He brings color to my life

This is the ring Mr. Engagement gave me when he said he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. I did have some say in the ring I wanted, which leads me to wonder if left to his own intuition what ring would I be wearing. This was also the same thought that lead me to put in my opinion on my ring. I considered something untraditional, something possibly more similar to a right hand ring, and I thought about antique rings. There were so many options for that one little finger, I can't image the stress it is for a man to find the perfect one.

I love my ring. In certain lighting the colors sparkle perfectly. However, Even though I wear this ring on my right finger I still have to classify it's meaning. For example:

My Mom:
I wasn't one to run and text message, mass e-mail, or stand up in time square to announce that I was engaged. I am shy and this is not an indication of how I felt about this event. So when I came home for Christmas I showed my mom my ring and asked, "what do you think?"
Mom: It should have been blue or emerald.
Me: Okay
Mom: What is it? Did Mr. Engagement give that to you?
Me: Yes
Mom: * now the excitement set in*Let me see it! OH now you're going to going to go tell him I said that.


One of my Aunt's Responses:
Aunt: Let me see your hand!
Me: * show her my hand*
Aunt: Oh, I thought that was something else.
Me: It is.
Aunt: I thought it was an engagement ring
Me: It is
Other Aunts: Ohh, let me see!

It is hard to believe that a touch of color confuses people so. Should I have picked something more traditional? Or more... absent of color? No. I just say I was engaged in the wrong country. Queen Mother, Queen Elizabeth, and Princess Diana received a Blue sapphire, Princess Ferguson a Red Ruby. I also do not think of this as an Alternative to the Diamond ring, or a rebellion against the Diamond. This is simply the choice of the royal families and I :) .


So, Ladies whose husbands also brought color to your life, Have you met some resistance?

P.S. The slogan "diamonds are forever" was/is a popular advertisement that began in the 1940's. Divorce rates between 1940-1948: 3,620,000. This was the same amount that had been granted in the previous 18 years. But hey, I guess neither Princess Diana nor Princess Ferguson had fairytale wedded lives!

The Proposal: I'll ask and you say "Yes"

My proposal was everything I had hoped it would be.

At about 11 at night I was passively watching TV and looking around the internet (AWW, the modern day proposal! so romantic). When I heard a loud banging on my door. I got up from the couch to answer the door when I heard steps pounding down the stairs. My first thought was a rude neighbor had gotten some of my mail and was terrified of me answering the door! However, when I answered the door laying there was an envelop from Mr. Engagement. Written insider were sweet words about his hopes for our future and memories of our past. At the bottom was a note to come to the park and to dress warm, "cause baby it's cold outside". I was tearing up a little by now. Knowing what this was. I drove to the dark empty park and thought for a moment that maybe I was at the wrong park or maybe I was mistaken about something. However, when I got to the back of the park there I saw an illuminated path. I stepped out of my car and began following the path stopping along the trail to read these messages that had been carved into pumpkins:

You are my friend (I think this one was the one that really made me tear up the most)

You are my life

You are my love

I love you Miss Engagement

Finally behind a tree were stacked three pumpkins that read:

Will you spend the rest of your life with me?

and Mr. Engagement with tulips (our first date was to a tulip festival) and the ring box:

Needless to say I was in tears and all I remember in the rush of emotions was him asking why I was crying and me describing how happy I was.

His plan was that we would sit together on the bench for awhile but I was too excited to run home and get my camera. Also, it was FREEZING! roses were gathered at the beginning of the trail and had frozen, and so as we rushed to gather pictures it became too cold to stay. Simple and Sweet.

(That white is the Roses Defrosting )

I love engagement stories, What's your engagement story?

Wedding World of the Past: PART 3: Wedding Night and hygiene

1950: half of all brides were virgins OR half of all brides were not virgins!

Esquire Etiquette: The groom should get the hotel room in advance "so that you can spare [your bride] the possible embarrassment of standing around in the lobby thinking she looks like a newlywed"

Evelyn Millis Duvall: Being Married: "Few Women enter marriage sexually awakened and ready for complete response in the sex act. Many American girls are brought up to be 'nice,' to repulse the advances of men, and to refrain from any genital stimulation. Marriage demands a completely different pattern of behavior, and it is extremely difficult to remake oneself overnight."

(1950) Drs. Willy Vander and Fisher: Illustrated Encyclopedia of Sex: for women who don't become uninhibited lovers, " not only imperfect wives" but "bad mothers unsuited for the task of bringing up children." Husband suffering, " a discordant married life as a result" might be, "impeded and injured in [his] professional progress."

1946 Lysol ad


There is a lot more information in the book so check it out. Interesting to think how these ads influenced our mothers and how this has thus had an impact on our perception of ourselves and our weddings. What do you think?

Wedding World of the Past: PART 2: Wedding Shower and Registries

" To me, if you are a young girl and you find a boy 'groovy' and you go off and move into his 'pad' with him, you are definitely making a terribly bad mistake" (Zsa Zsa Gabor)

Hence, the importance of the wedding shower!
(1956) To the Bride:
"undoubtedly the greatest invention since the discovery of electricity is the marvelous new Sunbeam Automatic Electric Controlled Heat Frypan"

That is lovely!


International Sterling 1947 ad
" Aunt Beth, do you remember the day I told Tom I'd marry him? Oh, I was in the stars about it. I guess I didn't come down to earth till we had the family talk, and mother and dad told me they could swing the wedding, but not much in the way of 'worldly goods'" " Have your International Sterling, honey... even if it's just two place settings!"

The Wedding World of the Past: Part 1: How to Catch a Man

One of the things I was thinking about the other day was what the wedding of the past looked like. I of course have pictures of my mom's wedding and my aunt's weddings but these were all very tradition. Where did the untraditional wedding come into play? Today's wedding girl has options that she fully embraces to have the wedding that is "Her", oh and "him" :). I would however, argue that most weddings are still very traditional. And why would they not be? ingrained in our little girl brains are Barbie's wedding, her friends Midge (Thats whose wedding I had), princess Diana, our mothers....numerous images of what a Wedding should and should not be. So I thought it would be fun to look up some stuff on where our ideas of wedding come from and maybe how ideas have transfered from generation to generation:

35 and older:
19th century guidebook: "the Unmarried Gentlewoman of England"
* True Womanhood: "purity, piety, submissiveness, and domesticity"
* Poem: "Thirty-five": "Have we no charm when youth is flown/Midway to death left sad and lone?"
*80 years later: Dr. Clifford R. Adams: 35: an age "when an unmarried woman can no longer consider herself a 'young maid'"
* Living alone: "an abnormal state for a woman", "except in unusual cases women who live alone will become neurotic and frustrated."
1949: essay "Why Are you Singe?": singleness, " a form of social delinquency-a private betrayal of the greater needs of society as a whole"

Causes of Singleness:
Coitophobia: a morbid dread of martial relations
Gymnophobia: fear of the naked body
Apheophobia: Fear of being touched
or, "a morbid obsession against household duties, a dread or intense dislike for housekeeping." (nope, I have this and I am engaged!)

(1962) Helen Gurley Brown: Sex and the Single Girl: "by herself and her well meaning but addlepated friends...that her whole existence seems to be an apology for not being married."

fitness and diet: "fanny cute enough to be patted" ( Oh Boy! to only have my fanny patted!)

(1978) Audrey Gellis: How to Meet Men...Now that You're Liberated. suggested job options: cocktail waitresses, receptionists, "craft peddlers" ( I'll gladly peddle my crafts. hehe!)

(1966): Marie and Hector Roget: Swingers Guide for the Single Girl: Key to the New Mortality
on the pill:
A touchy bit of indecision that bothers many girls, when first entering into sexual
relationship with a man, is about which one of them should be insuring that conception
does not occur. Don't let the question fill your pretty head. The average man prefers not
to be annoyed with remembering such details, regarding conception in the Age of the Pill
to be the women's responsibility.

(1971) Zsa Zsa Gabor (Didn't her husband admit to being Anna Nicole Smith's baby's daddy?): How to Catch a Man/How to Keep a Man/How to Get Rid of a Man: "the best way to attract a man immediately is to have a magnificent bosom and a half size brain and let both of them show."
(1953) Charles Contretras: How to Fascinate Men:
Wherever there is a chance of meeting men Jane makes a point to be present and is always very careful to appear at her very feminine best... Jane's attire is of most feminine design and unless there is some special occasion, she avoids, "jeans," "slacks, "peddle pushers" and "shorts" like the plague, for she knows that such apparel accentuates the worst features of the female form, in addition to which she is aware, only too well, that there is nothing cuddly about a woman wearing pants. Bare feet, even at the beach, and dandles that show the toes are taboo, for this girl is smart enough to realize that there is decidedly nothing attractive about a bare foot She wears sheer stockings as much as possible. (Then where did the term "barefoot and pregnant come from?)



* several years back I purchased numerous books on the history of women. I have finished several and still have several more to go :(... This information is from one chapter called: Something Old, Something new, Something borrowed, Something.... Pink: Weddings, Marriage, and Heaven Forbid, the Single Girl.
From:
Peril, L. (2002). Pink Think: Becoming a Woman in Many Uneasy Lessons. W.W. Norton & Company: New York, NY.

LES: long engagement syndrome

Why should one be so obsessed with a wedding? I actually feel somewhat miserable after I have spent 5 hours searching the internet for flowers, cake toppers, invitations....... I am in pain making this list of what I obsess over--embarrassed that a grown woman has placed her life second for wedding planning! I think I feel especially miserable because I have a long engagement. Please, I need another hobby! Why should almost two years of my life be dedicated to 6 hours of my life? I don't want this outcome! I can't bare to think of this future! I argue with Mr. Engagement, somewhat out of jealousy, that he can play his video games while I obsess over the minuscule details of OUR wedding. Yes, I still believe this is OUR wedding. I have time to second guess my ideas . I have time to find the cutest details and the latest trends in the Martha Empire. I have time to stalk photographers' blogs for hourly updates in vain. I have time to worry over the off white, creme, egg shell, and antique whites of the wedding world. Time for projects. Too much time. Over the next week I am trying to come up with ideas to control myself--straight jacket? electric shock? I will let you know how I manage.


How have you managed?

Lighted decor

I loved this picture when I saw it. But thought nothing much of it until Mr Engagement said he liked it :-o... The second thing Mr. Engagement picked out. Well could I achieve this look? No! not economical or practical. So instead we opted to find these large vases and have them scattered around the patio were the cocktail food will be. Over the past 3 months we have stalked homegoods and found these:

At 39.99 there were too much though. Also, as you know Homegoods isn't going to have a ton of these jars. Then I found one on clearance for $15! Dream possible? I recruited my mom to check the stock at her local homegoods and Mr. E to check another Homegoods on his way home from work. They were not on sale! So I waited and waited. Eventually they went on clearance but not as great of deal. Well a deal is a deal and if you divided the number by the total, the individual jars would come out to be reasonable. So I now had 3. Well luck be a lady! I was at the original homegoods, several months later, and another one was on sale for $15! OH MY!!! So in total I have four of these vases. I don't plan to use the top and I will fill with water, floating candles, and flower petals. Nice decor, no?

[image from rebecca thuss ]