Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Look at these!

No new wedding related news since yesterday (other then I forgot to bid on two veils I really liked on eBay, and only remembered about ten minutes after the action had ended, hehe, good one!).
Still waiting for my dress to come! (is it stupid that I don't wan to leave the house in case the postman comes?) However... I did finally find the right camera cable!! And the right CD-rom!!!
Sooo, I have pictures!!! Ok, there are still a lot of them to go through, and since it's a new-to-me camera I am still, uhm.., learning. But here are a few just for you!


Yes, this is a pineapple lamp.
My pineapple lamp. And yes, it does have a pink shade
I like it like that.


This is my cat, Luna. She looks all sweet and lovely, but I'm pretty sure she wants to kill me.
I'm only half kidding here, I'm pretty sure she does actually wants to kill me :p!


This is the Buddha I got from my mother right after her father had passed away. We had seen it together in the same village as my grandfathers care-home was (funny note: I live next to that home now, in that same village!) when we would visit him. I had always loved it, but it was too expensive for me. My mother bought it for me as a 'thank you' because I was there and tried to help those last weeks of her father live. It has great sentimental meaning to me and I will always love it! Whenever I move house, this fella sits on my lap during the car ride (I'm not the one driving!), to keep him save. Oh, and I should mention that Joris made this picture.



My rings!!!
LOVE these!!
The top one, in yellow gold, with the big(ger) stone is not my engagement ring. It's my 'we-are-buying-a-house-together-and-going-to-live-together' ring.
When we bought the house (before we were engaged) we singed a contract. A 'living-together' contract. I am not making this up. This really does exist! It's a legal document for people who live together. Not just for lovers, but also for room-mates or when you are an adult and are living with you siblings/parents. It states which things belong to whom, what happens to the house when one person would pass away, who gets the house if we were to separate, all those fun things! We kind of saw this as a promise ring (and call it that). By that time I knew Joris was going to ask me to marry him someday, and I knew I wanted to marry him, someday. Little did I know we would marry within the year!
I really like how we got this ring. It was something we really did together. We wanted something to symbolize the moment (we signed the contract 10 December 2010, signed for the house on 13 December 2010), and I wanted a ring :p!
We looked and looked, but our budget was too small to find anything. I had this ring, with a single diamond in it. I bought it when I was 19. because my grandmother always told me to put my money in jewellery, so I did. When I was 19 I had a little bit of money and bought this simple ring, with an old diamond (the diamond was old, the setting new and not pretty), as an investment (stupidest thing ever, by the way!) but also because I felt as if nobody would ever love me or would buy me a diamond ring. So I did! So we looked and found an old setting on eBay. It had belonged to the sellers grandmother and it was believed to be from the 1930's-'40. His grandmother died, they lost the diamond (or took it out) and the ring was sold as scrap-gold! But I loved the design and we figured we could have my stone put into this ring. So we set our alarm for 3 AM for the action, and we got it! It was a great moment we shared together! Unfortunately having the stone put in the ring was not something the jewellers around here wanted to do (never understood why..), in the end we found someone who wanted to do it, and they did a wonderful job! However, because it was November they were busy and the ring wasn't finished until my mothers birthday, 5 January :p!
But that doesn't matter, I still love that ring and it still symbolises how we worked together to get what we wanted.

The other ring is my engagement ring. Again, our budget was tight (and I am speaking tight!) and I wanted something old. And, we wanted something I could wear with my other ring, the promise-ring Yes, I do like diamonds (and most other stones) but I want to be sure (as much as possible) that they are non-conflict diamond. And seeing I like old things (this goes for a lot of things, not all though :p) getting an affordable vintage ring was a good option! Since Joris asked me to marry him in an spontaneous (and emotional) proposal he did not have a ring (and I doubt he would have dared pick out a ring for me. Knowing how picky I can be.. But I'd like to think I would have love anything he would have picked out!).
So we went looking together, this time in real live stores. This was the first ring we saw! We didn't buy it right away. We wanted to 'look around' but it soon became apparent that this was a lovely ring at a very good price! I was getting all nervous because we did not have time to go back to this store and had to wait a few days before Joris could go back there! Do you know that feeling, where you get all nervous, not in a good way, because you are convinced someone else must have bought it by now?! I had that, a lot!
But we were lucky! Unfortunately we had some trouble with the jeweller so I had a bit of a bad taste in my mouth for a while, and Joris has even worn the ring when I didn't want to (yes.. he fits my rings.. he's even a halve size smaller then me.. Sigh.. one of those thing I don't like, but hey, what can you do about it?!?). I think that probably did the trick tough and now I miss it whenever I'm not wearing it!

This turned out to be quite a long post! And the pictures didn't turn out the way I had thought they would (not so much the pictures, more they way Blogger uploads them and their size on the blog..)
Remember, I'm new to this whole picture making thing, so be kind ;-)
I'm sure I'll be tinkering a bit and changing things and try some new stuff!

So far, no package today...
Maybe tomorrow..?

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Count down has begun!

So the count down has begun. When Joris and I decided to push our wedding forward (from 16 June 1012 to 31 October 2011) we had 11 weeks to get everything sorted! So as of today, we have 48 days left! I can tell you: this is not a lot of time to organize a wedding, no matter how big or small. Official things seem to need their time. If you are familiar with Dutch culture; paperwork moves slow around here. Which is ok, because it gives us time to save for rings (I soo hope we can get the rings we want in time for our wedding! I want him to put that ring on, and I'll never take it off! (well, except for medical reasons..) and to take care of some things around the house. Our contractor (I still can't believe I own my own house! And that we have a contractor!! I know I'm "grown-up" but I still don't feel that way!) came by yesterday to talk about the last few things we want to have done. Compared to the double doors, or the stairs, they are just small, minor things, but these are things I can get really excited about! If everything works out he is going to install our dishwasher and oven for us (the kitchen needs some, uhm, prep-work! The poor things have been standing in our living room for almost nine months! I feel embarrassed now..) along with making a lock on our fence door and put up our sunscreen! They house is going to feel sooo much more like a Home after that! Especially the work in the kitchen! I love baking and I don't like washing-up, so I'm really going to enjoy using these thing so much! Oh, and he is going to put something underneath the counter-top so it's save for me to put my lovely Kitchen-aid on it! I can't wait! I promise to take some pictures! Once I figure out how to transfer pictures from the camera to my laptop (well and, find the box with the right cable..) you will be swamped with pictures!!! And, back on the wedding front.. I have found and bought a dress!!! The dresses from my earlier post were not suitable for remaking into a wedding dress. My mother took a look at the fabric and made that disapproving face (that I know all too well) shook her head and frowned. So that was it. I don't know how to sew (not really) so I needed my mother to be on board for this. And to trust her and her sewing knowledge. So I did, and the dresses went back. So on we went, looking for that "perfect" dress. And finding.. nothing... Joris and I have a very, v.e.r.y. limited budget. Which is ok. I mean, we decided to push the wedding forward, to change everything around. But it does make finding the right things in time a bit more challenging. And it makes you prioritize. For me, our wedding rings are more important that my dress. I know that the more money we spend on something like dresses or shoes the less chance we have of getting the rings we want. I have seen hundreds of dresses that I could have seen being a/mine wedding dress. But I wasn't looking for a wedding dress at that time. And now that I was those dresses where nowhere to be found! Doesn't that always seem the be the case? After three failed dress attempts (at first I bought a lovely dress for $35 on eBay, but then it turned out to be too damaged to even be send to me! (I still miss that dress! It was perfect! White, wrap-dress, tea length, could fit a petticoat, 3/4 length sleeves, with cuffs and a collar! Oh well.. ). Then I had the "brilliant" idea of earlier mentioned former post.. to turn three dresses into one.. After that I actually bought a dress (cheap-ish from eBay). It isn't a wedding dress (which is fine, I don't mind that at all!), and even though it's a lovely dress, it just didn't feel like a wedding dress. It's pretty, but nothing special. I am keeping the dress, sort of as a last minute back up (even if it was to have a "new" dress, nobody has seen me in for the wedding), but hopefully just as a beautiful dress I hope to wear to a nice party with my husband sometimes! So on we went, looking, and looking. I would love to have been able to go to a "real" bridal store, but knowing their "cheap"dresses are more then our entire budget, and being plus sized there would not be anything for me to try on... So my fear and insecurities got the better of me, and I decided that I would not go to a "real" bridal store. Having found a dress (in mint-green!) I really liked, I was happy to go with it. But than they did not want to ship to the Netherlands (argh! I hate when that happens!).. After finally finding a store that would ship that dress to the Netherlands.. the dress sold out! Literally when we were making an account to buy it! I could not believe it! (I had even made a post about that dress, saying how it reminded me of Ginger Rogers..) However, after looking and looking we found (and bought!) a dress! It's not a "wedding"dress, not officially, but for me it's the most weddingy-dress I've even looked at! It's ivory, has an empire waist and fluttery sleeves. It might be a tad short on me (apparently I am tall! I never knew!) but if it turns out to be too short I know I will be able to fix that. I'll make an under-or-overlay or attach some lovely lace trim to the bottom of the dress (this is actually an idea I like more and more.. I might even do that even when the dress is long enough).. whatever, I know I can fix that! So, they say it has been shipped.. but the tracking number is not working.. so as long as I don't have the dress in my hands I'm still skeptical! So, as to not jinxes it, I'm not going to show a picture of it. Sorry.. hope you understand! Alright, I must get back; struggling, to finally get my bookcase in one piece!