The Nest

The aptly named ring saga gets another chapter

Posted Wednesday, July 02, 2008 8:31 AM

I'm going to tell the whole ring saga, please bare with me if you've heard parts before.  I feel the older information is relavent to the new chapter...

On January 26, 2008, my fiance (M) and I went to a trunk show at a local jewelers (we had received a postcard from a bridal show advertizing it).  We went late in the day, towards the end of the sale. (Even though our wedding is August 2nd, we figured we'd get a jump start on something)

A young woman helped us out, she was nice and friendly (we have since learned she is the cousin of the family that runs the store).  I knew that all I wanted was a simple white gold band (my engagement ring is a)super fancy and b)white gold).  The young woman helped me find one that I liked, and then we found a nice ring for M, it was Tungsten and looked beautiful.  The young woman wrote down the ring codes and prices for us on a handwritten recepit, as while they had a computerized system, I believe they were entering all items from the trunk show at once at the end of the sale (we got maybe 20% off on the rings too).  M and I left, having spent a little more than we meant to, but thrilled to have found rings that we loved so much... (of course, this can't be the end of the story)

About 30 minutes after we had arrived home from the sale my cell phone rang.  It was the jeweler (I think the same girl that helped us) and she said that she had mistakenly told M the price of his ring, and in fact, it was about $600 more than we had paid because the ring had a platinum band in it (making the cost of M's ring more than both of them together).  Well, we don't have that kind of money laying around (he was in AmeriCorps this year and I am an admin assistant for a non-profit) but on the other hand, we'd already paid for his ring.  The girl told us we should come in and see rings they have that are very similar.

We went in within the next week and looked at the rings they had in the store.  None of them were what M wanted.  They said the new catalogue was just about to come out and they would call us when they got it, by Wednesday.  Well, Wednesday came and passed, as did a few more, and so we called them.  Now they said they could help us, they thought they had something M would like.  So they showed us a ring with yellow gold, rather than the platinum, and said they could have it made with white gold for us (which would cost almost twice the original prices of M's ring, but they would cover it for us).  Well, this made us happy, M liked how it looked and we thought it would be nice to have my simple, white gold band and his ring as a tungsten with a white gold band in it.  I believe we even said as much to the jewelers...

They said M's new ring would be in in about two weeks and they would call us.  That was mid-March.  In late May, we still hadn't heard from them, but I figured they had the rings, they just didn't call us... that was not the case.  They called M the last week in May and said that his ring had come in with their last shipment, but had not passed their quality control and had been returned but they thought they'd have it in late June.

So, late June comes around, M calls and they said they had just got his ring in!  M was totally excited and rushed us over there the first chance we had (yesterday at lunch).  We got the rings, the jeweler said they could help me with my engagement ring (which has a chipped diamond) and we all said good bye.  Done, right?  Nope.

We get home after work and are gazing at the rings.  M's says it's 18K gold in it, I turn mine around looking for what karat gold mine is, I hadn't even wondered before, but couldn't find a marker.  The only words inside said pd950.  So I punched that into a search engine and guess what?  My simple, white gold band that was all I wanted in my wedding ring, is palladium.

How had this never come to light before?  All I wanted was white gold to match my engagment ring.  I never knew the ring was palladium, I wouldn't have looked at a ring if I knew it was paladium, as all I wanted was white gold.  M called the jewelers (asking if the rings came with papers or something) and we verified it is not white gold.  I was sad, very sad and M felt very bad.  So he called them back, just to say that perhaps the girl that helped us shouldn't be allowed to help at the next trunk sale.  The jeweler's office manager said she'd see what she can do, but... sigh...

So, I'm sad, but at the same time, I feel like a freaky bridezilla.  Is having a palladium ring that bad?  It's not what I wanted and I didn't think that what I wanted was asking for much. No diamonds, no engraving, no sculpting, just a simple, white gold band.  If I couldn't tell the difference, would it matter?  Should I make a big deal about this? 

So, that is the ring saga as it stands... who knows what the next chapter will bring.  I honestly thought it was over when we picked up the rings yesterday.  I'm pretty sure the jewelery store rues the day we walked in their door.  But it does seem to be their errors, not ours...  ugh... they've been very nice to this point, I don't know how the palladium/white gold thing will be handled... time will tell... (and we're running out now that the wedding is only a month away!  Who would have thought when we bought the rings JANUARY 26th that we still wouldn't have it settled on JULY 2nd.)

I hope your ring buying is uneventful.

It's funny when it's not your wedding crap

Posted Tuesday, July 01, 2008 10:46 AM

This weekend M and I went to a friend's outdoor wedding. Believe it or not, it was the first wedding of a my-age friend I've ever been to.  I spent most of my time critiquing her ideas and if I wanted them or not.  For example: aisle runner-no.  They staked it down to the ground, but when people walked on it, it tore from the stakes and people down the aisle were putting their feet on it to stop it... Not worth it.  Yeah, my dress will drag on gravel, but you know what?  I'm going to wear my wedding dress on my wedding day and it's going to get dirty and that's who I am, the girl in the dirty wedding dress.  Next example: Bottled water in coolers-yes.  The caterer we are using wanted to charge like $1 a bottle for bottled water, my friend just had ice filled coolers with bottles in them, I checked prices at Sams at home... $4.00 for 30 bottles (yeah 30).  Good idea!

The wedding started at 2pm, just as a thunderstorm was sweeping past the city, luckily for our friend, the park she chose was on the very edge of the storm and we got a little wet biking there, but the rain held off until the end of the ceremony (at which point the guests booked it to a barn for the receiving line.)  M and I went through the receiving line towards the end (after blowing bubbles for the ring bearer and his little sister for like 20 minutes), and the first people were the groom's parents.  We only know the groom through the bride, so we'd never met his parents before.  I introduced myself as the bride's camp counselor of many years (true) and M got into a converstation with the groom's father and told him we are engaged and getting married soon. 

The groom's mother interjected, "It's not an outdoor wedding is it?"

"Yeah," I replied, "but we have a shelter and a tent."

"You should have it in the morning," said the groom's mother.  "By 2pm it could be raining" she said with a disdainful tone...

"Well, ours is scheduled for 11 and will probably be over by 2 or 3, I think we did a good job planning"

"Yes," said the groom's mother with a approving smirk, "it sounds like you did."

LOL!!! Everyone has to deal with family/wedding crap!!  Makes me feel better.

Another thing I learned at our friend's wedding is to have the bubbles ready.  The bubbles were passed out by the ushers who told us when to blow them, but the bottles were shut with plastic over the top.  Now, I am always planning ahead, I took the plastic off at the beginning of the ceremony and had my bubbles ready when the newly married couple walked back down the aisle.  But, unfortunately, I was about the only one.  As the bride and groom walked past us (we were on the end of a row), I blew a bunch of bubbles at them.  The bride said, "bubbles!" And looked at me kindly.  I know it meant a lot to her.

So, the lesson learned there is: if you are going to have bubbles at your wedding, prepare the bubbles to be blown by the guests before they arrive (or perhaps announce that it's time to blow the bubbles so they can prepare.)

39 days to go...

Posted Tuesday, June 24, 2008 8:40 AM

We had dinner with M's parents last night to discuss the rehearsal dinner.  I was nervous that the crazy-angry-yelly E would show up, but I found the perfect solution that enabled me to discuss the rehearsal dinner like an adult... beer.  Just one, but it made the crazy go away enough to have a decent conversation with M's parents and get a lot of the rehearsal dinner planned.  We're thinking of renting a local park shelter, ordering Qdoba and just practicing the ceremony here in Madison.  Sounds lovely.  I have to call Qdoba today to order the food.

I got an e-mail from Target saying a couple items on my registery have gone out of stock or something like that so I went to update it... apparently people have already bought us things!  Wow... those people are not procrastinators... I feel kind of weird about being able to see what's already been bought (and even weirder not knowing who bought it)... Do all online registries show what people have already purchased?  M said we probably shouldn't look at it, which I agree, aside from updating/adding things... but I still have this curious desire to bring up the list and see what we're getting... a lot...

Time has just flown by, I can hardly believe it'll be only a little more than a month until I'm Mrs B.  Although, as my mom said when we told her we were engaged (in August of '06) "It's about time!" (she later told me she regretted not saying something nicer like: Congratulations! but, whatever mom... you said what you said...)

I'm debating ordering ponchos, cheap, one use ponchos in case of rain. I asked guests to bring rain gear if it looked like rain, but I don't know, are ponchos too cautious or a good idea?  We're trying to figure it out.

Oh yeah, flowers. 

I went to a bunch of florists with my mom on Friday.  Apparently that is not how you get a bridal bouquet.  Each florist (well, probably flower shop cashier) asked when the wedding was and we said August, there was an awkard pause followed by... "of this year?"   Only one of the several stores we went to had their wedding flower person in (before we went, we didn't even know each florist had a wedding flowre person...) The one wedding flower guy, when I said I wanted a bridal bouqet, stared at me... so I said, "that's all I got." He seemed in a hurry and rushed my mom and I to a table and threw some picture books at us.  He then more or less reprimanded me for not having looked at pictures already, saying that i could do so on my own leisure time (and not tie up his table? as we were the only customers in the store...) in fact, he suggested I look at flower pictures on The Knot... had I ever heard of it?  um... yeah.

Any way, I think we're going to buy bulk flowers online from Sam's wholesale club, they have really good prices and no weird looks from wedding snob florists.

Back on the list it goes

Posted Thursday, June 19, 2008 10:50 AM

So M's mom e-mailed me again today re: the rehearsal dinner.  I guess M's Aunt isn't planning it, which means I am... oh goodie.... at least his parent's picked the food place I liked best, but they want to tote the catered food to the park an hour and a half north... mmm... sigh... something else to deal with in the upcoming weeks. 

The worst part is that wedding planning makes me irrationally insane and I can't seem to control it and I don't know why.  I hate hate hate hate hate it.  Chill the F out me.

Seriously not a wedding person.  Please let it all be over. 

Take that one off my list

Posted Tuesday, June 17, 2008 4:18 PM

So after that stressing all day about the weird e-mail from M's mom re: the rehearsal dinner, M's mom called him.  She was a lot nicer to him in the phone call than to me in the e-mail (and nice about me, maybe I caught her at a bad time?)  Any way, from what she said, I believe that M's dad's sister is now going to take over the rehearsal dinner!!!  That's about the best news I've heard in a long long time.  Someone else is going to do something!  Someone competent, a SAHM with event planning experience.  More power to her, go Aunt L!  It's all yours!!

Other than that there have been no further wedding planning developments, other than M realizing that it's less than two months now... lol...

Stress is setting in

Posted Monday, June 16, 2008 3:37 PM

Well, aside from parents in general I guess things are going OK.  My favors came and they're alright.  I handed out the invites to my co-workers with little ado (thankfully).  I've got a few RSVPs so far, but it's only been a week or two and there's another 3 weeks 'til the deadline.

I really just wish it was all over, yep, I'm not the wedding type.  I think I'll start counting down the days until the wedding is over, rather than 'til the wedding.

My MOH has picked dates for the shower and the bachelorette party... but that's it... well, she has an extensive menu for the shower (she's really into cooking, she saw her planing the shower as an opportunity for her to cater the shower.)  But I don't think she's working on invites yet and the shower is less than a month away.  Sigh, that's her problem I guess.

M's parents had a lot of basement flooding in the last week from the enormous amounts of rain we've seen.  We helped them out and visited for a while.  They didn't say anything about the wedding while we were there, but later on Sunday M's mom called him asking about a timeline or something for the rehersal/rehersal dinner.  Funny thing here is that I sent them info on three different ideas for the rehersal dinner and asked for their feedback, since they haven't given me any yet, I haven't moved forward on it.  They said they couldn't find the e-mail, so I resent it.  The response wasn't "well, we like this but not that." It was "if you get off work at 5:30 it's too late.  Old people are coming.  We need a schedule." Sigh.  M agreed it was an odd response and said he'd call his dad and see if he could get something a little more helpful... M and I had a disagreement re:his mom and her feelings towards me, he says I'm making it up that she's not a big fan of me (ie I read too much in people), but I say he can't read people very well.  Who the frick knows.  I like the woman, she's nice and a good person and all that.  I just can't shake the cold feelings she seems to give off when I'm around.  Hopefully M's right and I'm making it all up.

My own mom made some comment about "well, you're not following tradition any way." (In her attempt to get me to do something she wanted but I said wasn't right (it's not even wedding tradition related, she wanted the groomsmen to wear red sashes with their pirate costumes and I told her I thought just the captian wore the red sash.)  Well mom, if you had wanted this to be a traditional wedding you would have needed to a)said so MUCH sooner and b)given us A LOT more money.  Sorry.

My stress level goes up daily, I can feel it... I'm not sleeping well... I realized I should probably start on a ceremony and that makes me more stressed because I haven't yet. 

Wake me up when August ends.

The dumpster story

Posted Thursday, June 12, 2008 11:46 AM

In my meeting with the caterer June 1st, I told him he would need to take his trash with him as Wisconsin state parks do not provide trash recepticals for guests (that aren't camping).  He seemed a little thrown off, but agreed.  So that got me thinking, (and a little worried we'd be charged extra for it...) thus I began researching dumpsters.

I called the company I know does waste removal for the park... they told me their cost would be $650.  I was like, "uh, I'll consider that..." and hung up quickly.  I found a place in my home city and asked them about their prices.  The guy e-mailed me right back and said they could do, it would be $390 but he also gave me the name and contact information of a company closer to the park and said they might be cheaper.

The company near the park asked if the park's contract with their trash removal company allowed other trash removal services to proivde services in the park.  So I got in touch with the park, they said yes, but the longest the dumpster could be in the park would be Friday-Monday, and of course when I got back to the local company he said they couldn't pick it up until Tuesday.  I e-mailed the park again (although at this point I'm getting worried they are going to be annoyed by me...) and they said Tuesday would be fine. 

So, the local company is only charging me $150!  Which he said was high because they had to travel a ways to get to the park... hey $150 is WAY better than $650. 

And that's the dumpster story.