Wedding bands, the second: Big Spoon

The trend in men's wedding bands seems to be away from gold and other malleable alloys and toward more durable but non-adjustable materials like carbon fiber and tungsten. Thus, it's important to get your finger sized well initially or to order from a vendor with a generous return policy.

Fortunately, I found the latter, as I failed to do the former, despite three attempts at getting sized. As I looked for wedding rings, I realized that I liked the look of the carbon fiber inlays, but I still wanted a diamond in the ring. At a regular jewelry store, such a ring was going to be at least $350, which would have almost blown our entire ring budget. The diamonds in the rings those stores were selling also seemed either to overwhelm the ring or be so small as to be afterthoughts. I didn't want to feel like I was wielding a superheroic ring of power, but I also didn't want to feel like one good sneeze would dislodge the diamond from its setting.

I found a ring with a diamond that was just the right size for about half the price. I ordered the average of the three ring sizes I'd been quoted, only to find that it was too large. The vendor was quite accommodating and allowed us to exchange the ring only for the cost of return shipping. I'm happy with the ring, but I hope my fingers don't grow or shrink. If they do, I'll need an entirely new ring, as it can't be resized.

130 Days Update

In 130 days, I'll be walking down a little brick path on my Daddy's arm to my groom. In the meantime, I have a ton of little details to attend to!

First, an update on my wedding band: it worked! About two weeks ago, I found a fabulous deal on a diamond wedding band, which I talked about here. I dropped both the band and my engagement ring off at Wholesale Jewelers on Saturday. I really hated not having my engagement ring for a few days, but boy, was it worth it! The thing is, my diamond was not set properly. Having the wedding band sized was a great opportunity for me to ask the store to reset my engagement ring. It looks SO MUCH better that it's almost unbelievable.

The total cost of my wedding band including sizing is $83.52 - I know that I am going to love wearing these two together for a long, long time!

Next up, I have completed our wedding invites! I have one or two more pieces to print, but it's relatively minor. The invitation suite is three parts plus an envelope: invitation, RSVP postcard and an information/map card. And I trimmed them ALL by hand (that's called "glutton for punishment" folks) Would you like a sneak peek of our invitation suite? It's the RSVP postcard ... I'll have to photograph better when I show you the real deal.

I'm hosting a "Crafts & Cocktails" party in three weeks and I'm so excited about it! A few of my girlfriends are coming over to help me assemble the invitations (and hopefully some other things as well, like wedding wands and shower invites!) It's a little soon, but the more I have off my plate before July, the more time I have for other projects!

Our Engagement Story

For the better part of our relationship, Big Spoon and I have been talking about a future together. Seven months have gone by and I can say now without doubt that we have experienced a whirlwind romance. We had only been dating two weeks before we decided to date exclusively; we had only been dating three months when we booked our trip to New York City and began looking at engagement rings. We were a six-month-old couple when we became engaged.

From the outside, everything seems to have happened fast, but to us ... well, let's just say that we had very few doubts that we had met our match. I can't remember exactly when we began talking about being married and I can barely remember a time in which I wasn't thinking that this man would become my future.

Our engagement began with a "misunderstanding." A few weeks before I met Big Spoon, the Nashville Opera performed Mozart's Don Giovanni. I missed it for a family function and I posted this disappointment online. When Big Spoon read this, he began to form a plan in which he fulfilled my dream of seeing a Mozart opera. What he didn't know at the time is that it wasn't this particular opera I longed to see, but any Mozart opera. In the end, its all very cute and incredibly sweet: he booked a trip around the Metropolitan Opera's opening of Don Giovanni. We spent five nights in New York City (four of which he carried my ring in his pocket).

On Monday, April 13, after days of rain in NYC, we finally made it to Central Park. By this point in the trip, I was off my guard and assumed Big Spoon was waiting for the opera to propose. We had just visited the American Museum of Natural History, and before going back to the hotel to ready ourselves for the opera, we took a stroll through Central Park.

It was a very short stroll. Just down the path and around the bend, there is a lovely spot where weeping willows overlook the water and one can see the skyline far off in the distance. Here, we stopped to take a picture. Big Spoon stopped a couple walking and asked them to take it for us. I went to stand by the fence and smile, but when I looked over, Big Spoon had taken a knee. He actually prefaced that move, but once I figured out what was happening, whatever he said was lost to my memory.

Sort and sweet, he asked me to marry him. And of course, I said yes. It was perfect.

The poor lady he handed the camera to was in more shock than I was and unfortunately, did not record the entire proposal as Big Spoon had intended, but that's okay. I waited until the couple wished us well and left, then I asked Big Spoon to put my ring on for me.

My ring is better than I had imagined; a beautiful solitaire in a white gold, four-pronged, cathedral setting and flat band. It even has bevel set diamonds on the front and back sides.

The opera was long but thrilling. My toe bled on the way back to the hotel. I gave away those shoes ... and we have a fairy-tale engagement story.

The Ring, Part III: My precious

Though we didn't emerge with a ring she went ga-ga over, we learned a number of things about her preferences through the various trips.

1. A simple flat band works better for her than a more ornate band. The sparkly may be nice for a ring to wear out on the town occasionally, but it's both too distracting and ostentatious for an everyday ring for her.
2. Cathedral seems to be her preferred setting, and a round brilliant cut catches her eye best.
3. It's a rare four-prong setting that will allow the shape of the round brilliant diamond to show through.
4. She needs a stone with at least an SI inclusion grade diamond; she would unconsciously rub her finger along the milky I grade diamonds, as if to clean them!

From our travels, I'd recommend going to at least five stores together and getting some idea of your future bride's ring preferences. Just go to see what catches her eye, keeping in mind what your budget is. If she sees something that's waaaay outside your price range, don't be afraid to keep it in mind - but also recognize that you'll have to figure out a way to compromise something.

So, where do I go from here? Well, I doubt I was able to get her dream ring, but I hope it's something she likes all the same. I ended up with a custom order that I picked up on Valentine's Day. Certain compromises had to be made, but I hope it has the right mix of contemporary and vintage features to keep her smiling about it for decades. Guess we'll see in New York, won't we?

The Ring, Part II: You'd better shop around

We visited at least three different stores after dispensing quickly with the mall-based jewelers, whose diamonds were far too pricey and whose relatively simplistic or excessively gaudy settings and bands failed to please either of our eyes. We first went to Wiggins' Jewelers, whose staff was very helpful and gave us a number of wedding-related publications. They had one nice cathedral setting solitaire and a good vintage setting that we liked...somewhat. However, the cathedral solitaire felt a bit too plain, and the vintage looked too gaudy when actually on her hand.

Our next stop was Wholesale Jewelers, which had a number of attractive pieces. One that really caught both our eyes was a one-of-a-kind princess cut diamond with some small inset diamonds and subtle filigree on the setting. Alas, it was more than three times our budget - but at least it gave me an idea of the kind of setting Little Spoon liked best.

We rounded off our engagement ring viewing spree at The Shane Company. There, we saw a couple of solitaires that were pretty enough, and seeing their offerings convinced her that she liked having some additional stones in the setting to augment the main diamond. However, none of them struck her fancy quite like the one at Wholesale Jewelers.

The Ring, Part I: What a girl wants

Perhaps the biggest anxiety I've had about the whole wedding shebang so far has been the selection of her engagement ring. From the start, Little Spoon has shown tastes that mix contemporary and vintage (e.g., 1930s) styles. From what she's told me, she likes the clean lines and flat bands of contemporary styles, but she's also partial to the tasteful ornateness of vintage jewelry.

Finding a ring that satisfies both tastes is a difficult proposition, especially when combined with her love of round cut stones with a six-prong setting (to highlight the roundness of the stone; a four-prong setting seems more standard). Oddly enough, most of the more vintage-style settings seem to use princess cut stones, which we both agree look too boxy on her slender finger. At least she likes white gold, which seems to be the material en vogue right now.