I don’t do too much of this, but occasionally the wedding planning brings me to some wedding blogs and message boards (that’s how I discovered custom stamps and hand-cancelling).  While looking through some the other day I came across posts about “Wedding Diapers”.   They’re really what they sound like: diapers specifically for women whose wedding dresses are so big & elaborate that they won’t be able to use the bathroom.  Crazy, right??  

 I’d like to take a moment to point out that I discovered this fact while browsing on a totally unrelated, non-gross topic.  I wish I could remember what that topic was, but it was most certainly not wedding diapers.  I swear.

A few weekends ago we went and picked up our wedding rings.  Actually just mine was ready — for some reason Ben’s order got lost so they’re reordering it and sending it to our apartment.  

The shopping process was a little bit hard.  I tried on at least a dozen styles - including all the rings belonging to the employees - and because the display rings run smaller than his hands, Ben got at least 3 or 4 seriously stuck on (they use Windex to get them off).  As we were trying to figure out what we liked we asked the salesperson if wedding bands had to match and she said no (which was pretty liberating).   So in the end we wound up choosing very different rings for ourselves.  It’s kind of exciting that we each found our own style that we’ll really like wearing. 

I went with a plain platinum band to match my engagement ring, while Ben chose beveled gold:

In April of 2007 Ben gave me a ring that has “PROPERTY OF BEN POPIK” engraved around the outside of the ring in big block letters.  We’re worried my little 2 mm band won’t be able to handle something that long, but we’re still considering some engraving on the inside of these.  We’ll see what happens!

PS> If Ben tells you he catches me wearing my wedding band all the time he’s lying….  He has only caught me once. 

Yesterday we dropped all the invitations in the mail – so no turning back now!

We made the invitations ourselves in a Fourth-of-July invitation marathon.  Our work station included 3 printers, 1 home-made light box (i.e. a lamp in a trash can with the microwave plate on top), a paper cutter, 4 boxes of blank invitations (we only needed three; the fourth was for mistakes), vellum, custom stamps and some sweat and tears…. no blood.  Ben even “hand cancelled” the invitations at the post office yesterday - meaning he added the postmark by hand to each one so the invitations wouldn’t smudge or jam in a machine.    

All in all I’d say it was worth it to make our own invitations.  It was a lot of time and probably only a small money saver, but it’s really nice to have something that we made ourselves. 

To our friend Jeff Maksym - who took the picture for the invite - Thank You.  I think Ben is planning to post “outtakes” from that shoot soon.

This isn’t really a wedding update, but here are the stats for our other big summer event:

Yep - I'm ahead 3 points!

Our engagement announcement was in my hometown paper this weekend!  (Thanks Mom Hutko!) 

Bonus fact: I had a newspaper route throughout my childhood.  The paper-route cliches of being chased by dogs and having to collect overdue money (like the movie Better Off Dead) are totally true!

I enjoy our weekly trips to Bed Bath & Beyond, but the registry building process was definitely overwhelming at first.  (Though the scanner gun was great right off the bat).  We now have a system where we do a lot of online browsing beforehand to keep us organized, and a lot of dinner or bowling afterward to keep Ben interested.   

My favorite part about the whole thing is that there are a number of items on the check-list the store gave us that I just have no idea what they are .  Among others, these include:

• Baker - I can only hope that this means an actual man who will live in our kitchen and bake for us.
• Utility Set - This is a gut-wrenching one not to understand since the name implies it would be useful.
• Finials - I don’t even have a guess on this one.  Not a clue.  This might not even be a word.  Who knows?

While I love the idea of an aquarium wedding, one of the tricky points is finding a spot for the ceremony.  Aquariums are so windy that there isn’t always a good spot for the traditional aisle, rows, etc. 

Our ceremony is going to be in front of the shark tank.  (The tank is HUGE).  It’s actually a very nice amphitheater-style space, but I do feel a little silly about getting married in front of a bunch of sharks.  Ever since we chose the space Ben has been rehearsing his vows – he likes to add lots of “Whoa – look at that shark!”… and… “What about that one!” exclamations interspersed between lines.   

I do think the ceremony will be very intersting – both for the people watching us and thinking about eating afterwards, and for the sharks watching and thinking about eating us afterward.

Last night we asked our friend Chioke to be the officiant at the ceremony and he gladly accepted.  Now the only part is becoming a minister…

 Thanks Chioke!

He probably won't wear the glasses that day