I think the ring is near! A free wedding venue!

[Clairitek]

Last night FF and I were at his bank''s drive-up ATM so he could deposit a check and get out some cash. Well he handed me the cash while he drove away and my eye happened to catch the balance on the receipt- totally by accident. I blurted out "Whoa! You''re rich!!" because the balance was MUCH higher than he normally keeps in there. He generally keeps everything but a little big for expenses in his savings account. Then he goes "Oh crap, I shouldn''t have handed that to you!" and then got sort of flushed and embarrassed. Of course I have to be a tool and say "What are you going to be making a big purchase soon?"

So I let it go. I didn''t want to ruin his plans or anything. I know that the surprise is important to him. My parents are coming down for Thanksgiving so maybe.... I''m thinking that he might do a proposal a la Musey''s DH and surprise me in bed that morning because I''m pretty sure he doesn''t want to do it in front of other people.

The second awesome thing I have to share with everyone is that one of my mom''s best friends who has a 2 acre property near my hometown has offered up her property for our wedding reception if we want a garden reception in a tent. She has a gorgeous arbor in her back yard and lots of little gardens here and there. Her house is on a sewer and has two bathrooms so that won''t be an issue with overloading a septic tank (lots of people have them where I''m from). This sort of offer could allow us to have a wedding with nicer food but with a big guest list that we couldn''t afford anywhere else. She also has a fire pit so a night fall bon fire could be romantic. Its not a done deal but it certainly is attractive!

 

[Amanda.Rx]

Well, that''s exciting, huh?

Hopefully, that "extra change" is your ring in waiting!

Awesome about the venue too- sounds lovely!

 

[katamari]

Great news, Clairitek! Yahoo!

 

[SailorsSweet<3]

How exciting! Everything seems to be falling into place for you, congrats

 

[trillionaire]

haha, men are so UNslick! I love it!

 

[PrincessDijon]

How exciting!!!!

 

[gladyskristen]

Oh what a huge giveaway! I wonder if he did it on purpose to drop a HINT though. Hehe. Hope to hear your proposal story soon!

 

[sunnyd]

hehe, that''s awesome!

 

[Clairitek]

Thanks for the kind words and support everyone. I''m really excited that its going to happen "soon" though we all know that boys and girls have different ideas on what "soon" is.... I know by the end of the year.

I can''t stop daydreaming about a romantic garden wedding... rice paper lanterns in the trees and white twinkle lights lining the tent. A s''more bar set up near the fire pit. Lanterns lighting the way to the tent... a romantic flowy white dress...

*sigh*

Its a dream come true. I can''t wait to call my mom''s friend and thank her for her offer. This woman doesn''t have any kids and mom said that she kept saying "I''d really love to have a wedding here!" after they started talking about it. I''m glad shes so excited. I never would have thought to ask her about doing this.

Hopefully I will be joining the BWW soon. There have been a TON of engagements in the last two weeks. I think theres something in the water.

 

[vita*dolce]

that''s so exciting!! your venue sounds perfect and beautiful!! so lucky that it''s free!!

 

[dragonfly411]

That''s so exciting for you!!!

 

[Clairitek]

I visited the venue I described in my posts above this weekend when I was home visiting my parents and its

perfect

! Of course it isn''t official because we''re not yet engaged and FF and his family haven''t seen it yet but I think that they will feel the same way about it as I do. There is more than enough space for a main tent and then maybe a secondary tent further back in the stand of trees.

Here is the neatest development from this weekend though- the woman who has offered up the property is a bee keeper and collects honey and beeswax from her bees. She just harvested her fall honey and is about to bottle it up. She offered to save me some to put in little jars and give away as wedding favors! How cute! My mother and I found jars online that are about 3.75 oz and only 87 cents a piece (including shipping)! The three of us (the owner of the property, my mother, and I) talked about some details for about an hour. They liked the idea of using the fire pit to make s''mores at sunset and hanging lanterns in all the trees throughout the property.

I''m so excited I can hardly contain myself! The whole thing is very inspiring. I am doing my best not to bring it up with FF and save our real decision making time for when we''re really engaged.

"Soon" I hope.

 

[audball]

That sounds great! Congrats! My SO is way to slick to slip up on a receipt, I wish I was that lucky! At least you know it''s coming! Now it''s just the waiting game. I LOVE the idea of the small honey jars as favors, what a perfect option! And FREE, can''t get much better than that

Goodluck! Keep us updated!

 

[Clairitek]

I had a very vivid proposal dream last night. My ring in the dream wasn't anything like I would expect from him- a 1.37 ct RB diamond VS1 clarity but fairly yellow (like M color or so). It was in bezel-like setting but had three little prong-like things that stuck out of the edge of the bezel to help hold it in place. It had engraving on the band that was sort of like IWPO's e-ring. The cut was perfect because I remember I could see arrows with my naked eye (which I'm going to guess is impossible in real life).

The proposal was weird because I sorta ended up proposing to myself. I remember we were talking about it and he was got down on one knee or something and I figured it was to tie his shoe. When I was done talking about marriage and getting engaged I looked down and there he was with the ring. I got really excited but shortly after that we looked out into the distance (we were on this weird desolate pier thing) and saw a Southwest Airlines 747 in the water coming towards us. I was almost like a giant boat. We started to make a run for it because we realized that the plane was headed right for us and the pier. It started to turn in the water and the fuselage cracked right open when it made contact. We started to help people and they were all CRAZY! I remember hiding my ring (which was waaaay too big- a size 7) from the crazy people but I was dying to find some intense light so I could look at it sparkle.

I never remember dreams vividly but I think that this one is definitely a result of reading so many lovely proposal stories in the last week on the LIW board and all this wedding venue talk.

ETA: The woman I commute with two days a week is a graphic designer for the school I am at. She has offered to do all of the design work for our invitations and any other paper products (our honey jar labels!?!) for free and then I can have them printed for cheap at the school. I am such a lucky girl.

ETA2: FF and I made our first wedding related purchase- jars for the honey, since the bee keeper needs to get that stuff bottled soon. He didn't mind doing it since we both really liked the honey idea- regardless of where the reception is. It feels so strange to have something actually purchased for *my* wedding. Whoa...