Mind the Gap

I love my engagement ring. We searched long and hard to find the perfect setting, and Mr. C found a gorgeous center stone and it is absolutely perfect.

The problem, then, is that I never really considered what our wedding band would look like. It certainly did not even enter my mind when I was choosing an e-ring setting. I guess this is why I am terrible at chess.

Last night was Mr. C and I's one year "engageversarry". We've been meaning to go look at wedding bands for awhile, and felt like this was a good excuse. So, we went down to our jeweler's new shop (no more mall!) and took a look at what they had.

Within 15 minutes, Mr. C had picked out the ring he wanted. He walked in saying "white gold, dad ring." Aka, very simple. He ended up picking out one that was a little fancier than I'd expected him to, but it looks great. White gold, brushed in the middle, shiny on the rim on each edge. This isn't the exact ring, but it is pretty close in looks:

via Zales

For me, it was a little harder. In fact, we didn't make a decision, and I feel kind of awful. What I didn't realize when I picked my band was that, because I wanted a low profile and Mr. C gave me this beautiful, not minuscule diamond, the only way to have a flush wedding band is to custom order. Which, as you can imagine, is not cheap.

Without doing a custom order, my only options are to have a gap between my engagement ring and my wedding band. For illustration purposes, here's an image found on a Weddingbee post all about the dreaded (or not so dreaded, for some) gap.

via Mrs. Major on Weddingbee

 Her engagement ring is very, very similar to my own, except my baguettes don't taper out. There are some women who love the gap, and intentionally pick rings where it is highlighted. For me, I really am not thrilled with the idea. But, I think budget wise, it is something I'm going to have to get used to. I'm going to head back to the jewelry shop tonight or tomorrow to look some more, as I know it isn't something I'm going to be able to stop thinking about until I do some more trying on.

What do you think, gap, or no gap?

One Week Tomorrow!

Tomorrow marks one week of engagement. It is crazy, really. I look down at this sparkly shimmer on my left hand, and this goofy grin spreads across my face.

Who wouldn't get a little giddy staring at this all day?

Honestly, the whole idea of a wedding hasn't really sunk it. Right now I seem to be enthralled with the idea of spending the rest of my life with Mr. C. He puts up with my goofiness and bad puns on the good days, and my grumpiness and crying on the bad.

This week, he had a little bit of both. I don't know if it was the rush of everything from the week, the fact that it was a stressful week at work, or some homesickness, but the whole week was a little rough. Most of my family and friends are back in Iowa or spread across the country. And although I've made some really wonderful friends here (like the fabulous Lady A) it is tough not having my people any closer.

One of the things Mr. C and I have discussed a bit, not really in any depth yet, is finding ways to meet some new people. What I'd really love are friends who we can go out and do cheap and/or healthy things with. At this point, about all we do with other people is bbq at various friends houses or meet up at for dinner or drinks. And while that is really great, and I am happy for us to keep doing it. But, we are now saving money to pay for a wedding, and we have been working for awhile to live a healthier lifestyle. Most of my parents friends are people they played softball or volleyball with. And while Mr. C is not a volleyball player, it would be nice to even individually be able to do something like that. Eh, I'll keep thinking on it.

No real wedding plans at this point. Eventually, we'll sit down with our respective families and talk budget. We are definitely not expecting them to contribute at all, but if they'd like to we certainly won't say no. Whether or not they will is definitely going to be a factor in the type of wedding we'll have, and how soon we'll have it. If it is just us, we'll probably wait awhile to save up the money to do what we'd like. Who knows! Stay tuned for more updates!

Quarter 2, 2013: Part Two

We left the museums and drove back along main street, along the other side of the lake to Glimmerglass State Park. Last year, at graduation, my class and many of our parents had a barbecue there, and that shelter is where we headed. We pulled in to park, Mr. C mentioned I probably didn't need my purse, and then grabbed a backpack out of the trunk of the car.

We got out of the car and walked a bit around the side of the lake until we found a beautifully secluded spot with a picnic table and an amazing view of the lake. We sat down, and after a minute Mr. C reached down into his backpack and pulled out a scrapbook. To preface this, we have been together now for one year and seven months. His first message to me was on October 11th, and we became an "official" couple on November 5th. On November 20th, we took our first trip together down to Washington D.C. In February, we went down to New York City. While we were there we had a couple of glasses of wine and he, a bit tipsy, confessed that he knew then how he would propose to me.

Me, with what is now the most precious thing I have: The Scrapbook

It turns out that, beginning with that trip barely a month after we'd met for the first time, he began saving the evidence of our relationship; tickets, museum admission pins, receipts, menus, all sorts of things. Last summer, while I was in Nebraska, he convinced some of our friends to drive down to Cooperstown to take pictures to use in the scrapbook, that far in advance.

So that brings us to the present. He put all of these beautiful memories and mementos together into one book. Our first Valentine's Day I left him post-it notes all around his room telling him why I loved him, and he not only kept them and put them in the book, but wrote response notes and used them as the anchor throughout the book. I could go on and on and on in detail about every amazing page of this scrapbook, but I will instead show you a few of the highlights. 

Page one of the scrapbook, the transcript of our first conversation together. Reading this, and the other messages we sent at this stage, I am so happy with how genuinely "us" it all is. We were very much ourselves, right from the start. 

This is the page for the second half of our first date, when all of my classmates crashed our date :) The most wonderful piece here is the picture in the far left. It is a screenshot of our friend K's phone the night of our first date. It might be hard to read, but the text from Mr. C read's "Ok this girl is awesome." K got that text message and decided to save a screeshot of it. How wonderful is that?

Turning each of the pages was turning to another part of our relationship. Graduation, travel, all of the amazing things we've been able to do so far. I realized that we were near the end of the book, took a deep breath, and finally turned to the last page.

Mr. C untied the ring, set the book aside, and knelt down on one knee in front of me. He took my hand, and asked me to be his wife. I think I said something along the lines of "yes please" and we just stayed there, holding onto each other with our faces next to each other for awhile. I realized it probably wasn't super comfortable for his knee, so pulled him up onto the picnic table with me. That's when we walked through the book together, this time with him telling me the background and work he put into each one of the pages. Seriously, he put so much thought into it.

Once we'd pulled ourselves together a bit, we made sure to document the occasion properly.

Pardon the freckles, but I love this picture. You can see just how gorgeous the lake was, plus my amazing new ring :) And really I kind of love my freckles. When my grandpa saw my grandma across a room for the first time turned to his buddy, and said "I'll take the one with the freckles." 

Once we'd taken plenty of photos, we loaded back into the car and headed back home. We called my family and let them know the good news (which they all knew already, bah!) before we got home, vegged for a few minutes to take the edge off of a busy day in a lot of sun, and changed quickly for dinner. We headed to one of our favorite nice restaurants, Provence. Our dear friend Lady A had called them and ordered us a bottle of wine, which was waiting for us at the table. We had an amazingly delicious meal. If you're ever there, always always order the risotto. We've had a couple of the different ones, and have never been disappointed.

There was one more piece that all together made the day really one of the most perfect ones of my life. Mr. C has been saving a bottle of wine (a 1995 Bordeaux) for a few years, just for this occasion. We opened it, a bit apprehensively at first, but it was quite nice. Very leathery, with a very interesting mouth feel. It really was a wonderful way to cap off an amazing day, and the start of this next piece of our lives together. 

Quarter 2, 2013: Part One

So, as of today, Mr. C and I are engaged. I had a hunch it was coming today, as he took the day off of work and was very concerned about the weather. All of my suspicions were confirmed last night when Lady A came over to take me to the craft store, and instead took me to get my nails done so they woul look pretty. That's another story for another time, but it meant I knew what was coming. It also meant I had the chance to run to Kohls to pick out a cute new outfit, which you'll see in the photos tomorrow.

A little sign hanging in the lady's room at Doubleday

We drove over to Cooperstown, home of my alma mater (is it still an alma mater if it was for grad school?) and the location of our first date. On the way down, we finished off the audiobook for the first Harry Potter book, and then we both had the little flourish at the end stuck in our heads. We kicked off the visit with a trip back to Doubleday Cafe, home of our first date, as well as a few other good memories.

On our first date, our next stop was the local pub Cooley's, where we were crashed by my fairly ineberated classmates and friends. As we were there at just before noon today, we decided to pass on the beer and just stroll by. Turns out my favorite restaurant in Cooperstown, Depot Deli, relocated to prime downtown space. The owner saw me walking by, recognized me as an old favorite, and came running out to say hello. Reminded me of why I loved living in a small town. So, passing the pub, we instead stopped at a new frozen yogurt place and split a Red Velvet/Chocolate with strawberries and brownie bits. We also stopped off at Stagecoach Coffee and picked up a cup o joe for Mr. C, then wandered down to the lakefront park to just sit and enjoy being together there for awhile.

View of  "Glimmerglass" from the lakefront park

After we finished off our snacks, we drove over to the house that I lived in when Mr. C and I met. My old landlords are basically my surrogate aunt and uncle, and so we dropped in on them and caught up for awhile. It is always so wonderful to see them, and I'm so glad we were able to catch up with them.

Once we'd said goodbye, we drove over to the museums. We hadn't been to the Fenimore in awhile, so wandered through some of their new exhibits. We especially enjoyed the highlights from the American painters. We also made a stop at "our bench", where we have planned several of our trips together. We still haven't managed the last one we planned on the bench (to Montreal) but now we're also planning our trip to Disneyworld :) We finished off our time at the art museum with a glass of wine on the veranda, which was very very nice. The weather had said it was supposed to storm all day, and instead we had lovely scattered clouds and bursts of sunshine.

We finished off our wine, made a quick duck into the library to check out my first ever exhibit, then dashed over to the Farmers' Museum for a ride on the carousel. It is one of my favorite things to do, and Mr. C always puts up with it. I ride Merry the Labrador Retriever, which leaves Mr C on Benny the Brook Trout. He rides along with a smile on his face, and I even got a kiss mid-ride :)

Tomorrow...the rest of the story!