How it could have happened...

So Quoc mentioned all of the many ways he was thinking of proposing. I must admit the pressure is on the guy in the first part of the engagement to not only propose, but come up with a good way to propose, find an amazing ring, and drop a significant amount of $ for said amazing ring. Words can't describe what a great job Quoc did with the proposal and ring. Truly an unforgettable experience. 

Details about the actual proposal will have to wait for a later post. I did, however, come across ways not to propose in the June edition of Women's health. Hope any of my girls don't find themselves with these proposals.

Wedding Budget

As we plan for the wedding of the century...aka...can't miss party of 2010, part of it is figuring out the budget to start putting money towards. I found a sample budget and the breakdown looks like the following:

* Ceremony 3%
* Reception 48%
* Attire 10%
* Rings 3%
* Flowers 8%
* Music 8%
* Photography 12%
* Transportation 2%
* Stationary 3%
* Gifts 3%

How It Happened - Proposal Ideas

Aside from the ring, the other special memory of a proposal is how its done. I'll give the rundown on how it really happened in an upcoming post but below is run down of the different ideas I had kicking of how to do it. I wish I could've went through with some of the ideas but you only (hopefully) get one shot at proposing :-P

Who loves you?

Carly: "Who loves you?"

Quoc: "I do. No one loves me more than me, but you're a close second."

Reading materials

After getting engaged, people have given me a number of bridal magazines and a few wedding books. I won't lie, I've looked through them all already. A friend of mine from work gave me a book called the Anti-Bride wedding planner. The idea of it is that it gives traditional wedding advice as well modern hipster twists for planning a wedding. The advice is practical and useful with a lot of cost saving suggestions. While perusing for wedding books at Barnes and Nobles (to give to a friend who is also planning her wedding) I came across another Anti-Bride book. This one was on wedding ettiquite. I bought it and the information is invaluable. It covers everything from engagement advice to wording on invitations. Again, the theme of the Anti-Bride is explaining the traditions and how to bend the rules without breaking your ideals or your bank. I highly suggest this series for anyone interested in planning a wedding, shower, bachelorette, or engagment party.  

     

How It Happened - The Perfect Ring

When it comes to choosing an engagement ring, the majority of guys have the same number one requirement:

"What's the best rock I can get for the money I want to spend?"

Its a bit shallow, but the engagement ring a girl wears will always be compared to other engagement rings. The guy has to be aware that the ring will be the center of attention when the engagement is announced. It will be the single source of pride and excitement for the girl.

Needless to say, its quite a bit of pressure.

Most of the time a girl will mention to her boyfriend what she likes in a ring. Things like setting, cut, design, etc. The fun thing about surprising Carly is that I didn't know any of this. All I knew was that she probably didn't want yellow gold since she doesn't wear any jewelry that is yellow gold.

I did some research online and based upon past discussions with some of my female friends, I had a rough idea. Rough meaning that it would be a princess cut diamond on a white gold ring. Still no clue about setting or design. The more I researched, the more I learned about diamond quality. I was unfamiliar with how a diamond's value was derived. Things like clarity, color, cut, etc. Apparently there were a bunch of factors that determined how much a diamond was worth.

When I got back to Erie, we talked about the ring and decided the best place to get a diamond was in Toronto, Canada because we'd get a better deal, we were familiar with the jewelers (they were Vietnamese), and it would be tax free.

Note: For those who don't want to drive to Canada for tax free benefits, Delaware is a better option if live in the Philly area.

After talking about settings, my Mom talked about her original setting for her engagement ring. She no longer wore it because she had her diamond remounted and offered to use that as the setting for Carly's ring. It made sense on two fronts:

1) The setting was white gold.
2) I haven't had many traditions where something was passed down from older generations because I've never met most of my family (they are still in Vietnam). It was special to me to be able to have a ring that belonged to my Mom become a part of the ring I'd give to Carly.

I was half way there. Now it was a matter of getting the diamond.

We looked at several diamonds and it came down between choosing a big diamond (bling bling) or a smaller one with higher quality. I went for quality since the diamond was exceptionally pretty and I figured that Carly's look wasn't "rap star" with a superfluously sized diamond relative to her finger size.

"Got so much ice you can skate on. . ." (BG)

The final piece was finding out sizing. This is the first I'll admit it, but I did end up stealing a ring from Carly's jewelry box. It looked to be about the right size. I have seen Carly specifically wear a ring on her right index finger but I could not find that one so I went with any other ring I could find that Carly wouldn't notice was missing. As the jeweler was sizing everything out, he asked a pretty good question:

"Does she wear this ring on her middle finger? It looks bigger than normal."

Damn, that was a good question. After some debate, I think we agreed to size the ring at 6.5 (I think) which seemed about average. The jeweler then went to work on the "masterpiece."

While this was going on, Carly actually called me to check in. The store was a bit loud with everyone talking and she asked what was going on. I had to make up a story about relatives being over for the weekend, etc which seemed reasonable to Carly.

After two hours, the finished product was ready. The ring was absolutely gorgeous. I looked at in admiration and thought to myself:

"Wow, the future is literally in my hands."

and then I thought

"Man, I hope she likes it. . ."

and finally

"I hope it fits her finger!"

The Bet

With classes finally over (until I start full-time this fall) I have had a little more free time to do other things. Tonight I called Q from work to see what he may need help with around the house on my days off. He said that there wasn't much that he needed from me this week (aside from my love) hahaha. So I teased him suggesting I'd take the free time and plan the wedding. He said that he knew I already had it planned out in my head and I aknowledged that I did. His whole argument to this is that in the next 2+ years I will change my mind weekly. I did admit that a few ideas may change a little but in general I know what I want. So I told him that I would write down somewhere my ideas and we can see how much they change in the 2+ years. Thus bringing us to this post. I am not sure how to sum up the ideas that I have because they are somewhat pieces and images in my head and in magazines.

Here are the general ideas:
Fall wedding
Colors: Chocolate brown and pink
Music: Band for majority of time, Q's laptop mix for when the band breaks
Venue: Downtown Marriott Center City
Ceremony: Same as above
Pictures: (location will be around the city)
Instead of petals thrown by the flower girl my niece will throw leaves
Place cards will be printed on leaves attached to votive candles
Lanterns will be placed along the aisle and then used as part of the centerpieces
The rest of the centerpiece will include fall colored roses and leaves
The cake topper will be a mini love park statue
Table numbers will be pictures of landmarks in philly with the number printed on it
Invitations will be made on cd-roms with pics of us, important wedding information, maps to the venue etc.

Those are the general ideas floating in my head at this point. I hope to talk more with Quoc's Mom when she returns from Vietnam to discuss any traditions she might want observed at the wedding. An option I was thinking was to have a traditional Vietnamese ceremony the night before at the rehersal dinner.

So how many people are beginning to think I'm a little crazy?

Costs

Through my premature browsing I am seeing a trend on budgeting weddings and where to cut costs and where to spend a little extra. I don't remember where I read it, but the statement was that weddings guest remember these things: the dress, the food, and the entertainment. I think the setting may have been one as well. Anyway some of my recent browsing through magazines have been to get ideas of how to cut cost in other areas like favors and centerpieces. 

Quoc and I are setting aside time soon to sit down and calculate our finances for the next 2+ years. Remember, I am going to stop having an income starting mid-august. Luckily I have saved a good bit of money and I will be taking out a number of loans for school. Again, luckily my school is relatively inexpensive in relation to other local programs. However, I still need to have money for a cost of living not to mention money for a wedding and numerous house projects. With our budgeting we need to figure out how much money we plan to allot for the wedding before we can plan anything for it. I googled the average cost for a wedding in 2007 and there was an article on MSN from a knot.com survey. It goes through the average cost of a dress to the average number of guests. I thought it was pretty informative and interesting. Enjoy.

Tentative Wedding Date

(on already having a wedding date)

Carly: Did you see what I wrote, it said TENTATIVELY.
Me: I know. Do you know what engagement means?
Carly: What?
Me: Tentatively getting married.

Timeframe

So I know that a lot of people have been wondering why we are waiting 2+ years to get married. Well Quoc and I talked about this among many other things prior to getting engaged. We wanted to take our time and really enjoy just being engaged and planning things for our wedding slowly. I didn't want to feel rushed into decisions for the wedding or fall into the Bridezilla stereotype. Someone I knew got engaged on a Friday and on Sunday his fiancee was already dragging him to see reception sites. That is just insane! I must admit though after people started handing me bridal magazines I started getting really excited about planning and Quoc would have to nicely remind me to calm down...being as we do have 2+ years to make any decisions. 

Aside from just enjoying the time we are engaged the next two years are going to be very busy for me. This fall I quit work at HUP and begin school full-time for my CRNA (certified registered nurse anesthetist). The program is intense and most of my time will be dedicated to studying. So realistically planning a wedding within a year or less while in school is not ideal. The fall of 2010 I will be prepping for my Boards and the last week of Oct./first week of Nov. I will take my exam. Hopefully all loose ends will be tied up for the wedding by then and we will get married tentatively the weekend before Thanksgiving. Hopefully that clears up some of the reasons for the wait.