Wedding Dress Fever!

i have it. wedding. dress. fever.


i went up to duluth this past weekend and tried on three dresses with my mother. i thought it was really rather awkward - all the under garments - the weight of the dresses - wearing something that fancy! it was still fun though....


when i got back home i looked up a few local wedding shops and put them on a list to check out. tuesday night i found myself in one of them - alone - having a blast! i tried on a ton of dresses and put a few on my favorites list. then today i went to another shop and made a list of dresses i wanted to try on there and then made an appointment for tomorrow (they closed at six tonight and i didn't get there until quarter after 5).


so....tomorrow i'm having my bridesmaid kristin tag along with me to try on more dresses and have her give some feedback. oh - and on top of that i made an appointment with yet another shop for this saturday afternoon. unfortunately the friend i wanted to bring will be unavailable so it looks as though i'm going it alone.....but that's okay. i'll narrow down the selection and then when my mom comes down we can possibly pick the one!


one more thing - on the way back from the shop tonight i had to stop by the jewelry store and see how my ring was coming along. he showed me the stones and they looked beautiful! he said the ring should be ready by the end of next week! Eeeee!


the girl who once shunned fancy jewels and big weddings has now turned into the shiny sparkly princess....


i thought i was immune to wedding fever - turns out i was oh-so-wrong!




p.s. i would have included a few pictures of some dresses i like but i don't want chris to have any idea what i'll be wearing :) if you're curious just e-mail me and i'll send ya the pics :)

Story of the Ring (Part 1)

as you probably saw from my 'we're engaged!' post - this is the ring. my beautiful red plastic adjustable ring. i was thrilled to wear it - even if it did confuse people and prompt them to constantly ask me 'where's the diamond??'


even when the ring started leaving a ring of rust on my skin and chris started asking me if i wanted a 'real' ring - i was still in love with it. after a few weeks though i started to reconsider. i knew the plastic one probably wouldn't last the whole year - and while i had been against an engagement ring to start with it was fun having something on your finger to play with and show to people. but what kind of ring?


i knew from the get-go i couldn't go with a diamond. a girl in an anthropology course i took did a lecture on the diamond industry (years before the movie 'blood diamonds' came out) and how it was basically the mafia - i've been morally against them ever since. that and the fact that some people go into SO much debt over a rock...ay yi yi! now i don't mean to diss on those who have diamonds. i have many good friends that have them and respect their choices - i just knew it wasn't for me. so i started searching. i liked the idea of a pearl - very pretty but not something i could wear everyday. so then i started looking around online at antique rings. i didn't plan to buy one online (who knows what kinds of scams there are!) but just wanted to get some ideas....and i discovered white topaz!


same look as a diamond but practically dirt cheap in comparison! chris and i went to one of the big chain jewelry stores (even though their commercials make us throw up a bit in our mouths) just to see if they even had them. no they did not. end of story. i then went to a local jeweler and asked them if they carried any white topaz rings - they said no but immediately followed that with a 'but we would be happy to order the stone for you and customize it!' very nice!


i browsed around and saw a beautiful diamond ring that i (guiltily) loved. it was a round solitaire with little chippy diamonds all around it - all in a white gold setting with a very thin band. perfect! two days later i brought chris in to show him and we asked the jeweler if he could do that setting but with white topaz - he said that he could although he'd have to enlarge it a teensy bit since he couldn't cut the white topaz into such small chips. fine with me! so the ring i'll be getting will look like an almost $5,000 dollar ring but will have only cost an immensely tiny fraction! in fact - the main cost is the white gold and the custom order - the stone itself is very inexpensive. which will be nice if anything every happens to it - which it shouldn't. it's an 8 on the hardness scale and i'm not doing a ton of hard work with my hands (hello - i don't do any work, remember?)


this is an idea of what the ring will look like - although i'll definitely be posting pictures as soon as i get it (about 3 weeks)

so there ya have it - the story of the ring - part 1. i do feel slightly guilty after having gone on to chris about not wanting a ring and then getting one custom made. even more so i feel guilty about perpetuating the whole gotta have a diamond thing. even though i know it's not one people will think it is - i'll just have to advertise it as the great alternative!

deep down though i'm super excited to wear this ring - IT'S SHINY!

oh! i forgot - the first ring - i mentioned how we were pretty sure it wouldn't survive a whole year? well...it broke today! as i was gathering up my bags to leave work it snagged on something and popped right off! needless to say i was super bummed (it was the cherry on top of my already shit-tastic day)! but i found the red rose and plan on super gluing it back on. i'm always gonna keep it even if it's not always on my ring finger :)