Put a Ring On It

I realize that I am such a dude about this wedding game. H has been e-mailing me ideas about what to post here (this is probably in concert with the posted link to the blog on her Facebook page)...one of the ideas she came up with, which I feel like such a dolt for not writing about earlier is the ring. Details!

H is not your typical bride to be. She doesn't pay much attention to the traditional conventions of a wedding. Where tradition dictates one thing, H believes another (for ex. the presence of religion at the ceremony)(more on that in later posts). Normally the engagement ring falls under the umbrella of traditional wedding fare...

Not in our house.

The signs were early and often and they were not discreet...I truly believe that Sasha Fierce stole that finger wagging "put a ring on it" routine from H. I think her mother even started to do it. No pressure.

However, there were some ground rules - if you get me a diamond, I might say 'no.' H doesn't believe in them. She wants to be unique. Fair enough. Secretly, I was freaking out - I know nothing about jewelry. Not.One.Thing. Diamonds are easy - there are what, 4 C's? Piece of cake. If you don't want a diamond, then, really, what do you get? I was lost. The answer, of course dear reader, is simple - lemon citrine. With diamonds laid around the stone. And the band separating into two bands on its way to the setting. And a square cut.

Easy...

This is where is gets funny (I guess). H was absolutely confused by the fact that I needed her help with this. She would need to be there to point me in the right direction. The confusion and disdain from/for my suggestion was not lost on me. H actually thought that I would know how/where to go to get a custom lemon citrine engagement ring in the exact way she wanted it. Silly girl. Thankfully - the first stop - out in Lisle somewhere, H realized that this was going to more of a search. Apparently these rings don't just grow on trees. The only gem stone rings this store had were on the hands of one of its employees - a sweet 67 year old lady. She said that we can come back and she'll wear her entire collection. We declined (which is a shame, since Lisle has a great Panera Bread).

It became pretty obvious to me that we were going to need to custom make this ring. We spent a day in the Gold Coast. Our first stop was David Yurman - since, we thought they would know a thing or two about gem stones. They do. Unfortunately, DY, himself, has to sign off on any custom job. He didn't.

We stopped by and talked with several other jewelers in the area and on Michigan Avenue. They were all exceptionally sweet, but none of them really knew what we were talking about. This was getting annoying. H's mom and step-dad use a jeweler in Fishers, Indiana. They thought that she might be able to help. The big city in us was skeptical. We made a trip to Indianapolis to boat and ring shop. Thank god we did. Mary Khamis knows her rings - almost from the onset, she "got" it. She sketched and altered and, most importantly, we felt like for the first time, a jeweler listened to us. Within a month, we had a molding - H loved it so much she wore that around for a day.

From that point on, H was done with the helping. Mary and I worked out all the details...and on September 26, 2008, when I proposed, H got exactly the ring she wanted.

And I get the satisfaction of knowing that everybody that sees it thinks its a yellow blood diamond.

Welcome to the Monkey House

H and I are not a typical couple. We pride ourselves on it. We like restored dishware with skulls on it. We own pistol bookends and a gun vase. We watch ghost hunting shows and dissect them more than we did the election. We're not edgy. But we're not traditional either. This meant that there would be no church. This also meant that the location where we got married had to be real unique.

We still get the cake, right?

H and I spoke about getting married for a while. We figured we would get married back at Miami (where we both went to school), that way we could create a memory of Oxford of us together. We even went as far as telling all our friends - most of whom are Miami grads as well, that they should get their drinking caps on - because we're forcing them to go back to school.

Despite H's mother's advice that we secure a date and place immediately, We decided to take a few days to just enjoy being engaged - like every couple should do. That may have been our first mistake. Naturally, every place in Oxford was booked by the time that we called. We could have compromised and planned a wedding over Thanksgiving Break or in the dead of winter, but that was not really what we wanted. That, and O-town (as we affectionately call it) lacks certain "unique" party spaces. There was Marcum Conference Center and Shriver Center. The only thing, we thought, that separated these venues from the Concord Banquet Hall in Lake Zurich, Illinois was that these were in Ohio. This made it easy to justify our decision not to get married at Miami after all.

We haven't had the heart to break it to our friends that Oxford is not going to happen. *Sigh*

Books bound in Leather and the rich smell of mahoganey.

In a very short time, we went from having our dream wedding in a quaint college town with all our friends and $0.25 wings and penny pitchers to being venue-less and idea-less. H's greatest fear was about to be realized: we were going to have to get married in Indianapolis. Now, this isn't to say that Indy is not a great town: it is. Its closer, there are more options, the prices are good, there are hotels to stay at. I just don't think this was what she wanted...at all. It may give too many people too much of a say in all of this. We have to include more and more people in the planning. We have to rely on people for their knowledge with respect to the area. Oxford - fine, its a blank slate - people have no opinions. Indianapolis - suddenly, we are entertaining opinions. They're like belly-buttons. This has been the toughest part for me - us - the managing of expectations of everyone else. I want to make people happy, but most of all, I want H to be happy.

We procrastinated (a theme for us) and spent one Sunday night - a week after the engagement - looking at unique venues on-line. There were several and we found ourselves getting excited about the process. Maybe we could have a cool wedding in Indy? Is that possible? That's when we saw it. In fairness, this one is all H (with a slight wink to my sister-in-law Jill and Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City). She seemed to recall the Indianapolis public library being kind of cool. We went on-line. It, in fact, was cool. Real cool. And affordable. Is this it? We wanted it...bad.

I was all over this. The next morning I stalked the Library, until I was able to get some information. It was available - it was sweet. Everyone over there was extremely helpful. I put a lot of credence into the idea that we have to like who we decide to work with. To put it mildly, I loved the vibe from everyone at the Library. They were energetic. They were trying to grow a event business at the facility. I may have logged 4 or 5 billable hours speaking to these ladies over the next few days. H and I were pretty sure that we wanted to get married here - so, we signed the rental agreement and crossed our fingers. We arranged for a time to see it when we would be in town. The problem, however, was that this being Indianapolis, we had to hear everyone else out. H's mother and aunt were big fans of a private club on the circle. We agreed to see it before we made any decisions (though, I think the decision had been made). I loved this place - it was old school. Like where you'd expect a Gossip Girl wedding to be held if Dan and Serena finally come to their senses (Little J and Nate?). This was a blessing - its great when your two decisions are both places you can deal with. The club, however, kept stressing tradition and "making it look like a church." That was kind of a turn off for us. You can have all the carved walls and marble floor in the world, but don't you dare think that making something look like a church is a good selling point to us.

Over to the library. It was a no-brainer. This place is ridiculous. The lighting. The old and new. The fact that Vonnegut's name is engraved in the wall (see what I did there...the title makes sense now). This was "us."I think we could have spent the entire day in there. I could sense H getting into this. Her mother was a little more reserved - which worried me. I really want her to love the decisions we make. Ultimately, though, this is our decision. We called the club and released the date - we were library or bust.

Text the exes: we're engaged.

I am sure that everyone says this: I don't like the word "blog." I don't blog. I have never blogged. I don't even like responding to group e-mails. In fact, seldom do I e-mail more than one person at a time. Too much pressure. Too many eyes. E-mail is so much more personal to me. Meant for one person. Unless, you know, its an evite. That said, I am just as surprised as you that I am here...writing to you. My goal, really, is to chronicle my engagement and then ultimately gift it to my future wife, so she can tuck it into the back of the scrapbook that my mother has probably already started to put together. Yes, to answer your whispers, I am whipped.

And the truth is I am embarrassed by how "into" this wedding I am. I never expected to have any real responsibility. Sure - I would get to go to the tasting, help pick the DJ/Band, plan the honeymoon - you know, things I can't screw up - but through a crazy series of events and conflicts, I am smack in the middle of the planning - a position that I never thought I would be in, and a position that scares the hell out of me.

Backstory - don't fall in love with us...we're taken.

I think H and I were destined to meet. We went to the same college. We had some of the same friends. We knew similar people in our work lives. But for whatever reasons, I only met H two years ago...at a halloween party. Its fun when we tell people that. Invariably, they ask what did we dress up as. good question. H celebrated the holiday as most single, attention seeking ladies do - dressed as something dirty and agressively power chugging rasberry vodka and sodas (I wore my gorilla outfit (yes, "my" as in mine, showing possession)). Almost from the start (well, at least 10 minutes after her and her friend screamed Bette Midler at me), I was in. I wasn't particularly charming that night. Rude, maybe, but definitely not charming. The facts get blurred, but for whatever reason, I remember making several remarks about the Dove House Women's Shelter. Apparently, H was a sucker for mysoginistic pick-up lines (Mystery might call it negging) and for whatever reasons, H broke her own rules and gave me her number - I called. She screened. My message was gold. She called back. I screened. Repeat. 5 days later, we finally touched base and our first date was soon thereafter. It sounds cheesy when I say it, but from that first date (Starfish Sushi - RIP),(Rumor has it that the text to her best friend once I put her in the cab read three simple words: "Best.Date.Ever.") we have been inseperable. Ultimately, I think we just met each other at the perfect time - when both of us were good enough with ourselves that we could commit to each other. Seriously. We moved in together the following May...thats 7 months for those who count things like that.

The Ring is Burning a Hole in my (cardigan) pocket

I knew pretty early on that I was going to marry this woman. It was such a no-brainer for me. So, I guess that created a certain anti-climaticism (is that a word?) about our impending engagement. We designed a ring to her specifications. I bought it. I stressed. I called her mother for her blessing (maybe more stressful than the actual engagement) and then picked the absolute worst day for H to propose to her - H was swamped with work that day - and had a late meeting, which started at 5:00 PM that Friday. I knew she would be so pissed off by the time she got home, that she would never expect this. I left work early that day, cleaned the house, maybe made a proposal mix CD and waited. And waited. It was 8:15 PM and I was till waiting. I started to stress. I had previously arranged to get some of our family and close friends together at our favorite after-work bar (Paramount Room) to surprise her. Her parents even made the drive in from Indianapolis. They had been at the Paramount since 8:00 PM. They were probably 3-9 drinks in at this point.

H texted me that she was leaving soon. So, I lit candles. I put on a tie and sweater. I put in my super sweet proposal mix CD and sat by the back window, so I'd know the moment she was home. I don't know what I expected here: I think I half-anticipated that she would know I was about to propose when she came in, heard the sweet proposal mix and saw me dressed up in a candle lit room. I may have given her too much credit - H immediately thought that there was an accident and that I was preparing to tell her some bad news. She kept saying "what's going on" and "tell me! did something bad happen!?!" It wasn't until she saw me fumbling around my cardigan pocket, that she knew and settled down a little. Whatever I had planned to say was pretty much resorted to some stream of consciousness "i love you's" and "I want you to marry me's"

She said yes. obviously. We drank some WS champagne and listened to Ray LaMontagne. And then I had to find a way to rush her out the door. I suggested that we go out and celebrate at our favorite bar. I convinced H that my law school friends were meeting us out - you should have seen H's face when we got there - it was insane. If we were popular, or whatever, this would have been our paparazzi well...You can see her eyes follow around - Almost in a perfect circle were her closest friends, my Mom and brother, and then, last, her mother - she screamed. It may have been the best part of the night for her.

We were toasted and drank and drank...until we were the last ones there. We sat there for a moment taking the gravity of our commitment all in. Then we went for late night hot dogs...