One Year Ago

This man asked me to marry him, and I said yes. He asked me on a bench on a hill in a city that we love and have made our own.

He asked me with a 3D prototype of the ring he designed for me.

Two weeks later, we sat down with our parents and we told them. Then we told everyone else. Those two weeks were the best decision that we've made in this "getting-married" process. Even though at times I thought I would burst with excitement and overflow with my desperate need to tell EVERYONE right away, it also gave us time to think about and celebrate by ourselves. We went to Chicago for Valentine's Day, and it turned into an engagement celebration trip:

(nuh uh ladies, I saw him first!)

When Mark asked, after heckling him and then finally saying yes, I asked him why he didn't wait until we were in Chicago; why he dragged me out of the house on a Sunday night when I had dinner in the oven and had just gotten back from a long afternoon of hockey and errands. His response was something that like, "well, I had the ring and I was ready and I was like 'okay! enough waiting!'" Which I've interpreted to mean "I just couldn't wait to ask you to marry me!" Which is very romantic, if you ask me.

How are we celebrating our engageaversary? Well, we started on Saturday with a nice, snow covered walk up to Federal Hill, then we celebrated yesterday by clearing the kitchen, and tonight we'll celebrate with a homecooked meal. (We're not big anniversary people. In fact, I definitely thought our engage-aversary was the 9th until I realized that the 9th is a Tuesday this year and we got engaged on a Sunday.)

So here's to one year of to-be-wedded bliss; and 244 days until we have an anniversary I can remember!

I need a Dodge Charger.

I mean, seriously. Did you see the ad? THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT MY LIFE.

I will get up and walk the dog at 6:30AM, I will eat some fruit as part of my breakfast [we don't have a dog, but Mark is always nagging me to eat down the frozen fruit in the fridge and make sure I don't buy more fruit than I can eat.]

I will shave, I will clean the sink after I shave [in our case, it's clean the sink after you use your mineral makeup that gets everywhere. But I identified.]

I will be at work by 8am, I will sit through two hour meetings [I hate two hour meetings, but tell me again how they are my partner's fault?]

I will say yes when you want me to say yes, I will be quiet when you don't want to hear me say no [I find that being quiet during a fight keeps me from saying things I'll regret later. I find that saying, "I'll try" helps me end the fight sooner.]

I will take your call, I will listen to your opinion of my friends, I will listen to your friends' opinions of my friends, I will be civil to your mother [Mark gets annoyed when I leave my cell phone off or in my pocket or downstairs. We don't let our friends meet, and we like each other's friends, and both of our mothers are perfectly plesent. So 1-3 here.]

I will put the seat down, I will separate the recycling, I will carry your lip balm, I will watch your vampire TV shows with you [This guy needs to move to a neighborhood with single stream recycling. I do take out the trash. I carry my own lip balm, or forget it, and I think shows like 24 and heroes are just as bad as crap vampire TV, and I don't watch any of it. So I guess 0-0 on this one.]

I will take my socks off before getting into bed, I will put my underwear in the basket [STORY OF MY LIFE YOU GUYS!!! WHY CAN'T I JUST LEAVE MY DIRTY CLOTHES ON THE FLOOR UNTIL LAUNDRY DAY?]

And because I do this, I will drive the car I want to drive [OBVIOUSLY, I NEED ONE OF THESE. EVEN THOUGH I TAKE THE BUS.]

Charger: Man's Last Stand

Did you also find out, watching TV last night, that you are not only a man, but that that discovery suddenly made you terrified of getting married, resign yourself to a life of acting as your spouse's purse, or at least instantly go out and register for a dodge charger?

P.S. I will point out that I liked this ad until I realized it was a guy talking to his wife. Because I think there was a way to do this ad without being sexist, and it would have been funny, and the feminist blogosphere wouldn't be so angry. But Dodge failed at that, like they fail at making reliable cars that people want to buy.

P.P.S. It occurs to me, by pointing out how sexist this ad is, our relationship seems...questionable. But I'm a scatterbrained slob and Mark's a neatfreak and we've known that since day 1, so we work around it.

Size Matters

On my way home from school today, I trekked down to the local Light Street library which was already closed for snow. On my way home, I stopped at the jeweler we bought our ring from and finally took care of something I've been meaning to do since August. I got a ring guard. My ring has always been a little big, and since I got back from Michigan, it has been even bigger (I lost weight while I was there, and even though I gained it back when I got home, my finger has stayed the same size.) For anyone not familiar, this is a ring guard:

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Further, for anyone whose fingers fluctuate, a ring guard is a great solution because the guard is actually adjustable - it can be squeezed up and down, and expand to take up more space or less. The best part is that most jewelers, particularly if it's the one you bought your ring from, will put one on for free. I can't believe what a difference it makes to have my ring feel solidly on my finger, and to stay right side up instead of sliding around. So if your ring is too big, stop fussing and playing with your ring and get yourself to a jeweler!

White to a Wedding?

So I bought this dress for a "black and white night" that my student group was planning (although now it's a vintage glam evening, I'm still wearing the dress).

But my question is - and I think I know the answer - can I wear this to any of the spring/summer weddings I'm going to? I think it's too much white, and I'm tempted to try dying it, but it's also not A White Dress, so I'm not sure.

Otherwise, I think it's a good shower/rehearsal dinner dress (except I already have one of those). Can I wear a white dress to somebody else's shower? Is there etiquette on this?

Also, how great would this dress look with either of these items which That Wife is doing a giveaway for over on her blog?

I also kind of love the Bridal Ruffle, all available at The Redheaded Actress' Etsy Shop.

So weigh in - white to a wedding? How much white is too much white? And head over to That Wife for a chance to win your own hair accessory!

Hand me downs (in a good way)

After I wrote this post, I fell to thinking about something else that gets handed down from generation to generation - jewelry.

I haven't written much about my wedding jewelry because well, it was done, as far as I'm concerned. I didn't want to buy new jewelery for the wedding because I wanted to be able to give my daughter or future daughter-in-law something and say, "these are the earrings I wore when I married your father." Because even if she doesn't wear them for her wedding, she can wear them for other things. And I'm honestly not sure that something I bought off of Etsy would last long enough to do that. So I have been adament that I want to wear good jewelry on our wedding day, and I'm too cheap to buy new fine jewelery. Which means - Earrings are a blue pair that Mark gave me for our fourth anniversary. Something borrowed? My grandmother's engagement ring. Bracelet? Maybe, if I feel like it. Necklace? (Arguably the most important accessory for a strapless dress.) Well, necklace, I thought, was taken care of. I have a pendant that was an engagement gift for my great-grandmother that was then passed down and my aunt sent it to me when I was born and I have always known I want to be my "something old". It also has a blue stone in it, so it could serve as my something blue...but I have blue earrings, so it's just my something old.

So here it is.

(I tried really hard to properly diffuse the flash and failed!)

It's gold, and fairly simple, and I don't wear a lot of gold, and I considered wearing this for the ceremony and changing into something funkier for the reception, which I'm still considering. But then when I was home being snowed in, my mom and I dug it out and I realized - the chain had broken. It would also have been too short anyway. So I started thinking about finding a new chain, and I was thinking about something I had seen somewhere recently about pearl necklace charms. So I tried it out:

I think the pearl will work really nicely with the necklace, and I can go with either a single strand or something more or something a little more rock 'n roll. I was thinking maybe small irregularly shaped pearls like the one dangling would look really nice.

The other advantage is, I wear pearls - I have a strand of pearls which I stand by as the best jewelry purchase I've made, hands down, and also a couple of more "modern" pearl necklaces that I really like. So I know whatever I buy will get used again, by me, if not by anyone else. So now it's just a matter of picking a length and style, and then finding a jeweler to attach the pendant. Yes, I could do it myself with jewelers materials I buy from Michaels, but I'm so afraid that won't be strong enough, and I can't bear to lose this.

So what are some good sources for pearls?

I love Overstock.com and their reasonably priced necklaces, so I went there first.

Something like this is just a little funky, but kinda fun:

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What do you think? What will work best? I don't really want to order 5 necklaces to test them all out. I've also thought about going some place like Beadazzled to pick out my own beads and make my own necklace. But I think that might end in disappointment. And me gluing myself to something, even though you wouldn't think that could happen in a bead store....

Table Numbers

So now that we're sorta settled on our major vendors, we can move on to the craftier things - like table numbers.

We early on talked about doing table numbers that are places that we've been together, since we travel quite a bit. Then two of my cousins and one of my friends did that, and we decided it had been done. My sister had candy types as their table names, and little candy dishes on the table, which was delicious and fun, since they always have a candy dish in their apartment. We might do this, except people were supposedly confused as to why they were seated at the "Rolo" table. Table numbers are one of those things it's so easy to make crafty and fun and meaningful and special to the couple, so the pressure is on!

Some of the ideas I've had?

• Naming tables after buildings at the University of Maryland. We get to put some Terrapin Pride out there, and maybe write a little about the building or the significance of it to us on the back of the card, in case guests are interested. For example: "The Diner: Offering to buy Mark dinner in the North Campus Dining Hall to "use up her points" was one way that Ellie managed to finally convince Mark to spend some time with her." Or "Stamp Student Union: Mark and Ellie went on several dates here to movies and free school events." Bonus assignment - we could go take pictures at the UMD campus of us and the buildings. Or we use the set of postcards I have from UMD that I've never used, but have.
• Use our engagement pictures and just slap on a number in some kind of opaque format over our smiling faces.
• Make table numbers out of wood, or plants, or acorns glued to wooden plants. Basically, something nature-y is what I'm saying. Name tables after trees, plants, flowers, birds, and other nature-y things.
• Name our tables after streets in Baltimore where we live, work, play, or regularly get stuck in traffic.
• Using white cardstock and printing numbers in large font on them. Preferably something fun from www.dafont.com. Maybe we'll frame them. Otherwise they'll just go on the memo clips I already have from my sister. No, it's not original. But we aren't being graded on originality, are we? If we are being graded at all, originality is about 10% of the grade. 90% is whether people can find their seats. Oh right, and this would be pretty much free/supplies on hand.

What are you going with? Does anybody else share my perhaps uncreative urge to just put numbers on sticks and call it a day?

Postage

Keeping it short and sweet again today - new stamps for 2010! I hadn't thought to look at this year's stamps yet, until I saw a tweet yesterday about the new Calvin and Hobbes Stamp!!!! I immediately wanted to order 200 of them to use on our invites, but then this morning I realized they are part of a 5 piece "Sunday Funnies" set and it's unlikely that I could get 150 of them on their own.

So I looked at the other stamps. I've narrowed our stamp choices for the wedding down to the following:

Did you know Mark was an Eagle Scout? No? Well, are you really surprised? Of course not! Plus, this scouting one would go perfect with either the navy envelopes I wish I could find, or the brown ones we will probably use. Plus, it's a metaphor for the search for love, no?

This is my personal favorite of this year's stamp offerings:

It's the lunar/Chinese new year stamp for the year of the tiger. The image is Narcissus flowers (and not uh, daffodils as I originally thought) which are auspicious at all times of the year and used to celebrate Chinese New Year. The red would be a great contrast, and the flowers evoke "nature."

These evergreen stamps would be perfect, but they are the holiday stamp so they don't even come out until October!

Wouldn't those be just so perfect for a nature center wedding though? I'm going to be ordering a bunch to use on our thank-you notes, for sure!

You may have noticed that I skipped the love stamp with the purple pansies. That's because well, marriage isn't for pansies. It's big and scary, like scouting out a mountain.