Weddings Make You Sneaky

I've already told the story of how Ellie & I were on rocky footing just before she proposed. Now it's time to admit to my own sneaky-ness.

Everyone knows I gave Ellie an exact replica of my ring, with the stones reversed. When I first contacted Sharon, the woman at Jared who specializes in custom work, she asked if I was able to get hold of the schematics the jewelers had created. Her desire for this was two-fold: having the original schematic would almost guarantee there would be no differences between the two rings--if the jewelers had to draw up new ones, there might be differences; and it would mean getting ring a whole heck of a lot faster because we could skip a whole part of the design process, getting right to the wax mold. Having just gone through the process with our wedding bands, the schematics take about 6 weeks, THEN the wax is poured, which is another couple weeks, THEN the rings can be cast, which are another month or so. Well folks, I wanted that ring NOW; it had already been more than a year since Ellie had proposed and I couldn't wait that long--we'd be married by then :P

So I did the sneakiest thing I had ever done--I broke into Ellie's email for the 2nd time (I had done it a few months before to plan her 30th birthday party) and hunted down the schematics. To ensure I wasn't caught, I downloaded the images, signed into my email and sent them to Sharon through there instead of emailing them to myself or Sharon just in case Ellie went to look at them. Yes, I was that paranoid.

Even the day I picked up the ring was sneaky and I was almost caught. I was working in Boston, so totally unable to head to Plymouth after work. Sharon doesn't work on Saturdays, and Ellie is around on most weekends anyway. There was a Girl Scout event in Stoughton one Sunday--not terribly close to Plymouth, but close enough that I had the great idea to "swing" down after the event. And Ellie was working that weekend, which gave me extra time. Alas, the ride took longer than I expected, and the person who helped me (Sharon had just left for the day because she has a rock-star schedule) insisted on cleaning my ring, then taking pictures of the two together, and showing them both off to all the other staff, etc etc. I would up getting home 20 minutes AFTER Ellie, when I was due home before she even left work for the day (she didn't seem to believe my story of chatting with other volunteers after the event).

Not quite as dramatic as when Ellie bought my ring, but still pretty bad; she still gives me shit for hacking her email.

3 new sparkles in my days

As many people know Jessi and I met for the first time on March 2nd 2008 outside of Chipotle in Davis square. That morning was a rough one for me I had a late night fight with a friend and had to work at my part-time job early that morning. My two co-workers encouraged me to forget the fight of the previous night and to enjoy the date I had been looking foward to for 2 weeks. Jessi had been contacting me throughout the day about how excited she was to met me. I knew I wanted to buy her flowers but had very few options of were to stop enroute. The time finally came, bought flowers and went to Chipotle. Jessi texted me that she was running a little late due to having to go to the ATM first. Jessi came into the pebbled court yard next to Chiptole where I handed her flowers and hugged her in her leather jacket. She said something either "That's sweet or You're cute"
This last Sunday Novemeber 13th Jessi asked if we could go on a date. I told Jessi that I didn't want to know what we were doing. Jessi said she wanted to take me to a store and then if we were hungry we could grab some food at Chipolte. I rarely say no to Chipotle. We drove into Harvard Square and impromptu went to the Harvard Museum, which I had never been to. Then we went to the store, it is a stationary store, it was no longer there. We checked another address and it was no longer there either. We grabbed some ice cream at Lizzy's and Jessi and I decided we would go to the stationary store in Porter Square. So we hiked over there and that one was no longer there, but had a sign for the one in Harvard square with the right address. We said another day we will get there lets go get some yummy food. We hike down to Davis briefly going into the Buffalo Exchange. I spoke a lot about our first date and how nervous I was and then we eat a yummy filling dinner at Chiptole. After dinner Jessi led me to the place I originally met her sat me down and said "You once gave me something beautiful here and I wanted to give you something beautiful here." As she hands me an engagment ring. The same ring I had designed with reversed stones as we had discussed a year ago. I cried, I hugged her, I kissed her. We had discussed me having an engagement ring before but I was finally accepting that it might not happen... and that's the story how we became Offically Offical offical. ;-)

SAVE THE, Rainforest, whales, children, african elephants....

Well... actually here we are talking about SAVE THE DATES!!!! woohoo... So after much debating, discussing, and debacle.. we have chosen, edited and ordered our save the dates. It's reassuring that we are running on time with the majority of things. It also makes everything seem so real. Although we have looked at our engagement pictures a million times I hope that with in the next month we will finalize the pictures we want and order them soon. The more things are decided on the more we are moving away from a traditional "everything has the same style" to sticking with the theme of "us". Some might not see or understand how certain things pertain to Jessi and I but we feel we are being very truthful to us and that is what matters. Now we are slowly obtaining addresses so maybe we can mail them out on time. I will say the most off putting aspect of ordering the save the dates was after we ordered we were given 10 minutes to order an additional amount at half price... I wondered if we could have order less to begin with and saved money by taking advantage of the 10 minute deal afterwards. Then again one can not bank on a "random" deal like that and could end up costing much more. So all join in with a Hip Hip Hooray and hope for a speedy delivery so we can start the addressing process. :-)

How Getting Engaged Almost Broke Us Up

We've relayed this story a couple of time, but the other day on the Offbeat Bride Forum, I gave a brief recap of how Ellie and I almost broke up just before she proposed, and I asked if I could put the story up for all to see and laugh at. Being the wonderful fiancée that she is, she said yes.

In the months leading up to the proposal, things got...antsy...in the Jelli (my shorthand for Jessi and Ellie) household. I was all stressed out with finishing my semester, then planning for my Study Abroad trip and Ellie was pulling extra shifts as her part-time job. She was irritable, and I was totally convinced I'd done something gravely wrong, so my anxiety went up even more than it already was. I started walking on eggshells. Then, money started becoming tighter than normal. Granted, her part-time job was forgetting to pay her, and once or twice her mileage pay didn't come through on time, but it was still...suspicious for lack of a better word.

Now, this may come as a surprise to many of you, but we are FAR from rich. Hell, with me being in school, we're literally living paycheck to paycheck many weeks. When money becomes tighter, the stress goes up even more, especially for me. Yet, I was already walking on eggshells, convinced I was doing SOMETHING wrong, so asking what was happening to all her money was the last thing I wanted to do. I did bring it up a few times; maybe she had some unexpected expense she forgot to mention, or was sending more money to a creditor each month. There was nothing I didn't already know, and the numbers just didn't add up, even for mathematically-challenged me. This went on for months, and I was kind of looking forward to England because I thought it might be good for us to be out of each others' hair for a couple weeks.

We all know the outcome of this story: just before I left for England, we took a trip to Castle in the Clouds and Ellie proposed. It didn't take long for me to make the connection that THIS was why money had been tight lately and she had been so irritable. Needless to say, I was relieved, but it still amazes me that we were on the road to ruin all because Ellie wanted to propose to me.

I Am NOT a Jerk!!

1:20

Pictures!

The engagement photos are here!! There are 61 photos, in a mix of color, black & white and sepia. I can't even begin to describe how happy I am with them. While you CAN order them if you'd like, we are planning to order some for giving out. Leave comments with your favorite pic #'s so we can see what people like best.

Maybe I'm being too much of a sales person, but if you are in need of professional photography of any sort, whether it's formal or fun, I HIGHLY recommend Jeremy; and not just because he's my friend, but because he does amazing work.

Engagement Shoot

Yesterday we finally had our engagement shoot!! My wonderful friend Jeremy of 241South Studios did them and it was a ton of fun. I've posted a review on the People & Places tab, so please check it out. Once we get the pics in, I'll be either posting them or a link to his site.

The Rest of the Story from My View Point

I slipped my arms around Jessi and said, "This was all once someone's dream. And this is mine." She softly said "you're silly" as I spun Jessi around. Down to my knee I went as I said "Jessi Robinson will you marry me?" Jessi responded with "Are you kidding me?" In which my heart sank, my face dropped and I tried to comprehend what I had calculated wrong, before I could come to any conclusion, the words "Yes, of course" came through the air. We hugged, we kissed, we cried. I asked her to put the ring on, she said yes. We laughed.
IN our new glowing state we snapped a picture of us. We looked at the gazebo area and took a picture from the front because NOW this castle was really something we wanted to remember. We walked down to the carriage house and had a quite filling lunch. From there we headed to the trout pond. On the way in to the estate the admission's woman highly suggested the trout pond. We stopped and bought some fish pellets. I have never seen this many fishes in a pond, nor fish jumping out of the water with in an instance of the food touching the water. Furthermore, the ducks and the fish were competting for the food. I can not explain how much fun we had or why it just seemed so perfect.

Once in the car, I pulled out my ipod, with two playlist. one that said YES one that said NO... and told Jessi to play the one that she said. There was a 20 song long playlist, which we talked about and cried over..my version of a mixed tape ;-) I'm so 80's.

And then we were off... to Home.... well that's originally what Jessi thought.. about an hour and 45 minutes en route home, I took a turn off the trail home. Jessi knew I was up to something.. but what??? 20 minutes later we pulled into the Castle Radisson in Nashua, NH were I had reserved a room. We have spoken about staying in a castle hotel since we met. We pulled up... and I announce... oh by the way, I took tomorrow off of work too. :-) Then I pulled out, a bag that contained clothes and person needs items and the cooler, which had Asti, Strawberries and dipping chocolate... we spent the rest of the night laughing about the previous months, the hiding of these plans and the nervousness building to this day and spent the night giggling in glee around our new little secret. Friday we had breakfast at the hotel and decided to skip lunch, due to being still full and headed home. This is where our engagement story ends, or begins..... this is where all of you come in... our friends and family all were so happy to hear our news and to shared in our happiness and encouraged us in this journey and we thank you all...

Officially Official

At about 2:30 pm on Thursday, July 8, 2010, Ellie asked me to marry her at Castle in the Clouds in Moultonborough, NH.

We had planned this daytrip a couple of weeks ago as a little getaway so Ellie could take me to see a castle before I headed off to England and saw "real" castles and was spoiled forever. We got there, and was advised by the gate attendant to stop at the first parking area to see the waterfalls. They were absolutely gorgeous, and we saw a sign pointing out the recreated "Brook Trail" that had been in use since the 1800's. Not realizing it was an actual trail and totally unprepared, we wandered along it for a while until the bugs and lack of water made us turn back to contunie up the mountian to the castle. Once there, we took the trolley from the Carriage House (now a restuarant) to the castle and began our tour.

The house and grounds are amazingly gorgeous, and we took our time wandering the rooms, reading the signs and just generally enjoying ourselves. After touring the house, we went out to the back lawn that looked out over the whole of Lake Winnipesaukee. I was playing with the settings on my new camera and taking some panoramics. Ellie was bouncing around trying to stay out of my way, and when I was done, I was facing the lake again.

She slipped her arms around me despite the heat, and being her cheesy self, said, "This was all once someone's dream. And this is mine." She spun me around like she usually does when she wants a kiss, so I was expecting her to be in front of me. Instead, she was down on one knee holding a ring. I was, however, very confused and looked at the ring, then her on the ground, and she was saying something (I later learned it was "Jessi Robinson, will you marry me?") and I said the first words that came to MY mind, "Are you kidding me?" Unfortunately, text cannot properly express the tone of my question, which was more incredulous than any other emotion. All of a sudden it clicked and I said "Yes, of course!" We did the usual hugging and kissing and crying, she asked me if I'd actually put the ring on :P This picture is us just afterward, too bad the sun was in our eyes!

It's still pretty surreal, and I would write about the rest of the day, but will let her do that while I head off to finish packing for England!