Hey That’s A Nice Life

Last year on May 2 it was 85 degrees in Ocean City. When it came time to think about how to make the wedding programs, we had no idea what the weather had in store for us.  Just in case it was hot, we decided on program fans so the guests could fan themselves after crossing the dune and sitting in the potentially hot sun without shade.

Well, if you’ve looked at the weather forecast, you’ll know that’s probably not necessary. 

BUT, they’re done.  I took a picture but really can’t bring myself to upload it right now … so you’ll just have to imagine for now.  The paper matches our invitation suite and they are two sided with a stick in the middle to make the fan.  The first side has the standard wedding ceremony stuff, but the second side is a surprise (tip: bring a pen or pencil).

This turned out to be one of the harder DIY projects.  Gluing the two heavy, coated papers together with a stick in the middle was sort-of a challenge.  Even though my original prototype came out nice and straight, all the fans we made last week turned out a little wavy.  Nonetheless, they are done and they look good.  Many thanks to Katy, Melane and Kate for helping us out.

There are 9 days until the wedding and we can now officially start checking the weather.  Be warned that long range forecasts are rarely accurate … but it’s fun to watch.  If you have a different weather Web site you prefer, the zip code in Ocean City is 21842.

According the Weather channel, Saturday, May 2 will have a high of 64 degrees and a low of 53 degrees with a 20 percent chance of rain.

And if it turns out that there is an 80 percent chance of rain and it’s only 46 degrees, it won’t matter.  At the end of the day, I’ll still be married to Don.  Although our guests should bring coats in that scenario as there is no heat at the reception venue!

The RSVP date has come and gone allowing me to finish up the seating charts and table cards. 

I have to say, making the seating chart was the hardest task of wedding planning yet.  Thankfully, I used this great tool on the Martha Stewart web site (I think they are actually the same tools used on the Wedding Channel) to map out the tables.  Don thinks it would have been easier to make index cards and map it out in that way first … and I can see the logic.  BUT, since I was tracking our guest list and responses with the other tools on Martha’s site, SHE organized everything for me and that made it as simple as possible.  Of course, by SHE I mean that Martha herself - not a team of 25 Web developers - helped out.  Right?

Turns out, as simple as possible is not all that simple.  Some tables were really easy - people from work, my closest local friends, Don’s group of friends from Miami.  But there were some people who just won’t know that many people there besides the two of us and I wanted to be sure to put everyone at tables where they would have fun.  Meeting new people is fun, right?

Here’s a sneak peek at a few table cards (you’ll notice there are no duplicate tables below, so you can’t figure out who you’re sitting with yet!):

In the top left corner, you’ll see the table name the guest(s) is seated at, and in the lower right hand corner is the guest’s name.  The cards are held in place by shell magnets (these were made by gluing a rare earth (very strong) magnet onto a sea shell - a lot harder than it sounds, much to my surprise).  The table names are beaches where Don and I have vacationed / visited.  There are 13 tables in total, with 105 guests expected at this time.

So if I tell you that Susan thinks the particular wedding ring that I wear is an important choice and I don’t, you’d probably not be at all surprised. Maybe you’d roll your eyes too, or mumble something about typical men, or me in particular.

It’s really not that simple, though, since I actually think her particular wedding ring is important. There’s two parts to that. One, there’s the fact that one of the rings on her finger was passed down through my family. While I never met Gladys, she’s from the side of the family where I did know my grandparents. So it’s a nice connection. It doesn’t hurt that it kept me from putting money into the diamond industry, a racket I find distasteful on a number of levels.

Until we bought the other two rings, of course.

However I’m okay with that too, and it’s the other reason I think her ring is important: it’s important to Susan. She likes the way they look and she’s the only person attached to her finger 24/7.

For my finger, however, the specific ring just isn’t that important to me, and it honestly hadn’t occurred to me that it might matter to her. I had been - surprise - pretty blase about my ring shopping and had looked at some things in the store and online, and when we were looking at one of the more odd rings Susan questioned whether I’d want to wear that forever. I shrugged and said when I tired of it I’d order a new one.

I’ve never kicked a puppy, so I can’t be sure, but I am pretty sure that’s the same look Susan would give me if  I ever did. In her eyes there’s only going to be one ring we use on May 2nd, and if I replace it that’s just not the same.

My ring, to me, is just something I put on my finger. If it had ever been a part of Susan’s life before then that might be different, but what we’re going with is the ring pictured above, mail ordered from Overstock.com. There’s some amusement value for me that it’s tungsten, which has an atomic symbol that happens to be my initial, W, but it’s still just a thing.

Until it’s on my finger. Once it’s there, it’s a symbol of the commitment I’ve made to Susan. It’s a reminder of the life we had before we met, the life we had once we did, and our decision that we liked our life better together. Its a reminder of the day we invited a bunch of people we cared about to watch us make that commitment legal, then celebrate with us immediately afterwards. A reminder of her, and that I’m important to her. If I took that ring off and put a different one on it would have the same meaning for me.

So I’ll do my best to wear the one above, which we’ll use on May 2nd, for as forever as I can manage.

Because how much better a compromise could you ask for than to get everything that matters to me and add on something that matters to her?

Not much time for a long post today; I’m headed out to the Virginia country-side to get my wine on with the girls this weekend. 

Last Saturday I had my hair trial in Ocean City.  Here’s the inspiration board:

Basically, I asked for something wavy and loose, mostly pulled up but with some pieces framing my face.

Here’s the result:

I wish my hair could be naturally curly …

*sigh*

I decided many months ago that I would not be ordering flowers for the wedding.  I wanted to try my hand my making my own bouquet and Nice Mama missed her calling in life as a florist.

That left a question about what the men would wear for boutonnieres and the women as corsages.  As I started researching coastal weddings on the Knot and Martha Stewart I found lots of great choices made from shells.

I loved the concept, but it was hard for me to figure out how to put them together and I tried a few concepts. I finally figured out the best way and was able to make three completely different kinds of options.

First, there is very simple version for those who will serve an official role at the wedding or reception - our readers, toasters and the mistress of ceremonies. 

Then there are the boutonnieres for Don (the starfish pictured below) and my dad, his dad, his brother and his brother’s partner (all different types of shells).

Finally, I used very small white shells to make the corsages for my mom and Don’s mom (this picture is a little blurry).

I really like how they turned out.  What do you think?  Will anyone miss the flowers?

Last week I started sporting some new bling on my ring finger.  Yay for bling.

(Maybe I should ask Don to get me some grillz for a wedding gift?).

My engagement ring is a beautiful solitaire that originally belonged to Don’s great grandmother.  It’s a six-prong Tiffany style setting with a transition cut diamond (pre-cursor to the modern brilliant cut). 

I love it.

Well, I love it when it’s sitting by itself on my finger. Trying to find a wedding band to match was so much harder than I expected and I started to suspect that it was in such good shape because Gladys never wore it.   It would explain why we don’t have a single picture of her with the ring on.

I looked for months, but nothing I found worked.  Then a jeweler suggested a solitaire enhancer to wrap around the ring.  We found one with a pave setting which is totally in keeping with 1920s era original ring and I love pave settings anyway.  It was perfect, but I found I still wanted a traditional wedding band (because I figure there are going to be times in the future - like maybe when we’re travelling - that I just don’t want to wear a whole set of rings).  I love the enhancer, but it can’t be worn on its own.

Don agreed that the three pieces together looked the nicest of any other combination.  I was stressed about the money, but Don pointed out that if you calculate the cost per day of having this ring for the rest of my life it was worth the expense. 

I’m so glad he talked me into it because these rings make me crazy happy.  Here’s my solitaire with the enhancer:

Now we’re trying to find a wedding ring for Don.  We decided on the metal tungsten because Don discovered that the symbol for tungsten is W.  We’ve ordered several but haven’t found the right one just yet.  Maybe once we have it, we can talk Don into another guest blog post!

Well, maybe not everything … but everything that does happen all happens at the same time.

Our wedding is in less than 30 days.  I am working on three media campaigns simultaneously.  The ALL CANDY EXPO is about 45 days away.  And, on top of that, this week my office is moving from Vienna, VA to Georgetown in northwest Washington, DC.

I’m excited about all of those things … but I’d be OK if they were taking place over the next three months and not the next six weeks.

Nonetheless, everything is happening all at once so it’s best to embrace it.  Here is a preview of my new office:

Check out my purple accent wall and door.  My future MIL, Penelope, is going to be very excited when she sees this.  Thanks to Tori for providing us with updated pictures as the office is completed little by little.

We’ll be ensconced in the new digs on April 13.  I can’t wait.

I am wearing Vera Wang on my wedding day.

No, really.  I am.

On my feet.

(Warning - picture of my feet below the fold) Read more…