One Ring to Rule Them All....

OK....maybe not this ring.....

(Source: Wikipedia)

...but we have selected and put down a deposit for a wedding ring!  Finding a wedding ring has been an...interesting....process for us...and I can honestly say it is all Mr. Rocks fault :).  When Mr. Rocks decided to buy me an engagement ring, he wanted my ring to be unique.  So, he waited till that special time of year (I think it was in November) and went to Kay Jewelers to design a ring for me.  And, in all honestly, he designed the perfect ring.  Granted, I may be a bit biased, but the ring is perfect for me.  It is not too small to be bleh and not to big to get in the way when I am working with (a) fossils (b) crazy acids to digest said fossils (c) insanely intricate machines to analyze said fossils.  In case you have not seen it yet, check out my awesome ring!

Picture of my ring right after we got engaged.  Mr. Rocks is in the background opening up the Champagne. (Personal photo)

However, the problem with having a custom-designed ring is that *most* of the "typical" wedding bands would not fit properly around my ring.  The straight circle rings don't fit snugly around the band, and the rings that are curved usually have too small of a curve to fit properly around the band.  We had been perusing jewelry stores in Christiansburg and Chicago and had yet to find anything suitable.

So we decided to check out Brent L. Millers in Lancaster.  Momma and Pops Rocks have shopped at BLM's for as long as I can remember, so, if we were going to have to drop a good chunk of money on a ring, I would have preferred to do so at a business that has always "done right" by my parents.  Its the whole "reward the businesses with good customer service" thing.  So, the first time we went to BLM's, we could not find a band that fit me, and it was looking like we would need to get a ring designed around my e-ring.  But the jeweler (who would be designing my ring) was not in the store whenever we stopped by.  This ended up being a good thing!

When we stopped by the store last week, the sales girl remembered us from the last time we were in the store (months ago) - a big plus- aaaand the first thing she said was "Hey! I am so glad you guys stopped in!  We recently got a new batch of wedding rings, and I think there might be one that will fit your ring!"  So, Mr. Rocks and I sat down and started looking at rings.  And we found several that could fit the bill, but weren't all that super-awesome-great.  THEN, I tried this double-banded wedding ring that looked like it was made for my ring!  The style, shape...everything about it just meshed so nicely with my ring!  Here - take a look!

Sorry for the crap-tastic photo quality....this one is from Mr. Rock's cell phone!

Its a bit weird, since I never pictured myself with a double-banded wedding ring, but there it is!  And, for most of the ring-searching process, Mr. Rocks was kinda like "meh...whatever you want."  But we he saw The Ring, his comment was "I really like this one - it totally works with your ring.  I think this is the one."  Coming from someone so previously ambivalent, this means a lot!!

The one hitch...it is waaay over our ring budget!  (And this is after our sales lady gave us a really nice discount on the ring!!!  Thank god we aren't paying full price!) But, Mr. Rocks and I spent the weekend thinking about it, and discussing how we will be able to come up with the extra money, and at the end of the day, we decided it was worth it - we are kinda going on the idea that this is a once-in-a-lifetime-purchase, and it is OK to splurge a little.  Or splurge a lot!

Now we just need to find Mr. Rocks a ring.  Hmmmm....maybe I should go back to NZ and climb Mt. Doom (again) and look for a special ring :)

(Personal Photo)

Ok - before I get yelled at...we did not really climb Mt. Doom.  It was cold/rainy and we were lazy, so we only climbed part of the mountain.  Who knows, maybe if I climb the whole thing, there will be a yellow ring at the top?!

We have a Photographer!

So, another big thing we can check off the "Wedding To-Do List" is that we now officially have a photographer!  Scott Sheppard of Dream Wedding Photography is going to be our photographer for the day (and he will have a second photographer too).  Yay!!!!!  Especially since looking for a wedding photographer has so far been the single most frustrating part of wedding planning!  Even more frustrating than the Save the Dates.  But we are D.O.N.E. with that crap!  Yay!!

So, why was it so frustrating, you ask?  Well, maybe you don't ask, but if you are bored at work and still reading, then you'll find out anyways!  It all pretty much comes down to money.  Or rather, having champagne tastes with a beer budget.  And I'm not talking about good beer---more like Natty Ice.

I know that the photos we get of the wedding really are one of the few 'tangible' things that come out of the wedding.  (Ya know, other than Mr. Rocks and I actually getting married!)  And I know that when asked what they should have spent more money on, most brides, more often than not, will say that they wished they had spent more money and gotten a better photographer.  I know all this.  I really do.

Mr. Rocks and I at the Jimmy Buffet Concert.  

I am hoping our pro-photographer will take better pictures than this.  

(personal photo)

But we are on a budget.  And when push comes to shove, Mr. Rocks and I would rather spend the money on booze and food for everyone to have a good time.  But, see the paragraph above - I knew that we had to have at least some type of professional photographer there.  And I wanted 2 photographers....one to take pics of Mr. Rocks getting ready, and one for me getting ready.  And I wanted them there all day - getting ready, ceremony, formal pics after, and reception.

So, knowing what I wanted, I jumped headfirst into searching for photographer last February. (Yes, 5 months ago.  It has taken me 5 months to find a photographer. Like I said, annoying!)  And the first problem I ran into was that my venue could not recommend a photographer.  A DJ?  Cake?  Yep - they had lots of recommendations, but they would not recommend a single photographer from alllll of the weddings that had come and gone through the Key Colony Inn.  Which sucks.  So, I searched and searched and searched....and what I came up with was split into 3 categories....

(1) The photographers cost anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 of our ENTIRE wedding budget.  WTF?  SERIOUSLY?
(2) I could get 1 photographer for only 1/2 of the day
(3) I could get 1 really sketchy photographer for the whole day, but his pictures were really pretty bad (and considering my lack of artistic talent, they would have to be really bad if I thought so!)      

Which led me to just flat-out ignoring the problem for a while (cuz that always works out, right?)  But after I got back from New Zealand, I started attacking the problem with a renewed sense of purpose.  Luckily, I found a photographer in Key Largo.  After sending emails back and forth a few times, this guys quickly moved up to my #1 photographer spot on my imaginary list.  He has (1) shot a lot of weddings and knows his stuff, (2) we like his photos (check out his website), (3) he is (mostly) within our budget, and will include a second photographer!

So, I can rest easy now, we have a photographer - the deposit has been paid and the date is set in his book.  Yay!!!  Now, onto the 8 million other things on the list.

The demonic Save the Dates

Pre-Blog Warning to BM NZ - if you have not received your STD in the mail yet, don't read any further!!


So, by now, hopefully our guests have received our Save the Date in the mail.  Yay!  One more thing I can cross off my "To Do" list!  We mailed these guys out on Wednesday, ~ 1 year before our wedding.  Most of the wedding books suggest mailing off Save the Dates 6-8 months before the wedding, but with a destination wedding, sending them out a year in advance is a good idea if you want to give your guests plenty of time to plan for travel.

So, without further adieu, lets take a look at what our guests got in the mail!  The front of the envelope is rather plain, but once they flip it over to the back, they will see this:

(Photo by RockHugger)

Once they open the envelope, they will see our "very hard to create" magnets.  I am kinda bummed, because Mr. Rocks put a lot of time into creating the image for the magnets, and I was not very impressed with the final product.  But, meh, it is what it is, so....

(Photo by RockHugger)

Finally, the magnet is attached to another sheet of paper with a bit more information....

(Photo by RockHugger)

And there you have it folks - our "Save the Dates!"

Wedding Fitness

So, both of the Rock Hugger 'rents have called to say they got our Save the Date in the mail - yay for the post office!  So, our guests should be getting the STD's in the mail soon, and in a few days, I will post what we did.  Just keep in mind....even though it looks like we just threw these Save the Dates together, we really worked on them for quite a long time!


But today's post is not about the STD's, it is about fitness!  Both Mr. Rocks and I Need. To. Lose. Weight.  Granted, we are both generally healthy and we tend to do a lot of "active" activities, but we can both stand to drop a few LBS.  (Ok, maybe more than a few.)  And our wedding is a great goal to work towards!  


So, my goal is to get back to the weight I was 5 years ago, plus a few lbs.  See, in the summer of 2006, BM NZ and I went on a 2-week backpacking trip to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons.  Earlier that summer, I joined weight watchers and started going to the gym like a fiend. And it worked!  I was pretty happy with what I looked like on that trip....see?

(Photo by RockHugger)

Now fast forward 5 years.  In that time, I met the Most Wonderful Man in the World...which meant I gained weight....eating out all the time plus having a wonderful person constantly telling you how wonderful you look means I would go for the ice cream rather than fruit for dessert!  And then I met Mr. Rock's mom (MIL Rocks), who is an amazing cook (can we say ravioli's?!?), so there went a few more pounds.  Not to mention every time we went to visit my family with Momma Rock's amazing cooking.  Add to that finishing a Ph.D. (which involves a lot of sitting and stressing and writing), so there went a few more pounds.  Mix into that the cooking abilities of both Mr. Rocks and myself (hey?  what would you expect?  We both had good teachers in the cooking arena!) and you have a bunch of well-fed Rockhuggers!


But, enough is enough, and it is time to lose da' wieght.  So, Mr. Rocks and I are counting our points a' la Weight Watchers, and we have started P90X.  For those who don't know, P90X is a 90-day workout routine.  Each day's routine is a little different, with the idea that you never "plateau".  We finished the first week's workout last week - only 83 more days to go!  We are both rather sore, but I have noticed a small difference (so far).  Aaannnd, Mr. Rocks has already lost 8 Lbs. and I have lost 6 Lbs.  So here's to getting healthy!  Bring it!

(Image from FitnessBodyOnline.com)

Door Hangers

So, Mr. Rocks and I have just finished and mailed out the Save the Dates.  And it did Not. Go. Well.  We had a lot of trouble with the Xyron, a machine that I am convinced was created by the devil.  So, when you do receive one in mail, please just lie to me and tell me they are nice :).  OK, you don't really need to lie to me - my ego is not that fragile, but just know that, even though it looks like we just threw these Save the Dates together, we really worked on them for quite a long time!

But in the meantime, I can share another project that is almost finished - our personalized door hangers!

(Photo by RockHugger)

Aren't they neat!  I am really pleased with how they came out!  And they were easy to make (not like the stoopid STDs!)  We plan on including these in our Out of Town Bags.  We have 5 different colors - yes, I know these colors are bright and obnoxious, but hey, it is the Keys - if there is anywhere in the world where you can get away with bright and obnoxious colors, it is in the Keys!  (Yes, I also realize that I am only showing 4 colors in the photo - the fifth color is a mystery!)

(Photo by RockHugger)

So now everyone will have personalized door hangers in the hotel :)

The story behind our wedding logo...

So, this post is a little bit about how I fell victim to the Wedding Industry.  Before I started reading about wedding blogs, I had no idea that people created their own little wedding logos - little personalized tiny logos that was supposed to represent the couple and their wedding.  But, I got sucked in, and therefore we had to have a wedding logo.  I am so ashamed... please don't judge me!

 We are getting ready to send out the first "official" wedding correspondence to our guests (the save-the-dates), so we needed to create our wedding "mark" or wedding logo.  And when I say "we," I really mean Mr. Rocks.  He is definitely the artistic talent in our duo, and he single-handedly created the following masterpiece....

(artwork by Mr. Rocks)

And here it is in gray-scale.....

(artwork by Mr. Rocks)

The actual logos have our wedding date on them, but, ya know...internet and all....

This baby (in either color or black and white version) will grace the envelopes of our STD's, our invites, the water bottles we are going to give out...basically any paper-product we give to people.  So, I hope you all like it!

Do you want to know our inspiration for our wedding logo?   Well, as you know, we are getting married on the pedestrian bridge at Bahia Honda State Park.  That pedestrian bridge used to be a railroad bridge, and was paved over as the era of trains in the Keys came to an end.  See, waaaay back in the day, there were no bridges connecting the Keys together.  Henry Flager was the owner of a railroad comglomerate who decided to build a train track from Jacksonville to Key West.  This was a difficult task, plagued with several hurricanes during construction, and many of the workers died along the way.  But in the end, the first train arrived at the Key West station in 1912 with a very old Flager in the first car.  The story of the railroad construction is actually pretty neat, and if you have the time, you should check out this link.

It is because of the railroad that there are bridges in the Keys, and eventually, the railroad bridges were converted into car bridges.  But since we are getting married on one of those old railroad bridges, we thought it would be appropriate to pay some homage to the Flager Road...

(image from Gold Coast Railroad Museum) 

(image from Flagler Railroad Photos)

As you can see, Mr. Rocks took elements from both emblems to create our wedding logo.  I love our logo!  And I love that we can pay a little bit of respect to Flager's Folly.

Re-energized with wedding planning by a nightmare

Hi everyone!  So, I have been a bit busy lately - April was INSANE as school was finishing up, then I ran up to PA to celebrate Mother's day with the bestest mom in the world then I (literally) flew half-way around the world to visit with BM NZ in...well, New Zealand.

Mirror Lakes in the south island of NZ 

(photo by RockHugger33)

BUT, the night I finally got back home, I had this terrible nightmare - you know the type -where you feel like you are actually there.  It was not a nightmare in the "scary-zombie" way, but in the "holy shit how can this happen" way.  I was dreaming that it was the day of the wedding, and the BM's and I had just come back from setting up the reception room and were starting to get ready.  And I realized that the photographer was not there yet.  And I wanted a photographer to be there while we were getting ready.  And then I realized that I had not done any planning since April 2011.  So we had no photographer, no DJ, no bouquets, nada.  And holy shit did I start to freak out.  But, I think my dream-self handled her shit pretty well.  I had BM NZ call her BF and get him to be our "photographer" for the wedding.  I had my go-to-girl  contact the DJ and bribe him with extra money to drive down to DJ our reception.  And I had Momma Rocks go out and pick flowers for us just outside (benefits to getting married in a tropical location!).

And then I woke up in a panic with my heart racing.  I think this was the universe's way of telling me it is time to get back to planning this wedding.
So Mr. Rocks and I are getting ready to send out the Save-The-Dates.  And being the artist that he is, Mr. Rocks is currently staying home from school today to create out "wedding logo" (tee-hee: yup - we now have a wedding logo.  And it is awesome!)  And I also have a few other things I have been working on.  So....summer is here, which means that students tend to be less annoying than normal, and I will get a good chunk of this wedding in order!    

And just to leave you with a few more images from NZ...

BM NZ threatening to push MOH into the river - Oh no! 

(photo by RockHugger33)

One of my super-awesome bridge decorators - doing what geologist do best -point out cool rocks! 

(photo by RockHugger33)

Mega-awesome-totally-cool waterfall in Milford Sound

(photo by RockHugger33)