part great news, part back to the drawing board

We had two fabulous pieces of news yesterday. First, Mr. UB is getting a promotion in 3 weeks. Woo hoo!! He'll be working long hours, but at least he won't be on overnights, so there's a slight chance that I'll get to see him, at least occassionally. Second, His Parents are going to be able to give us more than they originally thought to help pay for this wedding thing, which is a huge relief. Even with all my wheeling, dealing & scheming, we were coming perilously close to bumping our heads against the budget ceiling. How close? Let's just say that my get-a-crapload-of-pizzas idea was back on the table. But more on that later.

We picked up our rings yesterday. They're lovely, and exactly what we wanted. My photography skills, on the other hand, well ...

That's Mr. UB's ring. It's a tungsten band with a diamond embedded in it. I was trying to take one of those pictures where the shadow of the rings looks like a heart. Apparently, I need a stronger light source. D'oh!

There's both of them, in the same place I photographed my engagement ring. Kind of soft-focus. Totally on purpose. Really.

That's both rings just sitting on the book from the earlier pic ... yes, Shakespeare. Much Ado, to be specific. No, not Romeo & Juliet -- that didn't end well, remember?

My sub-par picture-taking aside, we're thrilled with them. And the jeweler we used, J. Rothstein, couldn't have been nicer, or easier to work with. They took the materials we brought them in trade, and are still working on selling some of it.

Another wonderful discovery that happened this morning was Cake & Art. They were recommended by our not-really-our-wedding-planner, Ania (she can't do our new date, but she's continuing to share her resources. LOVE her). It's a tiny little shop in West Hollywood that's been there for 30+ years. Mark (one of the 2 cake gurus there) spent about an hour with us, looking at my magazine tear-outs, flipping through their catalogue, and sketching up a basic outline for us. He asked many more questions than we were prepared to answer, and was very sweet about our sleepy-eyed stammers & shrugs in place of actual responses. (I rehearsed until 1:30 a.m. last night, and the Mr. is still on his farked-up sleep schedule.) He came up with an idea that will incorporate several ideas from the rest of our decor, and suggested cake flavors that will compliment the tastes in our dinner menu. Hello! Are you kidding me?!? Oh, and the cake was super-yummy -- enough to snap me out of my Morning Grouchy Phase. (Note to self: cupcakes for breakfast cure that.)

The best part: they don't charge by the serving. I haven't found anyone else who makes wedding cakes who doesn't do that. They quoted us $380 for a 4-tiered cake. I was ready to slap down cash right on the spot, but Mr. UB wants to go eat more free cake. I suspect we'll do both. (Don't let their admittedly weird website put you off -- go and talk to them. I dare you not to love them.)

I'm very pleased to have the cake business sorted, because we got an estimate from the caterer we thought would be on the cheap side. They're quoting us almost $4500. Ouch. So: who wants pepperoni? Seriously, we could be the Pizza Wedding. That's cool, right? Sigh ... probably not. But it's time to start poring over the estimate one line-item at a time, and seeing what else we can figure out. I've never attempted to feed 110 people before ... will someone out there kindly remind me not to do it again? Thank you.