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.

goodies in the mail, and other things that make me happy

I am officially a fan of Etsy. I love working with the vendors on there, because they are so accomodating and helpful. When I wasn't sure what color seam binding to get, I got this:
from here ... which I used like this:
to make these:

Also on Etsy, I've been eyeing one of these:
which I found in this shop. But I wasn't sure which color would best match my dress. I asked the seller to describe them, and she did better than that:
This stuff makes me so darned happy. It's rare to get anything in the mail that's not a bill or crap advertisements. And both times, I looked at the return address on the envelope and thought, "Who the heck sent me this?!?", only to be made all smiley by the prettiness inside.

Another thing I got in the mail, which was less mysterious as an envelope because it had the company's logo on it, was these:
I read about them on Budget Savvy Bride's blog, where she raved about them. And while they're not exactly fancy wedding china, our beach party is hardly going to be a formal affair. Plus, I like how eco-friendly they are. So far, I'm pretty impressed with the company's prompt & friendly customer service.

Other random happy-making things: I've started rehearsals for the play I booked. I'm going to be playing Faye Dunaway, Cher, Kim Basinger, and a couple of free-floating bimbos. We're all having way too much fun with this show. (Side note: to the guy who tried to chat me up yesterday by asking if I was an actress ... what gave me away? The fact that I was holding a script? Or that I was walking toward the door of a theater? Nothing gets past you, does it Sherlock?)

I found this material at a sidewalk sale:

$5 for the whole bolt. I think I'm going to make table runners from it. Or rather, I'm going to ask my friend Meg, who can sew, to help me make table runners from it.

My fiance makes me very freakin' happy. He just does.

I just found out that our rings are in. We're going to pick them up Thursday morning. The jeweler managed to sell $374 worth of the materials we gave them, to help offset the cost. Yay, offsetting any cost!

Oh, and this. This makes me very happy:
Booya.

we went shopping ...

We went shopping today for our wedding bands. It was a spur of the moment, "I'm 2 minutes from your apartment getting my windshield repaired (stoopid truck) and I know your job interview isn't until 2:00" kind of thing.

I knew that he had the Ghost of Turban Man -- almost a full ounce of gold. I had Stuff From Mom -- a ring & earrings that my dad gave me when I was a kid (they'd lived in her jewelry box, just waiting for me to need them) and the remnants of Mom's wedding ring from my dad. Which apparently has donated all but one of its diamonds to other causes over the years. Whatev's. We had gold and we had a stone. We were off to the jewelers.

Mr. UB found a lovely little shop just blocks from his home. They made my engagement ring, so I liked them already. And they're going to take all of our materiél, which should total between 1/3 to 1/2 of the cost of the wedding bands we picked out.

This is weird. And not just because the Jeweler Lady got all teary-eyed about "Gran Torino" when we were talking about movies. But because we keep taking all of these little steps that drive the reality of "We're Getting Married" home for each of us. For him, it was while on the drive home from the venue we found in Malibu. For me, it was handing over the teensy sapphires my dad got me as a kid + the remnants of my parents' wedding ring, for a Much Higher Purpose.

"There are more things in heaven & earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

... or something like that.

(Image on Flickr here.)

everything goes better with doggies

There's no way we're going to do this. First, neither of us currently has a dog. Second, there's a whole host of reasons why The Cat is not a good candidate for this: a) Mr. UB kindly tolerates her at my apartment, but would prefer to leave her off the guest list, b) The Cat intermittently hates us both, and c) cats don't do this crap, just to name a few.) But I simply cannot resist posting this anyway:

from ReggieAna, via KenzieKate.

a "before" photo

I mentioned a few posts back that my engagement ring, which could not be more perfect, nor could I love it more ... was born from "less than impressive" stock. To wit: when Mr. UB & I were talking about getting engaged in the abstract, he asked his parents if there was a family ring he could give to me when he proposed. (I was instantly on board with this idea.) His Mom hesitated, then said, "Well ... there is a ring, but I don't think it's something you'd want to use ..." We replied that hey! -- we're both open-minded! She should send the ring, and we'd absolutely consider it. Cut to a box arriving in the mail ... Mr. UB opens it, stares into it for a moment, then asks, "Hey, J__, will you marry me?" I glance at what he's holding and say, "Um ... no."

Now before you think I'm shallow, behold: Yep -- it's Turban Man, in all his glory. Apparently it's something his grandfather acquired before/during WW2, in India. And as funny as it looks today, the materials are the real deal. So his beady little eyes became the outer 2 stones on my ring, and the bindi in the middle of his forehead became my center stone.

Personally, I now think we need some zircons to resurrect Turban Man.

finally!

I have not only finally managed to take a pic of my engagement ring that isn't blurry, out of focus, or invisible behind the reflection of the flash ... but I've taken one that actually made me go, "oooh -- pretty." So I'm going to post it bigger than usual.(If I could figure out how to make this the header for this blog, I would.) You can get a better look at the stones here: and at the setting here:Designed by Mr. UB himself, with the help of the jeweler just around the corner from his house. Three of the stones are from a ring that belonged to his grandfather, which sounds very romantic. And it is, until you see what that ring looked like. I promise to post a pic as soon as he remembers to send it to me. We called him Turban Man.