Wed Recap: War wounds at our wedding (the ring exchange)

This is not your boring old ring exchange part of the ceremony recap.  Oh no, I let my pride get the best of me during our ring exchange and ended up with the war wound to prove how stupid I was for being so vain and worried about how something would look to our guests in the middle of our ceremony.

See, it starts off all normal.  Pastor Lyle is taking the rings from Best Man K...

Mr Fix It begins to place the ring on my hand.

This is kind of pretty, isn't it?

But what's this?  Why is the bride pushing the ring on her finger herself?  Isn't that the groom's job?

Oh, this is a FANTASTIC shot of the bride during the ring exchange.  Don't you just love it?  I mean, seriously, what the heck was I doing?  It is obvious this ring does *not* want to get on my finger!

But alas, here's another horrible shot of me with my eyes closed where I am showing the guests that in fact, I was going to *MAKE* this ring fit even if it cost me a little blood!  Which by the way, it did!

You see, there's a little something special about my ring.  It was a pain in the butt to get sized!  We bought it at the LA jewelry market and I didn't have it sized for a very long time.  Oh yeah, nevermind that it was too big for me.  I mean it didn't fall off or anything but it was not secure by any means.  We didn't want to have it sized down because the setting was such that the 28 princess cut diamonds in their invisible setting along side the center stone could have been ruined or fallen out by altering the shape of the ring.  So we just left it.

But I knew that wouldn't last, so I eventually found a friend's jeweler who said we could 'add' a round bump arch type of thing on the inside of my ring on the bottom to make it fit better.  And when we added that extra white gold to the ring, it did in fact fit better.  In fact, too good...it was now too tight.  I had him shave off some of the extra gold we added and it seemed to be okay.  I have large knuckles and they kept insisting that if they made it any bigger it would slip around on my finger once it got past my knuckle.  So he told me if I needed to, just use some extra cold water and dish soap to slide the ring on and off.  Hey, that idea worked great!  I did this every morning and evening when I would take my ring on and off.

So come wedding day I had a plan.  I told my coordinator and pastor that I needed either a glass of ice water or a little bottle of dish soap or hand sanitizer at the table where we would take communion just before our ring exchange.  This way I could easily place some of the soap on my finger right after we took communion before we went back to our places on the altar.  Well, instead, my coordinator decided to just give the bottle of soap to my pastor to keep in his pocket so he could hand it to me if I needed it.  Great idea.  But I didn't want to put the stuff on my finger in front of all of our guests...I was trying to be covert about it.  So when it wasn't there at the communion table and we went back to do the ring exchange, well, I'll let you watch the video to see what happened next.

Can you believe that? I was totally bleeding from trying to shove and force the ring over my knuckle!  Mr Fix It's ring went on just fine. But mine, not so much. The rest of the ceremony Mr Fix It kept trying to hold my hands and I just remember that I kept pulling my left hand away from him trying not to get blood on my dress, or the ribbon on my flowers or on Mr Fix It.  As you can see in the video, at one point, I even turned my back to the guests and tried to suck the blood off of my finger!  Disgusting...but you do what you gotta do.  Nobody at the wedding, not one person noticed what the heck had happened or that I had totally cut myself on my ring finger and was then wearing one of our little pink Hugs and Kisses from the New Mr & Mrs band-aids that I had gifted our wedding party.  Guess they came in handy after all :)

The part in the video where you see my back turned to the guests and I'm talking to my sister?  Well, I held my hand out to show her the bloody mess on my knuckles.  She must have been out of it, too because she looked at my hand and said "Yeah, pretty."  Like she thought I was trying to show her the ring!  Then I glanced at my knuckle in an effort to tell her to look again and she saw the blood and her eyes got all wide with this "What am I supposed to do look?"  So silly.

Here's a couple pics of when I put Mr Fix It's ring on him:

But now, thanks to the little fiasco of me not being able to get my ring on, Mr Fix It makes a face wondering if we will have the same problem and *HIS* ring won't fit either!

And here's a shot of me with my best friend from high school immediately after our ceremony when I first came up for cocktails.  She was the only person the entire night who asked to look at my ring.  Very strange I thought but whatever. 

By the time I changed for our grand entrance, I was able to take the band aid off. But as you can see in this lovely photo from our first dance, I did have some minor cuts and scrapes :)

TODAY'S WEDDING TIP:  Stick to your plans!  Ladies, there's a reason why we come up with things when we say "Oh, I need to be sure to do this."  I knew that my ring was difficult to get on and off at that time.  I was having to use cold water and sometimes dish soap to slip it on comfortably every morning.  So I specifically said "I want to be sure to have a little bottle of hand soap or sanitizer gel or something that the pastor can hand me so that I can easily slip my ring on."  But at the time, in the moment, I let myself think it was no big deal and didn't want it to become a weird thing in the middle of our ceremony (though a lot of people would have probably laughed).  Had I let him hand me the soap, I wouldn't have ended up with a bloody knuckle!  I should have stuck to my plan knowing that it was the best thing for me regardless of what anyone thought.

All photos by Robert Mullins Photography
All raw video footage courtesy of Video Keepsakes of Beverly Hills

Diamonds are a man's best friend?

We started shopping for Mr. Fix It's ring about 3 weeks ago.  He was all over the place on this one.  We knew he wanted something different and not just a plain band.  And since he's in construction, he can't really wear his wedding ring all the time...not to work at all - it could end up costing him his finger if it got caught on something :(

So when we started hitting the local mall and some jewelry marts we saw price ranges from $100 to $1500 - of course.  I had budgeted a certain 'high' amount but it wasn't what I expected to pay because Mr. Fix It was leaning towards Titanium which is a little less expensive, durable and had some unique options.

The one thing I wasn't prepared for was the fact that he wanted diamonds in his ring!  At first I thought he was joking, but once he showed me some styles, I knew he was dead serious...and I didn't mind because I actually kind of liked some of them.

The search was on and these are some of the contenders:

   

We narrowed it down to two rings, this one:

And this one, which is actually my favorite! 

It's hard to tell from the photo but it has a two toned yellow gold tint to the 'elevated' part in the middle but we are going to have the entire thing made in white gold and then have the lower outside portion polished with a high gloss and the wider part of the band will be in a more satin finish so there is a contrast.  What I love about it is that it has 2 princess cut diamonds in it - the same kind of diamonds that are on either side of my own wedding ring :)  So we almost kind of match.  The good news is that we got the quote 3 weeks ago and had the owner write down the price on a business card.  I don't know if you follow the markets, but gold just shot up this week and so we are probably getting it for a steal right now.  We should be purchasing it this Saturday and get it in within 2 weeks!  Another thing to check off the to-do list!

Have you bought your groom's rings yet?  What was the experience like?  Did he go for classic and traditional band or for something blinged out?

Our proposal on one of the saddest days of my life

I was never one of those girls to want to start questioning her boyfriend as to when 'we were gonna get married' or start talking about marriage. I just always trusted that God would work it out if it was meant to be...though after almost 5 years together, I was starting to get antsy.

October, 2008 was a turning point in our relationship. In Cabo, he told me he loved me for the very FIRST time after having dated for almost 5 years!  Wait, I need to do a little time out from the proposal story:

What I love most about him is the fact that he told me in the beginning of our dating relationship that he would never tell another woman he loved her until he was ready to put a ring on her finger. I began telling John I loved him a few years ago, but I never wanted him to say it back. The day he finally said I love you to me (which was in October, 2008 in Cabo), I knew that we were going to be together forever. I never needed to hear the words from him...John always lets me know how much he loves me with his actions and in subtle ways that God has allowed me to appreciate so deeply.

Us in Cabo (Oct 2008) visiting the wedding chapel...

little did we know we'd be looking for venues only 2 months later!

So anyway, in Cabo, while walking down the beach with not another soul around (except for the person who took this picture right before we started our stroll) he told me he loved me for the very first time and he also shared that he could completely envision spending his life with me. One night after we returned from Cabo, while we were cuddling watching tv, John simply said to me: "So I guess we should start looking at wedding venues probably." In his own way, it was how he let me know that the proposal was forthcoming.

In some ways I feel like John proposed several times because over the next few weeks, John would often bring up wedding comments and talk of me being his wife soon. He started talking about remodeling his home to prepare for me and my daughter, Jordan moving in and stuff like that. I would nod or smile or make a simple comment in response but didn't really make a huge issue of it. However, within a month I started booking appointments at wedding venues for us to start trying to get together a timeline and budget needs. And in December we began to shop for wedding rings.

A lot of our family started asking why we were making these plans without officially being engaged, but I knew that we were heading towards the inevitable question so it didn't bother me.

Christmas morning 2008: John knew that my mom and I were pretty bummed about the fact that we were going to be spending the first Christmas of our entire lives away from my sister, Julie. I mean I was really sad.  In my 36 years I had spent the 34 years that I had my baby sister with her on every single holiday of our entire lives!  And to top it off, my Grandma, who is always with us on Christmas morning was getting tired in her 93rd year and had decided to spend Christmas morning in her own home. So we spent a much quieter Christmas morning with just my mom, John, Jordan and I.

As we started to open stockings, John directed me to a box of Godiva chocolates he brought with him. He told me to open them because he bought them for me (he prefers See's Candy over Godiva). When I opened the box, I noticed a note wrapped around something. I unwrapped the note and out popped a ring. The note was short but sweet; it simply read:

I love you and you're always so sweet to me. We have so much fun together so why not spend a lifetime like this? Will you marry me?

I knew the proposal was coming (I mean we had already shopped for rings) so I didn't think I'd be too emotional, but suddenly I found myself completely choked up with tears rolling down my cheeks. My mom looked over at me and asked me why I was crying. I held up my hand with the ring on it and she immediately started getting choked up and fighting back tears. As I looked at John and leaned to kiss him I think I managed to squeeze out the words "Of course" but they sure didn't come easy since I could barely speak.

My beautiful ring:

My mom thanked John for letting her be a part of the experience and he told me later that he really wanted to make sure my family and specifically Jordan was a part of the proposal. Of course, my sister was not happy when I texted her an image of the ring on my finger and she realized that the first Christmas she had ever been away from her family her big sister gets proposed to - and she wasn't there!

Some pics right after the proposal on Christmas morning:

So the man of my dreams made the hardest Christmas in my life the most memorable one and I will be forever thankful to God for giving John the heart to provide me with a thoughtful and loving surprise.