We kept saying “ok, we’ll think about the wedding when we get back” while we were in Vermont and now it’s “OK, we’ll freak out when I get back from Paris” but holy cow, we are totally dropping the ball on this one. My wedding countdown says we have 120 days left. Whoa. Step it up, self!
Every time I think about the wedding, I just kind of get panicked and don’t want to think at all. I think primarily this is money worries. I’ve been jamming on the Etsy listings, and have so so so much more to keep adding, so that’s helped a lot. Thank you to everyone who’s bought something / shared the link!
We do keep entertaining the idea of eloping. But I kind of NEED to get all my people together for a weekend – my best friends have all moved far away, & my very best friend in the world I haven’t seen in TWO YEARS. I want my dang chosen family together and if this is the way to do it, so be it.
So, long, rambly post – some thoughts for me, some questions for you, organizing my head and getting back on track!
Things accomplished in Vermont
My brother snagged a huge wooden platform floor, and he has a vision of creating a deck that looks out over the stream, with trees coming through the deck. Initially I wanted more of a picnic feel, but in October it’s likely that the ground will be damp. We’ll set up tables and cushions on this deck (it’s 24 feet round) & string a tent from the trees above it.
We cut log benches for the ceremony area, which will probably be right in front of this rock outcropping – it’s about 8 feet up from the clearing. We thought about doing it up on top, but falling over & everyone looking up my dress seems like poor planning.
Maybe Eli can be my wedding handholder. I do want to find roles for these goblins – ringbearer is a no brainer, but what other kinds of things can the kids in your life do for a wedding?
We got some lovely English tiered cake trays, a milk glass cake plate, figured out plates, glasses, etc. One thing I love love love about Vermont (and sometimes Oakland!) – when you explain what you need and the little old ladies working the thrifts run all over and pull out things you’d never have found for you. YESSSS.
Got a few things for the invites, we need to get working on those ASAP!
Victorian lace from mama. This is so so so gorgeous in person. It’s about 5 inches wide, and will trim the dress.
I also grabbed some family rings to wear while my engagement ring is mended.
My ring, from the 1880s. The prongs keep pulling away from the pearls, and snagging EVERYTHING, both ripping up clothes and hurting my finger. We’re thinking about replacing them with teeny old diamonds, but also – do people keep wearing engagement rings? It seems sad and weird to stop, but I don’t like wearing a lot of rings & we’ll have matching wedding rings? If you’re married and your engagement ring doesn’t stack on your wedding ring, what did you do?
This one was my grandmother‘s in the late 1920s. It’s basically my ideal ring – pearl with 2 diamonds, GORGEOUS deco setting when you look at the side. It needs to be resized to fit my chubby hands – my grandma was lanky! I kind of want to wear this one on my right hand, forever. I miss her so much.
This is my great-nanas, from 1917. It’s what I’m wearing now. My coworker called it “dainty” in a way which made me feel that it wasn’t big enough. Hey, I’m not a GIANT ROCK kind of girl. Anyway, we can’t afford to get the other 2 fixed for now, so this one will do! My real one is my favorite of course, but they’re all so special that it doesn’t feel super weird to me. Has anyone else swapped engagement rings? Is that strange?
To Do
Menu. I have a million ideas for sweets (though need to write them down) – but we need more ideas for the savory food. It’ll be an afternoon vintage picnic feel – tiny quiches, finger sandwiches – nothing that has to be scooped up. Stand alone food, simple and classic. Ideas?
Rings? Angeliska is making them – but I haven’t even thought about it! Stones? Ethical stones? We know we want rose gold. Ahhh! This one panic-induces me.
Make invites. I need to order some supplies asap. This one I am oddly less panicked about, though I need to find a designer to barter with to give the text a once over.
Lose the EIGHT POUNDS I gained eating ice cream 5 times a day in Vermont. Seriously, I want to cry, nothing fits. My goal is to lose 15 lbs before I make my wedding dress, so um. yeah. I haven’t had any sugar since I got back, and have been eating super healthy. 10 mile bike rides a day to work, & the gym is going to become my friend. RAWR. I say this all the time, right? Well, I mean it this time. Anyone in the East Bay want to go to the climbing gym?
Farmer’s Diner homemade ice cream milkshakes, you are the devil!
Make a dress. Start patterning and draping. Buy cream silk. Buy a minimizer bra. And spanx. Full body spanx.
Shoes!! Fall shoes should be coming out soon. Looking for black, 1920s inspired wedges.
Find a suit for S. – do you know how hard it is to find a fall suit in the summer? Especially when we don’t want to spend $1500.
Find a suit for my dad. This should be fun.
Plane tickets – keeping an eye on Virgin & JetBlue.
Tents for people who need to – I really want to rent a bell tent. Look into this, self. Or send this as tasks to Karie?
Activities – find archery sets, croquet sets. What else?
Honeymoon plans – Gala just posted this great Kayak link, and flights to Shannon (Ireland) are way cheaper than flights into Cork. YES. Looking possible! Holy cow!!
Music for procession? Maybe my dad could play the accordion as he walks me down the isle. LIKE A MONKEY.
Vows? As much as we keep joking about Kate Bush interpretive dances, it’s probably good if we actually sat down and figured out the ceremony. I don’t want toasts, but I do want some people to speak, etc.
Check with Jennifer about her photographer needs.
Ok, that’s enough for now. Just thinking about this is head-aching me. What am I missing? Those wedding checklists don’t really apply to casual woodland encounters without catering or, you know, electricity.
I’m currently swapping rings from this one, which he had custom made (I love small rose cut diamond rings with a textured band) http://www.flickr.com/photos/richhumofair/4418874660/ with this one (I haven’t put the photo on Flickr yet.) http://www.eriebasin.com/a_3diamcross.html I love both of them and it does feel strange to swap rings, but they were both given to me by him and I find them both special for different reasons.
As for the not being able to stack rings, I wondered about this as well. Apparently, you can get the two rings together somehow (I’m not really sure as to the manner this is done), but I don’t like this idea. Also, you could have one ring on one finger and one on the other, but I don’t really like that idea either. So if you find out a nice way to do this, let me know!
Good luck on preparing for the wedding! I’m loving your updates.
Your 1st one is close to what I want for a wedding ring!
LOVE archery! we had a lot of fun with a pretty sturdy kid’s archery set at a party last weekend. targets on bales of hay, so easy.
i see a lot of women wearing their engagement ring on their right hand these days. nothin’ wrong with that.
do you think it will go into the evening? you might need lights if so. lanterns?
suits: barney’s warehouse sale has the best deals, do you guys have one in SF?
food…. mmm picnic food! i suggest vietnamese banh mi sandwiches
We want the food to be classic for the area! So 1920s Americana food. I will think! I have a recipe book from New England.
Definitely lanterns – thinking it’ll go til 7 or so? Is that too long? But then, people who are camping might just stay and have bonfires anyway? What do you think?
We have a Barneys (and looked there, but $$$$$) but I don’t know about the warehouse sales…
My engagement & wedding ring were not made together or to stack, but the engagement ring happens to fit with it because it has a pretty slim profile (if that makes sense). I often think back to the advice from an old friend, who said her wedding band was the one that never came off; the engagement ring was the one for special occasions, dressing up, or for work or whenever you felt like wearing it. Having a baby made me ditch the engagement ring for a long time, as it gets in the way of needing to wash my hands ten thousand times, but I come back to it ever so often when I’m feeling fancy. Wearing jewelry is not something I naturally do, so it’s a big deal when I put on my engagement ring under the wedding band. But I think you’re a very different kind of accessorizer
We got the wedding band that matched my engagement ring on our second anniversary, and then I had them welded. It’s a curved band of tiny diamonds on white gold, to go along with the emerald.
I love your family rings, they’re beautiful. My mother-in-law has a ton of big family jewels she wears all the time and I’m so enamoured of all the sparkle and history. *grabby*
I switch my rings all the time; we didn’t do engagement rings but I have many rings that I love to wear on my left ring finger AND my left ring finger seems to be allergic to my wedding band. So I wear the wedding band on my right hand most of the time, and it is so plain it stacks with most of my non-wedding-related rings. As with all wedding-related stuff, the best advice is always do whatever makes you happy.
Yes to croquet & archery set-up! Hmmm….horse shoes? A big game of hide & seek? Bobbing for apples?– (so easy! big tubs full of water and apples — people have fun with it, and you get great photos!).
I’ll be thinking ;]
ha! i loved this post. well, now. i am mixing up rings at the moment, i have a victorian engagement ring, then i was wearing a ring out of a cracker (practically) because it was so pretty, but somehow that got broken last weekend during our camping trip so i am now wearing a *huge* pink rock in a big claw-ish setting (also cheap) and nicer than it sounds. so i think i am saying, it’s not strange, it’s okay. the wedding band is the super-important one, no? we have very simple bands made by a local maker. i’d say plain and simple = beautiful and wearable and elegant. and yes to ethical gold too.
teeny crab tartlets with gruyere and a little paprika?
hot buttered rum as night falls and bonfires start?
task out the bell tents (and anything else that can be delegated)
vintage suits for S and your pa? is S tall? might he like to borrow a vintage mod pinstripe suit?
relax, you are going to look AMAZING, this is an irrefutable fact. but yeah, lay off the ice cream unless it’s a really HOT day.
boule? lawn tennis? perhaps have a table set up for cards inside somewhere cosy?
if it turns into a late night all night type of affair, it’s always good to have a big pot of something to feed people. we had a big vegetable beany chilli. but soup would also work with big hunks of good (homemade) bread and a selection of local cheese!
it sounds as though your time would be best spent working on your dress! so delegate dearest, do!
courage sweet girl, you’ll get there!
Yes to tasking! My lovely friend Karie in Vermont offered and I need to write her a big email this weekend.
I like the idea of a big crock pot of something for the stragglers, for sure! I imagine that would only be about 20 people.
S is 6 foot 3 inches, oy. We want a cinnamon tweed suit with a 1920s feel – impossible? We need to REALLY start looking. Thank you for the offer, you’re too sweet!!
okay, well the suit (although navy) would fit him, Paul is also 6ft 3″. the link on your tumblr is a very similar shape. i think you need to exploit the powers of all your thrift hunter gather magpie pals to find this cinnamon suit of dreams!
i think once you clear the decks delegation-wise you’ll feel more focused.
http://www.etsy.com/listing/45857648/vintage-ferragamo-t-strap-black-patent
probably not what you want or right size but Ferragamo 1920s heels rule
Well, they need to be super tall wedges – S. is ONE FOOT taller than me. It hurts my neck to kiss him while standing without having mega heels on! Those are cute, though Ferragamos are designed for some super skinny WASP feet, for sure – i.e. not mine by any long stretch.
Eff your coworker and her “dainty”. Your rings are lovely.
If it makes you feel any better, we didn’t start tackling our to-do list till this week and our wedding is next month. Our invites were late. We only recently settled on a menu. And we still have to figure out our decor. Don’t get me started on our unwritten vows.
I procrastinate when I’m anxious, which is pretty much always.
That DOES make me feel better. I think it’ll be ok, I’ve just had my horrible procrastination habit really bite me in the ass and make my life miserable recently, so I’m trying to break the habit.
The problem is, if I do it ahead of time, I’ll change my mind and redo it right before anyway!!
In Poland, both wedding ring and engagement ring are traditionally worn on right hand – wearing a wedding band on left hand used to mean that you’re widowed, but I don’t think many people know about it anymore. If engagement and wedding ring go together well, it was common to wear them on the same finger, but I doubt it would work with your ring. The other option was to put engagement ring on left hand. [I’m sorry, I just finished a very old and detailed book on savoir vivre and feel the urge to tell everybody what used to be considered proper]
My friend has wedding ring made from yellow gold and engagement ring made from white gold and switches them to match the rest of the jewellery. I don’t know what your wedding ring is going to look like, but my aunt has very simple wedding band which she wears every day and beautiful but less comfortable engagement ring which she puts on on special occasions.
I think I’m going to do the same thing my Mom does – wear the wedding band every day (it’s going to be extremally simple and hopefully just as much comfortable) and add engagement ring on occasion. I don’t wear much jewellery, so I guess one ring is enough for me;)
Oh, and I hear you about putting away wedding things. We were supposed to get married in July, but because of major family drama had to move the date to September, and we have NOTHING. The only thing we did so far was to change the date in the church. We need new invitations, new place for dinner and new everything and it seems that September is not such a wedding-friendly month as July (September has R in its name, in Polish too, and July doesn’t. I seriously don’t know what’s the thing with this R letter, but it seems noone wants a July wedding so we had absolutely no problems, and everybody want September wedding, and we’re running out of tiiiimeeee!). I mean, I’m just not that interested. I just want to get married. Bah.
First, I think it is so silly that we are made to worry about the size of the diamond. I think all three rings are lovely, and you are lucky to have so much sentimental jewelry in your life. Secondly, I live in the East Bay, and though I have never been there, and it sound kind of strange, I have been told that the Clothing Broker over by the coliseum has good pries on nice suits. I think your wedding sounds wonderful, and that not planning too much will make it even better.
Really! I always see that from the freeway and wonder what it is. We’ll have to check it out!
Our car is getting new brakes, but once it’s back I think we’ll be able to make some day trips around the Bay and find something, for sure. Maybe the Alameda flea?
Oh my gosh, you sound so busy. Not only do I think swapping rings is fine, but I think it’s REALLY cool. All your rings are extremely beautiful and carry such sentimental value. I’m so glad you have these.
To add to the ring stories, we both gave each other “the ring” to wear ahead of time (I hung his on blackberry bushes to find while we were picking). We took them off to formally give them to one another during the ceremony. One ring each and always worn on the 4th finger of the left hand.
Whatever you work out will be your way, with meaning behind it for the both of you.
for lamps
maybe these?
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10177442
I LOVE the idea of swapping rings! I think it’s wonderful….like someone said above, the wedding ring is the one the stays on all the time and the engagement ring can just go on whenever you want it to.
Who is fixing your engagement ring? Is it gold? I think even with diamonds it is still going to be a little snaggy!
For your wedding rings, I have two ideas for you….textured rose gold bands, something like this (these are somewhat awful, but will give you an idea)…http://ringsunique.com/gemstone-unique-gold-rings/enchantment-rings.php
Or there is also Mokume Gane, like this http://mokume-gane.com/index.php (these are good!). It looks like woodgrain, and can be made of 2 more more metals that can look similar or have high contrast.
I am a studio-mate of Angel, so I can’t wait to see what you come up with!
Ooh, neither of those are our style. We just want simple, hammered. I don’t know, the ring part freaks me out a lot. Maybe we don’t need rings.
lady-
my good man got me an art deco engagement ring which also comes to a longer top and bottom point, like yours. after some trial and error, i ended up with a very thin, flat, 1/4″ white gold band. it doesn’t match his, but i have a vintage ring that i never, ever want to take off. since it’s fairly thin it slides under the botton of the enagement ring. you can tell it’s there, but it doesn’t stand out. we originally got matching bands, and i wore my engagement ring on my right hand, and i felt silly with two rings. i’m a one ring kind of girl, and my ring is more me than any band could be.
A lot of the Remix Vintage shoes on Amazon.com are on Super duper sale right now… normally $200, now $80 http://www.amazon.com/Re-Mix-Vintage-Womens-Savoy-Button/dp/B0029ZB7BA/ref=pd_sbs_shoe_1
Thanks! Weirdly, I almost wore the pair I thrifted (The picasso wedge! $5!) today but decided it was too chilly.
All of your rings are so lovely – it’s wonderful that they are special in different ways. Switching them out is such a good idea, especially since older rings are more delicate. My ring is from the 1960s and I like to imagine the woman who used to wear it, and the man who gave it to her (we found it in an antique store). I’m a total klutz so once I have a wedding band the engagement ring is going into retirement except for special times. All my other rings are sized to fit my left ring finger and I miss wearing them, so I will probably get some resized but also wear different rings along with my wedding band (which is going to be simple and thin).
1. The rings are FABULOUS. Wear them interchangeably, and very much in accordance with your whim. Ring sets and ring stacking is only recently in vogue– if the engagement ring didn’t also serve as wedding band, it was often transferred to the right hand to make way. So there’s a historical precedent for doing whatever you damn well please. That may or may not be my mantra, every morning.
2. Unsubscribe from whatever site is sending you wedding countdowns. That’s just crazymaking.
3. You score major bonus points for having archery at the wedding. Bride with longbow trumps bride with turkey. Get antique croquet sets–they’re less than the price of new and devastatingly good-looking. Milkglass shop proprietress could help with this, I expect…
saw this and thought of you: http://cgi.ebay.com/VINTAGE-ANTIQUE-WEDDING-HEAD-DRESS-TIARA-CROWN-GLOVES-/270602672396?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f012d190c <3