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the renegade bride

“the wild, wacky adventures of a bridal industry insider +newlywed + new homeowner and (in practice)renovation-maven. Whee!”

February 22, 2010 Well, while we’re talking about getting engaged…

You have maybe been sitting over there wondering what kind of engagement ring it is that i’m desirous of, and let me tell you, you have picked the perfect day for such an inquiry, because it’s very cloudy outside and I am bored and need to not work and waste time looking at engagement rings.

Let me share some prerequisite/backstory facts for you so that we can all be on the same page and smile and carry on happily together. One, I am interested in a non-diamond engagement ring. I don’t have any lofty concerns about the blood diamonds or the ridiculousness of the diamond trade, it’s just that I want something different and unique. I’m kind of going after the e-ring where people say “oh, that’s interesting” where here interesting means very strange, odd, uncharacteristic, and possibly ugly. If you think my ring is ugly, then you can just go away now, because I’m not interested in your criticism and hating on me. Just kidding, you can hate all you want. I’m thirty now, which means I can take criticism and intolerance from haters.

Anyway, enough about how I’m mature and such, instead of a diamond, I’m going after a sapphire. Why a sapphire, you ask? Why, let me pull out my handy powerpoint pres on why. Not really, but I have an interesting story to tell about sapphires as e-rings.

Back in the 13th century, the procedure of giving an engagement ring became more popular. The concept started by the Greeks (it was called a Betrothal ring, but it can kinda be thought of as “promise ring”) and then it was popularized by the Romans as a sign of intention to marriage. When Pope Innocent the III mandated that couples intending to marry have a requisite engagement period, people gave rings more freely to show they were planning on getting hitched.  A common stone given during this time was a sapphire– because people back then thought that the stone became a different color after the exchange, then it’d show that person was unfaithful or untrue.  It sounds crazy, but come on, up until the 19th century some people thought witches floated when tossed into water.

In the 14 -15th centuries, the wealthy of Europe consistently showed intention to marry with the use of engagement rings, with a few key stones used: the Ruby, Emerald, Diamond, and Sapphire– with sapphires favored the most because they symbolize eternal love and fidelity. In the 18th century, a French author wrote the story “Le Sapphire Merviellence,” about a magical color changing Sapphire.  The story was pretty famous, so a lot of people bought into the Sapphire craze and through the Victorian era, sapphires were the main primary stone for an engagement ring. Thanks to the Natural Sapphire Company for these compelling facts.

The symbolism and meaning of the sapphire (true love and constant fidelity) made me think it was a very special stone. That combined with the sapphire’s hardness made it an even more logical choice. When I first decided I wanted a sapphire, I wasn’t sure what color sapph. I wanted…they come in a great variety of stones, from blue to pink to yellow.

A favorite color sapphire, the Padparadscha Sapphire from Sri Lanka:

My favorite colors are green & yellow. I love yellow, it matches my disposition, and green is a color I go to a lot with design and as a balance effect. I think it’s beautiful. With a lot of soul searching, I decided I wanted a yellow sapphire. It’s a happy choice.

I’ll save more for later posts about the style & such that I’m looking for– just to keep you on the edge of your seat and full of suspense. Until then, tell me what you think of my awesome yellow sapphire choice.

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February 22, 2010 Would it be odd or lovely?

Last night, FFI and I were sitting on the deck, cooking dinner and enjoying the sunset. We were conversing about a myriad of things, most involving the I.W. (Imaginary Wedding) and how much it was going to cost. He said “come up with an ideal budget” and I told him said budget, to which he almost spit out his adult beverage in shock. My budget was not extreme, in fact, it’s the average: 30K. He has a huge, rambly, Catholic family. I have a less than massive family. We have friends. All together, we think our guest list will be in the upper 100s to early 200s range. That’s a lot of people. Too many people, in my opinion, but I’m just *full* of opinions, as you all know (and hopefully love!)

The guest list is another issue entirely. Whilst discussing the ins and outs of our guest list (and if our reception venue can handle the influx of happy revelers), we started talking about “who’s gonna do XYZ”. We’re both wedding industry pros, and it’s been an oft passed around joke that we’ll already know who to hire before our wedding day, and in some areas of planning, that is true. There are certain professionals we’d love to work with, and we have them on our short lists. But the flip side of the coin is that several of those professionals are personal friends, which makes it hard– do you ask them to be a part of your wedding by sharing in the celebration as a guest, or as a vendor.

Our issue is that we don’t want friends feeling shortchanged or like they have to work at our event. This is particularily true of the person we’d like to hire as our Month of Coordinator– we love this lady because she’s fabulous, has awesome attention to detail, and we know she’d rock as our main go -to person wedding month. But, she’s a friend of ours– and we’re worried that in asking her to wear a “pro” hat we’re going to end up making her feel like she’s not as valuable as a friend– a thing we most def. don’t want to do.

This produces the all-important question: when considering hiring friends as professionals for your wedding day, would it be odd ,or would it be lovely? Jury’s out on this one for us.

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February 21, 2010 Hello, Crazy

So last night I had some friends over and made dinner. With dinner, I had some awesome wine, and once I finished my first glass I started to feel all chatty– a characteristic I have when not influenced by wine, but amplified after one glass. I shared with my amigos that I’d started this blog.  The couple has been dating less time than me and my amore (I have yet to come up with some cute and catchy anon-name for my guy, but I’m sure I’ll come up with something darling, just you wait, right now let’s just call him FFI– future fiance), but all in all I felt they seemed to think my little renegade blog was pretty cool, or at least a novel idea. The chick in the relationship waited until my guy went out to flip something on the grill to ask the requisite “when do you think it’s going to happen!” and I told her that I thought it was soon, but then again, I’m super optimistic and anticipate engagement at every. single. possible. turn.

She said she’d chat more about it later with me, but later on in the evening she shared how they’d pretty much laid the foundation for their future nuptuals, down to budget and proposed location. A month or so into their dating she’d told me what kind of ring she wanted, so I felt like I’m not alone. If you know it’s a meant to be kind of thing, you just know. It’s like those romantic movies where the title characters fall in love and tell their friends “you just know!” or “when you know, you know,” and seriously, while it’s a cliche, cliches are cliches because they are true. Facts. It’s honest to God truthiness.

Anyway, her wedding sounds pretty nice. We swapped some details as our intended future husbands kind of looked over our heads in confusion. I can tell my BF really loves me because he supports my every crazy whim. After they left, we talked about their imaginary wedding and our imaginary wedding and it was nice. There’s something about weddings that half imaginary that is totally un-stressful and pleasant. We might be able to go through the whole process with everything in our heads until it lands on our calendar date, and start a new fad because of the ease in our wedding-planning execution. It could happen.

Right?

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February 21, 2010 Some Benefits of Not really Being Engaged (yet): manicures

Given that the holidays just passed and a whole lot of lucky ladies got engaged (yes, I am jealous, ok), I’ve been noticing that all of these recent-to-be-weds are sportin fancy manicures.  I even know one girl that prior to engagement did not ever care about her fingernails, but now is getting regular acryllic apps on her hands. I admire her selfless attention to beauty, however, as a person who has been burned by acryllics (I have gotten entire fingernails ripped off by getting my plastic nails stuck on stuff, along with my painful fear of drilling), I don’t think I could ever be so manicure prone post engagement.

Seeing as I’m sans ring, I guess that makes me lucky. I don’t have to plop down $20 for some manicure that I’ll be sure to ruin by the time I walk to my car and drive away. I just don’t have luck with colored fingernail polish. If I get them painted clear, I feel like I’ve just wasted money and time on a task I could have completed myself.  Also, my hands look like they are one bazillion years old anyway (thanks failed genetic code!). They are all fat fingers and wrinkly skin with not pretty fingernails. I’d show you a picture, but I’m afraid you’ll stop reading, and I have to save that risk for *after* I get a ring, right?

An image similar to my ugly hands, slightly exaggerated.

I’m dreading the “ring shot” pictures that girls do once they get engaged. I’ve already set a few personal ground rules, like how I should use a camera with a lens with a very low depth of field, so that the only thing in focus is the actual ring, and not my skank hands. I’ve also decided I’m too impovershed to get luxury manicures, so I’ll do them myself, with hard work and effort and lots and lots of buffing and clear nailpolish. I’ll set the goal of not biting my nails anymore (a nervous habit perfected in the hour to and fro work commute on the worst interstate known to man), and I’m honestly still kind of considering hiring a hand model for the professional ring shots. I don’t want to look back at those pictures and say, “damn, I’m so old!”

So anyway, I guess I’m kinda lucky that I’m not engaged, because I don’t have to worry about these things. Yet.

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February 20, 2010 back off, blondie

Ok, let me preface this post by saying that I am not delusional enough to think that if you pick some particular *day* to get married then that means that you are the only bride getting married on, say, June 11,2011. I chose that date for sentimental reasons, which follow:

1. It’s our actual anniversary, so we don’t have to worry about that sticky situation of the date-versary vs. the wedding anniversary issue;

2. June is a nice time for weddings, and prime time for maximimum value of indoor & outdoor capable wedding spots:

3. it gave me the 18 months to plan (which i need, see post #1)

Ok, so that being said, I chose this date as the ideal, perfect date for our going-to-happen-regardless-of-engagement-ring having wedding. I started to plan out venues. I had these in my head for a long time, and I chose them for their location, suitability to my particular needs, and cool factor. I want to have a cool wedding, as I am sure you can tell. I’m obviously very cool. I was content feeling like these awesome venues would not be snatched up in the 18 months prior to my June 11 wedding, but then I heard about this chick that was not only planning her day on the same day (which was understandable) but that she kind of was looking at some of my venues (which was tragic).

You may be wondering how I know this– I mentioned that I’m in the wedding industry, so news travels fast. Especially when you’re close friends with wedding planners and other professionals. One of these professionals I kinda let into my little circle of information, i.e. my imaginary planning land in my head– and she told me about this cute little bride that was a date twin and a possible venue snatcher, and I started to freak out. Like, actual panic attack here people– I started to imagine what was going to happen if I had to come up with another venue entirely for my perfect retro-classic reception (more on that later). I needed that venue, like a starving person needs food. Or, like a wedding-aholic needs an engagement ring.

In my snappage, I started to look for this chick on the interwebs. It’s not hard, really, if you know how to throw together a few search strings. Or, if someone you know posts on twitter about their involvement in their wedding. Convienent. I went to this darling bride’s blog and read all about her details, and then I prompltly breathed a sigh of relief: she had chosen another venue for her reception.

My relief was short lived, however.  Once my initial paranoia passed, I started to think about the hundreds of brides getting hitched on my date. Don’t bother commenting on the irony of how it’s not really my date because i’m not engaged yet, I know, ok. I’m crazy. We already established that. Let’s just accept it and move on. And in moving on, can you share just a little in my paranoid concerns for just a moment? I know it’s hard, but I was having a difficult time. I was imagining all the scenarios that involved me having to have my reception in a totally undesirable location. All at once, I started to see the terrible possibilties– like a meat processing plant, or an abandoned, spooky hospital. Or one of those rooms where the people are torchered in SAW movies. I have an overractive imagination, but alas– I was concerned!

Possible creepy warehouses:

So, I did what any self respecting psuedo renegade bride would: I emailed the venue and inqured about my date. No one had booked it, so I went ahead and put a hold on the space. Now, if I don’t get engaged or married, I’ll be a laughingstock, sure, but I can at least throw a really nice pity party on June 11, 2011 with all my closest friends and family, because I’m doing this thing. Moving full steam ahead. If I had one of those little checklists, then i’d have RECEPTION VENUE checked off. And let me tell you something– the permagrin isn’t going anywhere.

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February 18, 2010 screw conventions. and also, tacori commercials

This whole thing really started when I was watching tv and I saw one of those commercials about from some rent to own company, where you apparently can furnish your entire home, have a big screen tv, multiple compters etc etc with no credit, no job, and with–  to quote the commercial — “no problem!” Who knew, right? It’s like the car lots that tell you if you have a job and a hundred bucks, you two could drive off the lot with a brand new car.

Obviously, these commercials are targeted to the poor suckers out there that cannot get an entire home furnished by rent to own, or the people that show up at the car lot with their job and $100 dollars only to learn that that will get them a really crappy car from the late to mid 80s that doesn’t really even work. Maybe, if it’s a good day, it will be an early model Saturn. The kind where everything about the car was made of a high-density plastic, where the ceiling fabric is collapsing in and the radio only picks up with AM. Lucky you, right?! Lucky you.

Despite my knowing “how the world works” and that no one gets something for nothing, and that no one is lucky enough to get a brand new car or 52 inch tv with no credit check, I started to wonder if I could apply the same rules of the car lot and rent to own place to my relationship. I started coming up with my own little commercial (mostly an internal dialogue, mind you) that included the fact that I did have A) a long term, committed boyfriend, B) hopeful promise of a forthcoming engagement, and C) the fact that I was 30 (more on that, later, I promise)

No Ring? No problem! If you have a committed, long-term boyfriend then YOU TOO can envision life as a bride. A future married person, a woman dressed in white, a beautiful vision on her beautiful, perfect day. It could happen. right?

I’d been batting around this idea for a little while (ok, honestly, like three days) and then today I was driving into work and I heard the stupid Tacori commercial.

Have you heard this? It’s something like some chick that is saying “the next time I hold his hand, Iwant to be wearing a Tacori”. Of course you do, you selfish bitch! There you are, planting stupid seeds into people’s minds, making every poor sap like me want and long and need for said Tacori, and you’re basically gloating about how you know your boyfriend is going to buy you one. I’m not kidding, nor am I exaggerating– the girl goes on about how he gets her, her family, her values, and that obviously means he’s going to drop a few K in the investment in their future, her engagement ring.

I’d had it. After months and months of people asking (more on that later) or the people who already presumed we are married– the ones that say “oh, how long have you guys been hitched” or, “where did you honeymoon?” Or the bastards that asked “oh, did your BF ask you the big question over Christmas?” Obviously not, because I have no freaking RING on my finger, and certainly not a TACORI.

So, here I am. Angry, right? yes. It’s been almost three years, I’m thirty for God’s sake, and I’m dying over here. I mean, each day is one step closer to death for me. My youth, sadly, is over. I need something to live for, and that should be the prospect of marriage and babies. I kept saying to myself, “i’ll be patient. I can wait this out.” but then, waiting it out became harder, and harder, and harder…until I started to foam at the mouth over weddings. It makes matters worse that I work in the wedding industry– I eat, sleep, and breathe weddings. Weddings are my thing. And I am ringless, a leper in a world of happy married newlyweds or soon to be parents.

I had no choice. I had to take matters into my own hands, and that meant that I had to go ahead and start planning this wedding. Otherwise, it will be a total last minute thing and I’ll be upset and miserable.  Can you blame me, really? Can you? This blog will detail my every move as I plan this shindig on the side, renegade style.

Now, the big question remains, amd I crazy?

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