T-minus 365 Days

This time next year it will be our wedding day.

Jon was quite surprised when I told him it was only a year away. But Jon was also quite surprised when he discovered he was turning 26 this year, not 25 as he'd previously thought, and that next week was November, so perhaps he's not the greatest litmus test of how quickly it feels like this has come around.

This feels like a good place for a gif, but I don't really have one that suits this situation, so have this instead. I imagine this is what happened in Jon's brain when I told him how far away the wedding was.

That said, having discovered that the wedding is now only a year away, Jon has become somewhat less curmudgeonly in the discussion of wedding planning. Nothing like a bit of pressure, gently applied, to grease the wheels of cooperation.


What we have done so far
- Church
- Reception venue and food
- Photographer
- Dress
- My wedding ring


What we have to do
- Flowers, because flowers
- Cake, because cake
- Music, because otherwise we might have to talk to people
- Jon's wedding ring so he has something else to lose around the house other than his watch
- Jon's suit so he is not naked
- Bridesmaids dresses so they are also not naked
- I should probably have some shoes too, don't want to turn up to church looking like that episode of Sex and the City where Carrie gets mugged for her shoes.*

 Can you believe no-one had made a gif of this already? I'd expect one with the caption "Somebody stop him, he stole my strappy sandals!" But nope. For shame, internet. For shame.

*Yes, I am thoroughly ashamed of myself for making a reference to Sex and the City, however I only know about it because I worked at Blockbuster whilst I was at University and got free rentals, and was alone for like three weeks over the summer, so I watched it all, but only because it was free.

What we have to do, continued
- We should probably work out who we are inviting to this shindig at some point
- And I guess we should make and send them invitations so they know where and when they should turn up
- Also maybe we should make a table plan so they know where they are sitting for dinner, and so no vegetarians end up with a very meaty meal
- and there is probably some other stuff we should do as well, but when I get to this point in the list I start to drift a bit and get distracted.


Part of the reason I get lost towards the end of the list is because then it all becomes variables and things that will be longer and more complex to do. I want to get things done, but I want to get the quick-and-easy things done first. Flowers, boom. Cake, boom. DJ, boom boom shake the room. That sort of thing.



Basically I want to put off the difficult bits for as long as possible. Procrastination makes the world go round! Eventually!

it's not about the ba-bling ba-bling - except it totally is.

On a bit of a decision-making high from unexpectedly buying my wedding dress (and possibly still slightly in shock), I decided to ride this wave of absolution for all it was worth, and four days later (okay yes, I didn't say I was completely over my commitment-phobia) I placed an order for my wedding ring.

 (there is a very limited selection of gifs suitable for this situation)

To tell you this story, I'll have to travel back in time a good few months and then take you step-by-step through my crazy ring-based mental processes. Are you ready? Did you make sure to go to the toilet? Have you got a snack?

Right so. All my life I thought I'd just get a plain wedding ring. That's what's the norm for my family, and by and large it's the norm for most of the rest of the UK (although this is changing of late). It would have to be yellow gold, because my mother had been carefully coordinating all my 'good' jewellery since I was about 16. I didn't mind, I liked yellow gold and frankly white gold sounded like a lot of work with all the re-dipping required.

So this is the starting point, for reference:

After a bit of pondering and browsing, Jon said to me one day that he quite fancied a ring with a bit of a Celtic pattern, and showed me this one:

(Clogau's Annwyl Ring)

I was quite taken with this idea, and that we could match - he could have the slightly thicker one and I could have the thinner! I was certain I could find something similar in yellow gold. He also told me that the ring above was by a company - Clogau - who make rings containing Welsh gold. Now, I loved that - wearing a ring made from gold found in the UK. I had recently discovered the Fairmined Gold movement, but had struggled to find vendors who used fairmined gold as a matter of course, and who made products that suited my tastes (although it seems the list appears to be growing, which is wonderful!). Welsh gold seemed a great way around it. That, and the Royal family had worn Welsh gold wedding rings for generations, which I'm sad to say influenced me a little bit more than perhaps I would like to admit.

(I will add, that it was only later I discovered that the amount of Welsh gold in each ring is actually miniscule. Welsh gold is so rare that it only makes up the smallest percentage of any piece of jewellery, but my intentions were pure!)


Anyway, whilst I was browsing their site and becoming ever-more impressed, I noticed a big banner at the top listing a contest. To win this bad boy:

(The Am Byth Ring)

It was BEAUTIFUL. I mean look at it! The intricate vinework, the gorgeous mix of rose and yellow gold, the diamonds! Needless to say I entered the contest. Several times. And got a number of family members to enter on my behalf as well. Because at £2,800 I was never going to be able to buy it. It was totally about as far away from what I wanted as it was possible to be - blingy, intricate, big - but I was utterly in lust.

I didn't win, needless to say. And with a bit of distance, it's probably for the best. But it opened my mind to other ring options, and I began to window-shop some more.


I was adamant that I didn't want a curved band, although realistically that probably would have sat best with my engagement ring. But I wanted something that wouldn't look odd if I wore it on its own.

I'd become more interested in the idea of an engraved band, something a bit vintage-style. Shamefully, I created a pinterest board where I collected my ideas.

Including this beauty:

(Mitchel and Co.)

It was beautiful. And I was convinced it was totally and utterly and completely out of my price range. So I left it there for months, coming back to sigh over it, and then trawling through pages of Etsy engraved rings which all seemed to have millgrain edges or flowers, neither of which I was super fussed on. 

Finally, at the start of July, I worked up the courage to email the jeweler, Mitchel and Co.,  about it. It was in budget! It was amazingly in budget! And the engraving was done by the "best engraver in the industry (he also engraves for the royal family!)" (again, I'm a little ashamed by how pleased I was to learn that). 

I dealt mainly with Charlotte, who was supremely helpful and friendly, and when we took a trip out to the shop, in the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter, they were welcoming, professional and really really helpful. The ring was designed and made in-house, so it was made to my specifications, and I knew where it had been. 

After I first went to the store, it was about two and a half weeks before I worked up the courage to order the ring, and then another month whilst I waited and fretted for it to be done. Would the engraving look okay on yellow gold? What if I hated it? What if it looked rubbish with my engagement ring? What if the diamonds were too much?

WORRYING WAS SILLY. IT'S BEAUTIFUL.

They are now storing it for me, for free, until the big day. I arranged this with them prior to purchase, and having seen the finished product I think it was doubly wise of me. I love it so much, I just want to wear it now. I'd definitely be trying it on all the time if I had it around the house.

I also love how it goes with my engagement ring. The gap doesn't bother me, and I think they look beautifully vintage together! And all for under £400. And did I mention, it's beautiful and I love it? Have I said the word beautiful enough yet in this post?

How early on did you get your wedding ring, guys? Did you always know what you wanted, or did your preferences swing wildly all over the place like me?

The Proposal

Once upon a time - well, 15th September 2012 - I went out for the day.
I was at J-con, a day-long convention which I actually really enjoyed. My expectations had been pretty low, and it was an early morning and predicted to be a long day, so when I found myself chilling out and having a good time, I was pleasantly surprised. I also bought some art from the extremely talented Echosilver - two originals, and a gorgeous little print of a watercolour to go on my desk, for the princely sum of 14 of your English Pounds. I was very pleased.

Then I headed home - to the promise of a roast dinner cooked by Jon, because it was getting towards that time of year and we'd both been starting to think that it was time to head into Winter Mode (Roasts, PJs, Red Wine etc etc).

And I was greeted by this:

Yes, candles, candles we have had before, those were nice, but not the bit that got my attention. Focus on the important part.

Jon had tidied the dining room.

I was delighted. That place had been a shit-tip for weeks, because it's the first room you come into, and it's become a natural dumping ground for crap - coats, shoes, bags, stuff we need to take out of bags that we don't have time to put away right now, junk mail, real mail etc etc.

TIDY. <3

And the candles were pretty too. And scented, so the sort of dampish smell that we sometimes get from the laundry was all gone.

So Jon dished up the dinner (minted lamb - yummm!) but then scurried off to get drinks, and reappeared with a bottle of rose champagne.

HERE is where my alerts came on. I asked what this was all for, and he grinned. Then a look of horror and panic came over my face as he fumbled for whatever-it-was in his pocket, and that made him panic and thrust it towards me with

"It's a hat!"
This was not an inaccurate statement.

Inside the hat, however, was this:

Well. I rather felt like I'd had a comedy piano dropped on me. I said yes - there wasn't much else I really could say. And then I swore at him. And then we drank both bottles of sparkling wine and I swore at him some more.

He revealed that he had a dozen tiny cowboy hat jewellery boxes, because they could only be bought in bulk. He'd been researching rings for months - it's gold, tanzanite and diamond (and matches my Graduation Ring perfectly - also gold, tanzanite and diamond). And it nearly perfectly fits - he stole my Graduation Ring without me noticing to get my ring fitting - unfortunately, that goes on my middle finger and not my ring one. But it's near as dammit a perfect fit.

"It's your birthstone," he told me.

"Is it?" I said. "I thought my birthstone was Topaz."

"Well, there seem to be a couple for each month. But Tanzanite is definitely one of the birthstones for December."


...

"My birthday's in November."



Yeah, he swore a lot. And then he admitted that the flowers he bought - carnations - he'd thought were roses, and hadn't realised until he got home and read the label.

And then one of the candles which he'd put the used match in flared up and singed the cabinet we'd inherited from my Granny.
It wasn't a perfect proposal by any means, but that's what made it perfect for us. That, and a dozen tiny cowboy hats make anything okay.


Do any of you have funny proposal stories? Did you handle it well? Did anything go wrong?