Weekend of Wedding Tasks

A few weekends ago I embarked on a whirlwind of weddingland tasks. (How many "w"s are in that sentence?) To start, Black House White Market was having an awesome sale and I found a great dress for one of the 342 weddings I will be attending in the next year.


*All pictures are personal photos*

Please excuse my chopped off head... I was 

making a horrible one eyed goober wonky face

This is pretty good for me, considering I usually wait until the last minute humanly possible to buy a dress before an event, pick the first thing I find that I halfway like, and then look back at pictures and hate my procrastinating self. The best thing about this dress is that I can just keep adding a new belt for every wedding I go to. Buying 342 dresses gets too expensive, sheesh. Belts, however, are the broke girl's budget friendly option.

On our way home from a weekend spent eating and drinking our weight in calories we stopped to see a movie. While meandering through the mall to kill time before it started, Mr. Porcupine and I stumbled upon a Kay Jeweler. One really good salesman later, plus a labor day sale, ended with us having walked away ordering wedding bands!

Turns out, the reason the platinum/gold combo was looking so strikingly horrible was because my ring was SUPER dirty. Not just a little dirty, but more like I fell in a pool of molasses and when I made it through to the other side rolled in a pile of mud dirty. The salesman quickly ran it through their jewelery cleaning machine so that I could get a better idea when comparing wedding bands to my engagement ring. It came out looking like a BRAND NEW ring!

Suddenly the white gold paired up with the platinum looked just fine. I wish I would have thought to snap a picture of the rings together, but we were too caught up in the whole process. I will have it in a few weeks. First, it needs to be sized properly and re-tweaked. Until then we were able to walk away with Mr. Porcupine's band.

He went with a tungsten band that has some etching in the middle. It's a little hard to see via craptastic Blackberry photo. I was surprised that finding my band was quick, simple, and painless. After our Zales fail I didn't have high hopes, but the salesman at Kay saw my engagement ring and knew just what wedding band would match instantly.

Mr. Porcupine was Mr. Indecisive. He kept going back and forth on how many millimeters he wanted the band to be, if he wanted it all black, if he wanted it made in tungsten or gold. It took awhile, but the choice is made, and we have another thing crossed off the list without even expecting it to happen.

Did you make any wedding related decisions on a whim? Was your wedding band hunt easier than anticipated or harder than you imagined?

Bling, Blam, Broke

With the wedding rapidly approaching and the nightmares setting in- you know the ones, the I forgot to get my hair and makeup done before the wedding kinda sweet dreams, I figure this is as good a time as any to cross the major necessities off the list. One of those would be the wedding bands. Purchasing those suckers is right up there on the importance scale with making sure Mr. Porcupine has pants!

Mr. Porcupine and I have barely done a drop of research on wedding rings. Neither of us are big jewelry people. I’m all about the costume jewels. There is something about wearing expensive jewelry that gives me agita. I would lose my head if it weren't attached to my body, and it's far too easy for me to fling off rings, bracelets, necklaces, earrings, etc. without even noticing. It took me months to get used to wearing my engagement ring. I only "lost" it about 80 times (aka it flipped around my finger or was on my bedside table) before I realized I am a lunatic and need to chillax.

One very bored day Mr. Porcupine and I wandered into Zales on our way home from running errands. I looked through the glass cases blankly. They all looked fine to me. I actually contemplated just picking a ring and buying it right then and there. Mr. Porcupine is pretty simple too with what he wants in a ring. He wants a black/white gold band. Affordable and easy to find at most jewelers.

Image via American Ring Store

And, then el major problemo. My ring is platinum- close enough to white gold (yanno...the cheaper option that will allow us to keep buying food), right? Apparently, WRONG. I tried on a few white gold bands and noticed that the gold looked BLINDINGLY bright next to the platinum. I tried diamond bands and plain bands. A whole array of bands! Everything looked a bit off to me.

Diamond band via MDCdiamonds

A simple band via Betteridge

Maybe it's just me, but to my eye, platinum has a darker hint to it then gold does. I was always told this isn't true since platinum is described as being a pure, white metal. It wasn't until I learned that white gold isn't actually white (I really thought it was... sue me), but actually a combination of gold and white metals dipped in rhodium to make it look shiny and white, that I realized why platinum looks different. White gold looks extra shiny since it's dipped in shiny, happy, jolly rhodium. Platinum, usually, is just chillin' in its natural state.

I didn’t ask for or expect a platinum engagement ring. Mr. Porcupine just went for it. Something about prong strength convinced him (all I know about rings still remains at lalala shiny and bright). Although an awesome pick, the engagement ring was something Mr. Porcupine had been saving a long time for. Saving for our wedding bands isn’t something I really planned on doing. Stupid, I know – this is my WEDDING ring after all. I figured we’d get something affordable and upgrade one day in the future. They make anniversary bands for a reason, after all.

When I got home from our Zales excursion I googled platinum diamond bands, and wanted to barf when I saw that some of the lowest prices were in the $1,000-$1,200 range. Blashphemorous! I continued to google through the interwebs, and it turns out I’m not really supposed to notice the difference when pairing a white gold ring with a platinum one. Lame, I swear I saw it!

A platinum band and white gold band combo via Gilletts Jewelers

We definitely needed to take a second look at a different jeweler to get a better idea. I'm sure whatever I end up with will be fine, but I realize it might not be as cut and dry as I assumed. On the bright side, I am not super picky about my jewelry, and I'm willing to go with the more affordable option if I can't find a platinum ring at the right price.

Were you able to find your "perfect" wedding band? Did you have to go with a second choice option for the sake of saving some bucks?