s wedding band!
Mr. O is not a jewelry guy… he’s not even a watch guy. I can honestly say that in all of our seven years together the most jewelry I’ve ever seen him wear are cuff links with his prom tuxedo. And I’m not even sure that that counts as jewelry.
We started looking at rings for Mr. O by going to a local jewelry store and checking out a huge selection of styles and metals. He really liked the look of Tungsten rings, but the fear that the ring couldn’t be cut off in the event his finger started to swell was enough to force us to go in another direction. With Mr. O working as an EMT/Firefighter in the future, as well as his constant involvement in sports like rugby, the possible risk just wasn’t worth it to us.
We did find one that he really liked that was white gold. It was a really interesting style, brushed with three ridges in it, almost making it appear as though it was several smaller, stacked rings.
It was very similar to these, minus the diamonds. I still haven’t seen anything that looked exactly like it though.
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| Via Appealing Wedding Bands |
OK, maybe we’re not so shocked.
Now first, before I share this story with you, I need to be upfront.
My name is Miss Coyote and I am a control freak.
Seriously. I watch David Tutera get in there and change a couple’s wedding two weeks before and I have a panic attack. I once turned to Mr. C and asked him, “Can you imagine if we were on this show? I don’t know if I could handle it!” He started laughing and told me that I wouldn’t let poor David out of my sight until he showed me the entire blueprint for the day. Stay away, David. Stay far away. You’ve been warned.
Because of this I was pretty involved in picking out the ring. For a while I was obsessed with side stones. I spent way too much time staring at rings like this:
Image via Blue Nile
To celebrate six months of our engagement/six months left till the wedding, back in November I planned a romantic dinner to surprise Mr. Boa with. Even more surprising would be the gift I had decided to give him. You see, I find it unfair that girls receive an engagement ring and all the hoopla our SOs go through to make a proposal perfect, and the guys get…nada. I really wanted to gift my Mr. Boa with a “man-gagement” ring because if I get to wear a sign of his love and commitment (and show off the fact that I’m taken) on my left hand, then so does he.
I knew he was interested in the black tungsten styles since he wears one on his right hand all the time, so I searched all over the internet for something like it. I was most impressed with the sellers on Amazon, where I found this beauty.
Image via Amazon
An eight-millimeter tungsten carbonide brushed black men’s ring that looked absolutely gorgeous. I ordered it at the beginning of November, and it arrived in perfect condition five days later. I had a tough time finding a place to hide it, choosing the inside of some pink socks I really doubted my Mr. Boa would want to wear.
Just a few months after we got engaged, Mr. Mink and I decided to stop in do some very preliminary shopping for wedding bands. We knew we had plenty of time to order our bands, but we like our jeweler so much that we can’t help but go into say hello to her when we walk by.
Mr. Mink once said that he never imagined that he’d have someone to call “my jeweler” in his life. Diane became his jeweler when he started buying me pieces from my favorite jewelry designer a few years ago. I didn’t know her very well, but when we shopped for my engagement ring, I got to know her better. During that shopping trip, we looked at scores of rings, but I fell in love with one setting. When Mr. Mink proposed, I was so excited to see that he used that setting. I’m sure the little notes Diane had been making in her book when we shopped together had helped. I loved my ring.
I didn’t love what I learned when we did that preliminary browsing: that the shape of my ring would require a custom made band if I wanted the two rings to fit together without smoothly.
Oh pretty ring, why are you so difficult? / Photo by Miss Mink
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