His Ring

At first, I was wary. Was I really going to order a ring from iweddingband.com? The name itself made the website sound cheesy. But after searching around online for better prices, I never found them. I also scoured the internet for reviews of the site and all were glowing. So, I bit the bullet.

Enter: Mr. Cowboy Boot's 18k yellow gold, 5 mm, half-round wedding band. It arrived in the mail a few days ago (about a week after ordering it) and it's lovely. The best part? It was $254 and that Mr. CB loves it.

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Mr. CB is a simple guy. His father has a similar ring and I think that was his inspiration. In fact, he is so connected to his father that Mr. CB has a tattoo of his father's handprint on his back, left shoulder. His dad, a potter, made a glaze of his hand so the tattoo has all of the fine lines, like tiny rivers, that weather his palm.

So, while Mr. CB is inspired by his father, I was inspired by Mrs. Lightening. If you remember, she surprised Mr. Lightening with an inscription on his ring.

As I posted before, our wedding falls on the night of the Harvest Moon. We only found this out after picking our first dance song: Harvest Moon by Neil Young.

What did I put inside Mr. CB's ring? Our wedding date and the lyrics from our song: "On this harvest moon".

I mentioned to Mr. CB that his ring was on its way in the mail and that I had gotten a surprise engraved. He was not excited. He said that he probably wouldn't like it and that it reminded him of a cheesy promise ring or friendship band.

But, then, the ring arrived. He probably thought I was going to write something cheesy like "A + I 4ever". Lucky for him, my creative side was on the upswing the day I ordered the ring.

And, as it turns out, he loves it.

Where did you get your ring? Did you test out an unexpectedly awesome website? If so, share!

Booking the Band

Since I've been on a music kick lately with our playlists, I figured I should fill you in on how we booked our band. We listened to many, many bands before finally settling and signing a contract. With the goal in mind that we wanted a bluegrass band, we initially turned to our favorite, the Infamous Stringdusters.

But a few quick e-mails proved them to be too expensive at $7,500 plus the cost of a production assistant. They are, after all, Nashville's hottest.

I started asking around. A co-worker connected me with the owner of Planet Bluegrass, a venue that holds bluegrass festivals year-round. A solid list of bands was recommended but none that really struck a chord (hehe) with us.

A bride who'd gotten married at Devil's Thumb Ranch on our date the year before had hired local, snowboarder, bluegrass musicians, Hunker Down. I liked them because they were fun and young and would be appealing to a broad audience. One of my worries is that our guests (90% of which are coming from Los Angeles and New York State and probably don't listen to much bluegrass) won't have fun with our band. But, Mr. CB just couldn't get into it.

We listened to great traditional acts like Sweet Sunny South and Spring Creek, but neither was quite right. Too slow? I'm not sure. They just didn't fit.

Eventually, I used Mrs. Joey's famous craigslist advice and advertised our need for a band on the 'net. The responses started flowing in (we'd advertised a budget of $1,000) and soon we had a plethora of bands to pick from.

Our faves?

Victor Barnes Insurgent Bluegrass

Acoustic Mining Company

Mountain Standard Time

Head for the Hills

The Humminbirds

After listening to all of them, though, we still couldn't find one that we really wanted to play our reception. Early on, as I mentioned, I asked friends who knew the bluegrass scene in Colorado. One band had been recommended to me and I loved them, but I thought they'd be too expensive. They're called Elephant Revival. Sure enough, their prices were pretty much double what we could pay.

Maybe the benefit of having our wedding on a Sunday is that it is a day that most of our vendors don't make anything. That means they're willing to work for less.

Whatever the reason, we asked and Elephant Revival agreed. They were willing to work within our budget. It just goes to show you that asking never hurts.

Here's my favorite song by them, although this rendition is a little slower than when they have the full five- to six-piece band.

They are going to play for half an hour while everyone gets seated at the ceremony, they'll play the processional and then, again, for three hours during the reception. Any, they're learning our first dance song, Harvest Moon by Neil Young, for us.

How did you find your band? What kind of band did you book? Or are you getting music to your wedding in some other form?

Finding the Perfect One. Period.

After skimming Wanna Buy a Watch's shelves and trying numerous rings on (some in my budget, some not), there was one that I just kept coming back to. She fit me perfectly (even better than my e-ring which has been re-sized three times). She was also a tad bit thinner than my engagement ring but had the same length "spread" of diamonds in the channel. The price tag for this beauty? $895.

I explained that my budget was $300 to the sales lady. I explained it sheepishly, I admit. Then I left. I thought about that ring a lot. It was platinum with milgrain, and nine channel-set diamonds equaling .22 carats of bling. Plus an inscription that's from 1907: "From BRP to WK."

A few days later, I went back to the store and told Christine, the salesperson, that I wanted it. But that the price just wasn't going to work for me. She said she'd have to talk to the owner (who was in Hawaii for the week) and would call me. I left, ringless.

Then, I had my bridal shower. My step-grandmother, who won't be able to make it to the wedding, gave me a very generous amount of money as a gift.

A couple of days later, I got a call from Christine. She said they could bring the price down to $600. From there, the negotiations started and we went back and forth. Eventually, we ended up at a price that was below $600 and was just enough for my grandmother's gift to make up the difference. I love that she contributed to this little piece of symbolism that will be on my hand forever.

We were able to save on tax by having the ring sent to New Mexico.

You want to see it, don't you? Lucky for you, we had a photo shoot this morning.






Did you negotiate the fee for your ring? Have you had a fun photo session to memorialize it yet?

Finding the Perfect One (Part Two)

After not finding The Perfect One online or through a friend who's a jeweler, I decided I would hit up some consignment shops while home in Los Angeles a few weeks back. I'd seen some online consignment shops by googling "Estated Wedding Bands" or "Estate Rings." Stores like Sylvia's Antiques, Antique Jewelry Mall, Lang Antique & Estate Jewelry, and many others popped up but none had anything I liked within my price range (reminder: it's $300 for my ring and $100 for Mr. CB's).

My first inkling was to go to a store called The Paper Bag Princess in Los Angeles which has consignment wedding dresses, shoes, clutches, jewelry. You could get outfitted for your whole wedding right there. But, before I ventured in there, I stopped by a consignment shop in San Luis Obispo (while visiting a friend). It was called Hamilton Estate Jewelry.

The cool thing about this shop is that they price the items when they come in. So, say a ring came in at some point in the '80s when the price of platinum was low. No matter that the price of platinum is high now, the ring still costs what it did 20 years ago.

I found a ring there that was about the same width of my engagement ring. It was platinum, one-fifteenth of a carat in full, round cut G-color diamonds. Price? $490 plus tax.

I liked it, but the fact that it was the same width as my engagement ring made it a little bulky. I'm pretty petite and need a thin band.

I didn't find anything I liked at Paper Bag Princess but they referred me to a store called Wanna Buy A Watch? on Melrose. Prior to their separate locations, these stores had been a part of a group of estate jewelry sellers in one building called the Antiquarius Center. That building burned down, scattering the vendors all over Los Angeles.

At Wanna Buy A Watch? they have some gorgeous bands. I actually fell in love with quite a few.

18K White Gold Engraved Ring ($395)

Platinum and diamond eternity band ($1,495)

Platinum Hand Engraved Ring ($675)

Diamond and Sapphire ($1,175)

Platinum and Diamond Micro Pave ($1,125)

They have tons of bands I could drool over all day. Yet, most of them seemed out of reach.

Did you get your ring from a consignment shop or website? If so, which store or website did you buy it from?

Finding the Perfect One

I have to be honest. Our ring budget is small. Veeeerrrry small. Like $400 for both of us. Luckily, Mr. CB was feeling generous one day and told me I could have $300 and he'd take $100. Well, to be honest, $300 doesn't get you very much at all in the land of diamond and platinum.

I like to think I'm very resourceful. I find bargains on everything I can, and that includes my wedding band. My first thought was to find a jeweler to make the ring. Luckily, I had a friend of a friend who happened to be a very talented jeweler: Katrina Lapenne. She doesn't necessarily make wedding jewelry, but she makes some very cool stuff and I had faith in her that she could make a great wedding band.

We chatted about my budget and what I was looking for and I started sending her inspiration photos. I also sent her pics of my engagement ring so she could try to create something that matched.

The first ring I loved was Ms. Perfume's first ring. Even though Ms. Perfume didn't love it.

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The next ring I found that I adored was by Anne Sportun. She designs "experimental jewelry" so if you're looking for something unconventional, check out her designs. I found the ring below on a site called Persimmon, Handpicked Objects.

Since the above ring is over $1,500, I thought I'd look for something without diamonds. Apparently, that isn't the answer either. Check out this beautiful, diamond-less $2,845 ring I found on Clay Pot.

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Finally, I came across this untraditional eternity band on Sundance. It's the Stardust Diamond Ring. It's just under $1000 which means, it's still way out of my budget.

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After e-mailing back and forth with Katrina, the jewelry designer I knew, we couldn't move forward. What I wanted was too specialized. It would take too much time for the price I could pay. She offered to buy me a ring off a wholesaler site (since she's a business) but I never found anything I really liked. I really wanted something unique (surprise, surprise), so I moved along.

Were the wedding bands you wanted way out of your budget? How were you resourceful in getting what you wanted?