Rob and Kiesha Get Married

79 days to go! In the past two weeks, we have secured a rehearsal dinner location, purchased the paper for our invitations, scheduled a tasting with the caterer and nailed down a trial run date for the hair and makeup. On Saturday I go in to get my dress altered.

Things left to do this month:

• Purchase attendants’ gifts
• Get Rob’s suit and shoes
• Get covered in ink while helping to screenprint the invitations

Things left to do in general:

• Find a handbag
• Decide if I should get a shawl or wrap
• Look into alcohol purchases
• Figure out the flavors for our ice cream cart!

There was a shake-up at our florist, but I think we’ve gotten everything under control there. We’re scheduling a tasting with the caterer for sometime in August. My dress is getting altered in two weeks AND I found a dress for my mom that she actually likes. Wait, no, she LOVES it.

We also bought vases for our centerpieces at IKEA in New Jersey for $1.50 a vase. Budget Gourmet Wedding continues!

100 days still sounds like an awfully long time, but I know it’s going to sneak up on us.

Rob and I just got back Monday night from our shower in New Jersey. It was a lot of fun and we send big thanks out to Megan, Aunt Honey & Uncle Frank, Ruth and everyone who was involved.

Here are some photos taken by Megan.

Here we are. Note the green and brown balloons in the background!

Megan got us Mickey and Minnie bride and groom ears, which I loved.

I’m pretty sure I’m going to send this one to the newspaper with our wedding announcement.

The wishing well.

Rob and his boys. From left: Dave, Rob, Peter, Peko, Steve (groomsman) and Rich (Best Man), crouching.

Rob’s dad, Rob, me and Megan.

Ohio shower is coming up in about a month!

I finally settled on a pair of shoes for the wedding. I went the green route, although not the green ones that I previously posted. I found another slightly fancier pair!

I love them.

After nine jewelery stores and a brief fling with the idea of buying sterling silver rings from etsy.com, Rob and I finally ordered our rings last Monday night from eweddingbands.com. We picked out 14k white gold flat (flat flat) bands with “10/25/08 R & K” engraved on this inside. We were nervous ordering rings from a website, but the customer reviews were all positive and they had a good rating from the Better Business Bureau. So we went ahead and did it.

The rings were delivered Friday. They’re perfect. They’re exactly what we wanted.

And now for the details:

We got free Fed-Ex delivery. They took four days to ship. And the total cost for both rings (including the engraving) was $304.00.

That’s $200 cheaper than the cheapest place here in Columbus.

It just goes to show; always trust the Internet.

It’s starting to feel real now!

Rings have been ordered, more on that when they arrive.

Uggghhh.

At this point in the game, I’m ready to just put a Cheerio on my finger and call it a day.

This is the list of jewelery stores we’ve been to:

Jack Siebert

Zales

Kay Jewelers

Andrews Jewelers

The Diamond Cellar

Jared’s (The Galleria of Jewelers)

Helzberg Diamons

Ashcroft & Oak

J.B. Robinson’s

Jack Siebert was going to be ridiculously expensive. Zales sounded promising, but I finally got a quote today and they said it was going to be around $1200 for two rings, which is TRIPLE the price of other places (I don’t think the dude knew what he was talking about, but I’m tired of getting the run-around from them). Kay’s and Andrews are looking promising. The Diamond Cellar was too expensive and snooty. Jared’s also looks promising. Helzberg Diamonds didn’t even have the ring we wanted. Ashcroft & Oak was staffed by very helpful people but it was too expensive. And we got the distinct impression that J.B. Robinson’s couldn’t have cared less.

Apparently the problem is that I want my wedding band to match my engagement ring. And my engagement ring is flat, not curved at the edges. No jewelery store has had flat bands in stock. It’s actually getting kind of funny at this point.

Me, walking into jewelery store: Hi.

Associate: Hi! What can I help you with?

Me: I’m interested in 14k white gold flat plain wedding bands.

Associate: Oh, okay, those are right over here. (Hands me a curved wedding band)

Me: Well, this is a little more curved than I want. I want something more like this. (Removes engagement ring, shows associate)

Associate: Ohhhh, you want flat flat.

Maybe I’m not up on my jewelery lingo. Maybe the next time I go into a store, I’ll just say, “Yes, I’m looking for a 14k white gold wedding band. But I need it flat. You know, not flat, but flat flat.”

And then they’ll say, “Well, we have flat flat flat.”

And then I’ll say, “Gosh, that’s a little too flat.”

Like I said, that box of Cheerios is looking pretty good.

Shoes and rings have been the two most difficult things for us to find. We’ve been to four different stores looking at rings.

The Diamond Cellar was waaaaay out of our price range and the woman we talked with acted like she knew it was out of our price range right away and almost talked down to us. It left an unpleasant taste in our mouths.

Andrews Jewelers and Kay Jewelers are being considered, however they’re still more expensive than we wanted.

We talked with some people at Zales last month and a woman there said she would call us back with prices, but that was about two weeks ago and we haven’t heard anything from her yet. We’re planning to try to visit a different Zales tonight. The preliminary prices Zales gave us were in our price range, so we’re hoping we’ll get somewhere with a different location.

As far as shoes go, good lord. It seems like everything I look at that I like has four inch heels. If I wore four inch heels, I don’t think I would even make it down the aisle. I’d either fall over or start crying in pain. But as soon as you narrow pumps and ’special occasion’ shoes down to 2 inches, all the pretty ones get eliminated.

Here’s a run down of the shoes I’m currently interested in:

These ones are from Target. The price is right ($20, which I think is an excellent price for a pair of shoes I’m going to wear once), and I like the little bow detail. The only problem is that these are 3.5″ heels. Eeeee.

I like the design on these ones and the heel size is only 2″, which is sooo much better for me. This pair is closer to $60, which, while not heart-attack inducing, is fairly pricey.

We got this magazine in work not long ago, and I’ve kind of been obsessed with it:

(Sorry it’s blurry)

Anyway, I’m entranced by her pink shoes, and how they match her bouquet.

Which got me thinking, “Hey, I have a green bouquet….”

Which led to me finding these:

The heel size is 2.25″, which is beautiful, and I really like that design on the toe. I was hoping for an open-toe shoe, but the good thing about this particular pair is that I could wear them again, and at an $88 price range, I would definitely have to wear them again.

What do you guys think?

I’ve been on the fence about wearing my glasses at the wedding. On one hand, I want to look the best I can, but on the other hand, my glasses really are a part of my face. I’ve had them for almost 22 years. And I’ve had contacts before, but for some reason, I think I just look better WITH them.

Something I read today decided it.

I’ve been reading message boards in which women ask if they should wear their glasses or not. There’s about a 50/50 split between people saying they should and shouldn’t (men seem to more pro-glasses). But on one particular message board, a girl wrote that she went to wedding where a bride wore her glasses and “looked dweeby, like she didn’t care what she looked like on her wedding day.”

So, yup, I’m gonna wear my glasses just to spite that one girl. Saves me the money of buying contacts anyway. And last year when I got my new glasses, I got more streamlined frames and the special coating on the lenses that cut down on glare.

Besides, I think Rob and I look cute in our glasses: