rings and dresses

Kenny and I are in New York for Christmas, and yesterday we ordered our wedding bands from a family friend of his who is also a jeweler. We picked out exactly what we wanted, and the jeweler (who is the same person Kenny bought my engagement ring from) is going to order it in our sizes.

I picked out an 18k white gold band with .56 carats of diamonds going across the top. It's gorgeous, and it compliments my engagement ring beautifully. My ring can be re-sized, but he said he'd prefer to order a new one that's already the correct size so that he doesn't risk loosening any of the stones like he would if he re-sized the other one. Kenny picked out a two-tone 18k yellow gold and 18k white gold band, and that style cannot be re-sized, so it must be ordered anyway.

We got a fantastic deal on the rings, almost half off retail price (yay for knowing people in the business!).

I haven't updated about the catering, but we went down to CT for a meeting with Cloud Nine Caterers last week. We talked about menus a bit and had a tasting (the food was delicious). Now we are just trying to work out a menu that is in our budget. I really like Cloud Nine because they handle the food, the cake, the alcohol, AND all the rentals, so my life is really easy.

After the rings and the caterer are all set, we just have to pick a DJ, decide on flowers and centerpieces, rent chairs for the reception venue, and set up hotel accommodations for out-of-town guests.

For my bridesmaids dresses, I have decided to give each of the five girls a swatch of fabric that I have already picked out at a local fabric store, and then they can go and find a dress that is as close as possible to that colour. Some people think I am crazy for doing this, but honestly, the bridesmaids dresses were what I stressed out over the most for some reason. I wanted to find something pretty but that wasn't too expensive and that the girls would want to wear again, and to do that for five people is really difficult. This way, they can hopefully find something at a department store and pay a lot less for it than if they ordered it through a bridal shop. Best of all, my Maid of Honour, Jenny, is going to be in her brother's wedding earlier in the summer, and they have the same colour dresses. I told Jenny I would be totally fine with her wearing the same dress in my wedding. It looks really lovely (she showed me a photo online), it's the right colour, and that way at least she'll get her money's worth!