The Ring Is On - Let the Planning Begin....soon...

My plan to keep myself from kicking over into hyper drive too soon on wedding planning was to not start seriously planning until after the ring was taken care of.  I did well with that plan and only stuck to gathering information and jotting down ideas in a notebook.  The funny thing is that the ring has been on my finger for over a week now, and I still have not stepped on the gas pedal, let alone shifted into gear.

Work has gotten intensely busy over the past few weeks (even though it seems more like months) and has totally distracted me from anything else.  I've been up early, working through the day, and when I've been lucky enough to stop around dinner, I've been too mentally fatigued to even think about doing anything else.  Before I knew it, I was off to be to start the cycle anew.  Luckily, we may be hitting a lull, no matter how brief, soon.  I'm headed back North next week for meetings and with any luck, March will finish quietly before April hits.

Being distracted by work isn't all bad.  It's my nature to want to tackle a project head on once I know it's been green-lit.  It's been rather difficult for me to try to pace myself.  So it's been good, in a way, that I haven't had the time to devote to finding my way through TheKnot.com's overly busy website or go through photos of someone else's wedding on OffBeatBride.com. 

The good news is that I was able to send out Thank Yous to everyone who sent cards or flowers or a gift for our engagement.  I could at least mark something off on one of my Excel sheets (yes, I have about 5 Excel spreadsheets for the Wedding so far - I warned you I was a geek, though this may qualify me as more of a dork). 

Even though we haven't done any seriously planning or even thought out the wedding party yet (yes, I know some folks are chomping at the bit to know the cast list...even better reason to draw it out a bit longer), Doug and I have had a run of ideas for a concert theme.  It all started with a Save the Date (STD since I live in a world of acronyms) idea that fit both of us - a CD of songs that represent us and our relationship with the STD info printed on the CD.  The idea was listed in Real Simple Weddings - a MUST HAVE for anyone planning a wedding.  I will save my praise of Real Simple Weddings 2010 for another post, but seriously, MUST HAVE. 

Then, while browsing bad-assweddings.com, I found STDs in the style of concert tickets, which made me instantly think of Douglas.  I won't go into details on what we came up with for these little gems just because I think it will be a lot of fun if we actually go with the idea.  I'll post all details after stuff goes out the door - but remember, that won't be until next year.

So between the CDs and the tickets, we started talking about a concert theme.  On weddingwire.com we found a chat about suggestions folks had for a concert wedding.  We laughed at some ideas and snatched up others.  With the concert/music theme running full steam, Douglas took the opportunity to work Guitar Hero or Rock Band into the reception.

This is theme idea #1. 
Why I Love It: It's fun, it's relaxed, it appeals to every age group
My Issue: I have no idea what I want out of a ceremony/reception.  This is going to make it very difficult to make sure I am represented in everything as well as Douglas.

Tizzy Thursday

Thursday.  What can I say about Thursday?

Thursday...Thursday...Thursday.

Well, Thursday was the day Douglas, poor boy, shot up to DC for a few hours.  Why did he do such a silly thing?  Why would anyone want to travel so far - and to DC none the less - for a few hours?  Why, to defend of course!  Thursday was the day Douglas put the final nail in his graduate school career by defending his Masters thesis at Johns Hopkins.  Let me tell you, my boy nailed it! 

(insert random power outage - poor Douglas didn't get a chance to save his game of Borderlands! Oh no!)

Ok, back on track with the power back on.  So yes, Douglas is now a Master of Digital Media (or will be when he officially graduates in May).  His thesis on user gratifications of digital and physical media received glowing reviews from all three readers.  If you are interested in reading his research, there will be copies in both Johns Hopkins libraries and, of course, you could ask him nicely to email you a copy.

As if that wasn't enough, the jewelery store called to let us know that my ring was ready!  Luckily, they're open until 8pm on Thursdays, so I was able to pick up a ragged but victorious Douglas from the airport and scoot over to the store to pick up the ring together.  The ring is officially on my finger!

I have to tell you, though, it is very weird.  First off, I've never worn rings on this finger before, so the skin is getting used to having something there.  Second, I love my ring and know it's my ring - but it's not really sinking in yet.  I keep feeling like I'm borrowing it or it's training wheels for the real thing and someone is going to come take it away from me soon.  It's all just surreal.  Just like when I first got engaged, it feels more real sometimes than others, but I'll get there.

The sun is out this weekend and the temps are up, so I'm going to be walking around watching my ring sparkle in the sun!

Another drive-by post

I want to apologize for the short posts lately, but work has been sucking up ALL of my time.  Work should slow down after next week.

Today's drive-by is a shout out to a shout out.  Our friend, Leah (Leah, readers, readers, Leah), from Smart Pop Books summarized our engagement for the Smart Pop Blog. 

Enjoy: http://www.smartpopbooks.com/503

Ring-a-ding-ding

The ring will be ordered in the morning!

Holy Diamond Batman!

Thursday, Douglas and I took a huge step toward putting the ring search to rest.  We visited two jewelers: Morrison Smith and a local Fink's location.

We hit up Fink's second, just to see what they had, and I have to say that our experience is what you would expect at a location that's in a high-end mall.  There were lots of rings with diamonds everywhere.  There was even a setting that had diamonds below the center diamond to fill in the gaps near the prongs.  I simply don't understand this at all.  The woman helping us was very nice but definitely came across as a sales person (I know, funny to say considering she IS a sales person), but good sales folks don't emphasize the fact that they're trying to sell you goods.  This woman kept emphasizing "we can make anything you want", although her solution to simplifying a ring design was for the designer to sand down the sides that he would be creating from scratch anyway.  It's not a good thing when you're making things that should sound simple: "we can create whatever you want" sound really complicated "we will take an existing ring and just sand it down but charge you just as much although you won't be using any of these extra diamonds".  What?

So the ring I looked at there was the engagement ring that goes with this wedding band.  The engagement ring was a slightly thicker band and had a square rock set on top.  Each side of the band had this tiny leaf etching with diamonds through out.  (This is also the ring with the diamonds that were under the large diamond to fill the gaps).



So Fink's in South Park was a big no go for me.  That was ok, though, because of how great the experience at Morrison Smith!  Douglas and I initially went in to just check the place out, see what they had, and see how the sales people were.  We tested the waters by asking about a ring Douglas had recently acquired and wanted to get re-sized.  After getting an estimate on what would need to be done to Doug's ring, we moved on to start browsing the engagement rings.  I perused a few cases and ended up actually starting at the estate jewelery case.  There was a small ring with some etching on it with some teeny tiny diamonds on the band that kind of caught my eye.  It was a great example to start the conversation about what kind of ring I would be looking for.  I ended up not liking the ring as much when I got to look at it up close, so we moved back to the other cases I had walked by earlier.  I didn't have it in my head that I was going to even look at solitaire settings given the other diamonds I have to work with, but all of the rings with side stones just weren't cutting it for me.  Probably the 2nd or 3rd solitaire that I tried on was the one I kept coming back to.  It has a nice wide band, which I liked because it not only balances out the diamond but also made the ring feel comfortable on my finger.  I ended up wearing this ring in between every other one I tried on and did not want to take it off.

Now, I've watched enough wedding shows on TLC and WE to know that giddy feeling that a lot of women get when they find THE dress, but I never thought that I would get that feeling with a ring.  Mom's advice to me before I went was "you'll know it when you see it" and she was right.  I LOVE this ring!  I was bouncing when I left the store, bouncing when I went to bed, and have been bouncy ever since when I think about the ring.

I know I know, with all of this build up with all of these diamonds and all of these settings, this will be a bit anti-climatic for some folks, but for me, it's perfect!

One last tidbit I'd like to share before the unveiling.  Rings, it turns out, are like dresses.  You cannot judge them in the case alone.  You have to try them on and be open to trying on styles you think you don't like.  To me, this was something new because the last piece of real jewelry I shopped for was back when I was a wee lass getting ready for my confirmation.  So it's been quite a while.

Without any more further ado, I present to you, my setting:

I honestly can't tell you how much I LOVE the idea of the 6 prong setting.  It really keeps the round-cut stones from looking like squares.  The way the band branches up into the prongs makes it look like the diamond is, as my Mom put it, sitting in a nest.  I love how simple and clean the design is and it really makes the diamond shine without making it too overstated.

So there it is.  My future ring.  The only decision left (for me) to make on it is white gold or platinum.  I have quotes for both, so I'm well aware of the price difference.  The big thing for me is going to be how much nickel is in the white gold alloy since nickel is the reason why I can't wear earrings or necklaces.  So I have a few more questions to send their way, but this is 100% my ring.

Once the details get ironed out, it should take about 10 days for them to create my very own hand-crafted engagement ring (and yes, there will probably be a countdown on this blog once the order is placed).

psssst....I'm really excited!

THE Ring

Great news: I found a ring!!!!

Post to come soon!

Ring Design Update

Sadly, we have not yet been to the jeweler.  The ice kept us indoors until cabin fever took over on Sunday and we were able to make a break for it.  Once we got out of our region of the complex, the roads were fine.  It was nice hitting up Best Buy and ToysRUs on a weekend without the crowds - and it was AFTER church hours!  So why didn't we hit up the jewelery store while we were out gallivanting at major chains?  Because the store, my dear readers, doesn't have Sunday hours.

So here we are, Monday, the start of the week, and I am staring down the barrel of a hellish 2 weeks at work that will probably include working through the weekend.  It really is a shame it's not a double barrel Remington with cobalt blue steel.  It's a shame, too, that it has the hair trigger.

Douglas has me hopeful that maybe we can make it out there on Thursday since the jeweler is open late and maybe, just maybe, the week will have a lull in it by that time.  Also, it'll be between ice storms (we're supposed to have freezing rain tonight and more ice on Friday).

So, as I wait, I keep looking.  Here is my current design front runner:

So stay tuned.  We'll get there eventually...

Oh - and we...I...no, definitely we - received our first engagement present today.  Posts on that and thank you notes are in your reading futures!  (Don't deny your excitement)