Ring Box

We don't have a ring bearer, due to lack of cute little children or fuzzy pets. Sak's brother will simply carry them in his pocket.

And trivial as it may be, I wasn't satisfied with the box our rings came in.

It's grey and boring, but more substantially - it's really big. I didn't think it would fit comfortably in Saka-bro's pocket.

Instead, I thought of how fun it would be to put our rings in a capsule ball - like the kind you get $1.00 Pokemon toys from.

(source)

Though unfortunately, Sak wasn't having any of that. Here's what he sent me in response to my e-mailed idea:

"The problem with capsules:

Setting: outside in the parking lot
1)Saka-bro gets out of the car and the ring capsule falls out of his pocket.
2)said capsule begins to roll in the lot picking up speed
3)rings falls into storm drain, never to be seen again.

...so I'd say go with a box"

I emailed back, "Can I at least decorate the box?"

To which he replied:

"This falls into the category of details that will cause penga to forget the more important things. She will end up doing everything even more last minute, and then she'll find some way to blame me."

Who, me?

Undeterred - I decided that if I couldn't use a capsule, and I couldn't decorate my own box, I would at least find an interesting pre-decorated box. Like these:

(Etsy Source: NotableNotions)

The brocade-covered boxes were not only super-cute, but cheap too, at 6 boxes for about $5. The only problem was the fact that they came in randomly-assorted packages. Of course I wanted the red box, but there would be no guarantee I'd get one.

I forked over my electronic $5 anyway, and begged in the comments for a red box.

And lo and behold, the seller was sweet enough to give me not one, but TWO red boxes!


They are really small though, so our rings will have to snuggle.


Cute, small enough for a pocket, no precious DIY time used up - check!

What are you holding your rings in during the ceremony?

Metal for Marriage

Flashback eight months ago:

Sak: "So, what kind of wedding band do you want with your ring?"
Me: "Plain and simple, I think."
Sak: "I saw these really cool stackable interlocking sets.."
Me: "Stackable? Nuu. That sounds like a lego. I don't want a lego ring. How hokey!"
Sak: "No really! They were pretty cool."
Me: "You say 'cool' like you say robots are cool, or how the part-oven at work is cool. I don't think I like that kind of cool on my finger for the rest of my life."
Sak: "Hey, don't hate it until you see what I'm talking about."

Well, *sheepish grin*, Sak was right. Ring sets can be kind of cool, and not as hokey as whatever strange lego-block image I had pictured in my mind. I found my desired plain and simple white gold ring, with a small twist - it's contoured to fit against my engagement ring.

Neato! Now, it looks pretty silly by itself, but since my e-ring is fairly unobtrusive, I plan on never wearing them apart anyway.

Sak opted for a matching band, minus the bending. He chose the comfort fit, which has more of a bevel on the inside. And interestingly enough, we both wear about the same size! If not for the little bend in mine, it would be hard to tell them apart!

Badges from our first convention together!

Combined, the rings were only about $130. To the raised eyebrows of the salesperson, we put our cheap rings on the payment plan for six months. Why? Because I didn't want to be responsible for holding onto them for a year. They are less likely to get lost if they aren't in our house. But after we were late for one of our $20 dollar payments, we decided that the whole thing was ridiculous and not worth the hassle. I asked the salesperson if I could just pay off the rings and leave them there, but she just gave me a blank stare and said no.

So now they sit at home amongst the other denizens of casa Penga, some of who were quite interested to play with the shiny metal objects...

Who needs gym badges?! Let's bribe the Elite Four with some bling!

Now it's two rings to rule them all?

DOMOOOOOOOO!

Take out that guy with the super-late RSVP? Bounty hunter, paid in full.

See why I wanted to keep them safely outside of the house? Let's hope that our little rings haven't been collected, cast into molten lava, eaten or traded for galactic credits in the next few months. I think Sak and I might need them at the wedding!

Where are you keeping your wedding bands prior to the wedding?

The Family Jewels

Perhaps strangely, I had absolutely no plans for jewelry as part of the wedding-day ensemble. I never even so much as thought about it. Which, luckily for me, didn't end up mattering at all.

My grandmother, ever the fashionista, has given her many female grandchildren jewelry for pretty much every gift-giving occassion. She gave me my first diamond ring, actually, since she wanted me to know at an early age that I didn't need a man to get my own diamonds. How's that for girl-power? I love it. I'd show you a picture of it, but since I received it as a child prone to losing things, it's been locked away in a safety box for quite some time. Instead, here are four other gorgeous rings she's given me over the years:

Sak actually "stole" the sapphire halo ring to show the jewelry my ring size when he picked out my engagement ring. It's a middle finger ring, but I still think he was pretty clever about the whole thing!

Anyway, I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised when she gifted me with my very own wedding day jewelry.

A beautiful pearl necklace.

And some gorgeous pearl earrings.

Looks like I'll be going traditional, folks! And I love it! I've written her more thank you notes than ever, lately, so I'm trying to think of other ways I can show my appreciation. Maybe some sweets or flowers!

Have you thought about what you will wear with your dress?

Trouble in Paradise!

One random-sample pat down, turbulent flight and missing tolietry bag later, I've arrived in Hawaii.

As we did not have any wedding-related work planned until the start of business hours Monday, we did like any respectable tourist, and headed to the beach. Ala Moana beach park, to be exact, as it was close enough to my parent's hotel and a tad bit cleaner than Waikiki's pools of sunscreen.

After a bit of snorkeling, Sak and I sat on the beach mats to get some sun. For fun, I muddled around taking ring shots on my toe.

As you can probably guess, my ring was quite sandy after this, and I didn't want to put it on. I gave it to Sak to hold while it dried enough to flake the sand off. He put it in his lap. Then, while my brother and I took pictures of my parents in the water, Sak stood up.

It took me about three minutes after that to remember that my ring was not in it's normal spot on my finger. I threw a look to Sak, waving my empty left hand around expectantly. His face fell, and my heart with it.

"I don't have it," he said.

Panic knocked at the door, but I refused to let it in just yet. How far could it have gone? It had to be around here somewhere. We started searching the towels and beach mats, pockets and beach bags, even the snorkel gear cases in case it had fallen inside. My brother wondered what we were up to, and his eyes grew wide at the news. He eyed the area I most feared. The sand.

Could it have fallen off the security of the mats, into the unforgiving, shifting sands? I will not lie, I was very upset at this point, but Sak had just about lost it. Infinite apologies were uttered every couple of seconds. All three of us sifted through the sand over where Sak had been sitting, feeling between the sticks and stones for one small piece of metal.

My parents, who were in the ocean with my sister, looked back to see our frantic efforts. To an outsider, it probably looked like we were simply playing around in the sand. My dad came over, interested, only to flip out at the news. Immediately he began crafting plans of finding a metal detector (not exactly useless anymore...), but my mother came up from behind and calmly stated that it couldn't have gone that far.

Five minutes turned into ten, which turned to fifteen, each minute more nauseating than the last.

I ran my hand over an area about a foot from where Sak had sat. One pass, two passes, three passes...something shiny caught my eye! It was my ring! It was about an inch and a half down in the sand, and practically a miracle that we found it. My dad huffed and puffed for a bit, and instructed me never to take it off again. Sak, still feeling that it was all his fault, went to go pull the car around for us. It was safe to assume we were all effectively "beached-out" at this point (except for my little sister, who had no idea what had happened, and did not want to leave for the life of her).

So the moral of the story? Be careful with beach ring shots. Be very, very careful.

(Apparently not such a rare type of accident?)

Have you had any "near-misses" since your engagement started?

A Tuba to Remember

A few months into our first year of dating, I proposed to Sak with this:



For the non-electrial-person, it's a zener diode I had turned into a ring while in analog design lab. And much to my continued, pouty-faced annoyment, he refused me.

"There's lead in that thing, dummy. I'm not wearing that."

Fast forward five years later. June 27th, Sak and I drove over to the Foster City shoreline after visiting the King Tut exhibit at the De Young museum in San Francisco. Ancient Egyptian treasure is nice and all, but it was nothing compared to the treasure awaiting me later that night.

Foster City, to us, is a land of dreams. Sure, the whole thing is man-made, built for the illusion of living right on the water, but it's the nicest "fake" I've ever seen. We have spent many evenings walking on the bike path along the bay, looking for feral kitties and enjoying the cool sea breeze.

That particular night, we walked along towards the San Mateo bridge, and saw a family of skunks frolicking in the anise bushes. The cats were running away from them, as any smart cat probably should. We decided to follow their lead, and turned back in order to avoid the possibility of week-long tomato paste bathing.

Next we came upon a tuba player, out practicing in front of the water. He was shortly accompanied by an oboe. Their low-pitched scales singing calmly into the night air. Sak decided to stop once we were out of earshot from the musicians and anyone else on the path, and he sat me down on a bench near the edge of the bay. Planes flying into the San Francisco airport roared overhead, and the faint hum of the power lines mingled with the instrumentalists down the shore. Moonlight illuminated the waters ahead of them as Sak grabbed my hands and knelt down to propose. I said yes before he even had a chance to pull out the ring.


Look, no lead!

Although I was taken completely by surprise, Sak had evidently been worried out of his mind for weeks leading up to it. It's my fault, really. I told him once, years ago, that if I didn't like the way he proposed, I'd refuse him. I think I said this to avoid being embarrassed at a restaurant -or worse- in front of my family members. I'm a pretty shy gal, especially when it comes to expressing my feelings, so public proposals put me on edge. He knew this, of course, which is why our intimate moment was so perfect.

Did you have any proposal fears? Or were you too interested in finally getting "the question" to care how it was done?