I thought about trying to keep my wedding ideas fairly hush-hush so that those of you readers who will also be guests would be "shocked and awed" upon arrival, but I'm sure I couldn't keep it all under wraps for over a year.

Before we begin, I'd like to throw out some words that relate to the effect I'm going for:
drama
glamour
sleek
colorful
modern
striking

#1, the most important decision: location. I'm really into the aquarium. Check out their evening rental site. I'm going back and forth by email with the coordinator there. Hopefully it works out. Once the location is set, the colors and style elements will fall into place. Sharks= sleek, dramatic, and striking (although not modern, quite an ancient taxon). At the GFS, it would have been peacock feathers galore, but at the aquarium I'd do blue and green with bright tropical flowers. Some I had in mind:

Heliconia. In fact, you don't see the flower at all. Those are the sepals. I like the spikyness factor. It's edgy (like my former hamster), high drama, sleek, striking, etc. You might wonder where I got the idea for this flower. Wegmans! They had two or three stems in a rectangular chunky glass vase with some stones in the bottom. I think that might be my centerpiece right there.

Bird of Paradise. Another spiky one. Still very cool, but its a little smaller, so not quite as dramatic. I think more affordable, though. I'm fairly certain I could make my own stylish centerpieces using wholesale flowers, but will probably go with a florist for the bouquets and boutonnières.

With all this "economical" and "affordable" talk, you might think it won't be the most awesome wedding ever. That would be where you'd be wrong. Excess money from stuff like flowers and DJ's (I'm going to get someone from Penn to be an iPod DJ) is going to a kick-ass location, super tasty food (filet mignon, anyone?), and full open bar. We just have very clearly defined priorities. Speaking of which, a very yummy chocolate cake as well. Chocolate cake, which I'll have to give up eating for a while if I want to look good in a dress that looks something like this:
Va-va-va-voom! I'd say it fits all of my adjectives except for "colorful." I'd like to drop 10 pounds/1 dress size, which is entirely reasonable given that I have over one year. I like satin, which can be hard to wear and not look rotund. By the way, this style of dress (fitted past the hips, then flared) is called a mermaid, which totally fits the underwater theme. Fortunately it has a normal bodice instead of seashells.

While Ryan is big on the planning details, it turns out he's not as into the decorations/attire. He just wants to dress like James Bond for a day. I guess that's good, though, as he won't interfere with my decorating and it would be a little too weird if he was psyched about choosing flowers.

On a completely unrelated note, my advanced stats prof asked me today if I'd like to TA basic stats in the fall. I'm in high demand!

Today, among other things, we went to a bridal show in center city. I couldn't believe how low-budget and totally not classy it was. I was really expecting something bigger and useful, but the main objective was for all the vendors to solicit our address. I felt bad for dragging Ryan there, so we only stayed for maybe half an hour. The experience strengthened my resolve to have as non-traditional wedding as Ryan thinks his family will not be shocked by. Mark my words: I will not dance the electric slide in a poufy dress!

We also went to another open house today, and by complete coincidence it turned out to be one of Brian's (although he had someone filling in for him because he was at a different open house). We're having Brian start to take us to houses this week. I'm more excited about houses than the wedding. We also stopped at Home Depot to pick up paint chips to start thinking about decorating the house. It will depend on the specific house we buy, but right now we're thinking cranberry red kitchen, blue living room, taupe master bedroom, a light blue-green for the dining room, sage green for the guest room, and maybe pale yellow for the office. We also plan to get a second cat right when we move in so that both cats arrive at the new house at the same time and thus feel more like equals. More kitties = more fun!

Things that sound more appealing than doing homework:

• planning sights to see in San Diego
• picking china pattern
• creating gift registry
• researching reception locations
• house hunting
• blogging!

I'm not very into the idea of a wedding ceremony. I don't want a religious aspect and I'm not big on poetry readings, singers, etc. To me the vows are the only worthwhile part. Our ceremony would last all of 3 minutes. If it were up to me, we'd have a city hall ceremony followed by a huge party. But since Ryan's family would probably object to no traditionalish ceremony, I told Ryan he can plan it. He wants Patrick Stewart (aka Capt. Picard) to officiate and it would be choreographed to the LOTR soundtrack.

Ryan's getting the ring insured today, so I'll be able to walk the streets of West Philly with confidence. That's one thing I love about Ryan- he's great at getting things done. I delegate and he generally ends up with more than half of the errands, but doesn't complain. That's the mark of a great husband-to-be :P

Ryan is going to San Diego for work March 4-9. I just realized today that is my spring break, so, provided that his work says that it's okay for me to stay in his hotel room, I'm going along! His plane, hotel, and rental car are paid for, so it's just my plane ticket for our mini-vacation. Ryan will be busy during the daytime, but the hotel is downtown, so I can explore solo on foot or stay at the hotel and get caught up on schoolwork. Then in the evenings we can go out for dinner and do a little sightseeing. . . Tijuana, anyone? Haha, probably not. This will be my first visit to California, so I'm really looking forward to the trip.

We met with the realtor and the mortgage person in his office for a combined two hours this morning. I feel much better about the idea of buying a house now. He's very easy to talk to and was able to explain everything clearly. In fact, I think I'll refer to him on a first-name basis in here. His name is Brian. Jersey seems to have a number of special real estate quirks, so it was good to have someone point those out. He put together a long set of listings for us to whittle down to those we want him to take us to. Brian also told us that the market around here is steadily appreciating, despite the national "bubble burst," so we could very well make a decent amount of money instead of just breaking even with renting.

My ideal time to move would be mid-May, after spring semester is over but before I head to Maine. Of course I don't have any definite plans about when and how long I'll be in Maine, but May sounds good. June might also work if I came back down for the move in between Maine trips. In any event, based on what was discussed with Brian, it wouldn't be ridiculous to make an offer anytime soon. And now that we're more informed, it's not as big and scary to make an offer either. Yay for Brian.

Thanks for all the congratulations, everyone. It almost makes up for my mom being not at all excited. But that's a whole 'nother entry.

Conversation with a student after the recitation section I ran yesterday:
Student: "When will we be getting our exams back?"
Cat: "Tomorrow after lecture."
Student: "And did you get engaged?"
Cat: "Yeah, actually it happened yesterday!"
Student: "I saw your ring sparkling and hadn't noticed it before, so I thought it might be new. And you seemed to keep touching it."

Then the remaining sorority-types in the room all gathered 'round and wanted a look. Then it was cute- this shy guy came over and asked to see because he's "shopping for one."

I have a cold. I'm on DayQuil, which is making my nose runny instead of congested. I have too many classes to miss today, especially since it's more of an annoying cold than something incapacitating. Having a runny/stuffy nose is 100 times worse when you're in class and don't want to call attention to your snot. Which I guess I just did. Sorry. But at least I'm going prepared with a ton of tissues.

Tomorrow morning Ryan and I have an appointment with a realtor that we met at one of the open houses. We pretty much picked him because he was the most easy to talk to of the ones we met and we know he sells houses in the area we're most interested in. So if after talking to him tomorrow we still think he's a good fit for us, then he'll officially be our buyers' agent. Then we can get more serious about shopping and have him set up private viewings for us.

I'm thinking that if the wedding ends up being quite close to where we live, we'll have an afterparty at our house (assuming we buy one). Completely casual, for a chance to hang out and get silly without me being self-conscious about the older guests. And everyone can meet Jibblies and the other cat/s that we get once we have the additional house space.

Ryan is going to get SCUBA certified so we can go diving together on our honeymoon.

Don't hate me for having my life going so well! I have a runny nose and classes until 7 today. And my mom is completely unenthusiastic about her only daughter's wedding. It's not all perfect.

Onto the detail post. I bought into Ryan's "not this weekend" claim because, knowing him, I knew that he wouldn't want his mom all up in our business. And that was his original plan, to wait and surprise me at Penn, but I kept whining about being impatient so much that he moved it forward to the weekend.

I wasn't suspicious at all on Saturday. We went to dinner and Dave & Busters with his mom and little brother. All was normal.

On Sunday Ryan talked to his mom on the phone to organize meeting up at the aquarium. I wouldn't have overheard anything, except she was on the phone in a noisy place and kept telling Ryan to speak up and twice repeat the phrase he'd been trying to whisper, "If you get there early, hang it up."

So I knew something was to be hung at the aquarium. As I cannot keep a secret from Ryan, I told him that I overheard something that I probably shouldn't have. He shrugged and didn't tell me anything else.

When we arrived at the aquarium, his brother was holding a poster tube, then his mom mysteriously disappeared with the tube for 10 minutes without telling us where she was going. It seemed quite silly to be involved in the charade, but I played along. After 10 minutes, still with poster tube in hand, she went up to the information desk in the lobby (30 feet from where we were waiting). Then an aquarium employee took the tube and scurried off upstairs.

His mom finally met up with us and said, "Peter really wants to see the sharks first, so let's go to the shark tunnel." She led us to the tunnel, rushing us past all the other exhibits as if the hippos weren't worth 10 seconds of our time. As we got closer to the tunnel, she said, "Peter's afraid of sharks, so we're going to let Ryan and Cat go through first to prove that the sharks won't eat you." So we went up to the tunnel but it was jam-packed with people. I saw the tube-toting aquarium employee off to the side at the entrance to the tunnel. Time seemed to be at a standstill because the line was literally at a standstill.

Eventually we made it just into the opening of the tunnel and the employee "subtlely" nodded at Ryan. He got down on one knee and the employee pulled out a poster that said, "Marry me, Catharine" with pictures of us on it (I'll post a pic later). Ryan pulled out the ring box, opened it, and said, "Cat, I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?"

I was very embarrassed because of all the people around us, so I quickly said "yes, yes, get up!" and put the ring on. And then there was a little bit of applause from the crowd, then Ryan's mom rushed up to take a picture. I guess I felt especially silly because while a proposal in the middle of a not-crowded tunnel would have been ideal, we were barely through the entrance to the tunnel because that's where the employee stood beforehand. In addition, there were people to all sides of us so we didn't even have the "romantic" view of the tank. But my Ryan tried, and it's not his fault that his mom isn't as sneaky as he is.

She overheard all the women saying, "awww, how sweet," and all the men saying, "in the shark tank, how appropriate! har har har!"

Anyway, the aquarium in general was his choice of spot because 1) I'm gonna be a marine biologist, and 2) it's actually one of the sites we're thinking about having our reception at. We haven't looked into pricing yet, but it would be really distinctive.

So that's my story and I'm sticking to it. I've been showing off my ring at school today. On one hand, I want to show it off, but on the other hand, I don't want to appear a gloating biyatch. The stones are a decent size, but not ostentatiously large- it's their high level of sparklyness that gives the illusion that they're even bigger. I'm trying to get good value in terms of $ per seconds viewed by looking at it constantly :)

It happened today!

In the Adventure Aquarium shark tunnel, which, if you're not familiar, looks like this:


Here is us right after:


And another couple views of the ring for good measure. . .



Details of the proposal later. All this excitement and I'm plum tuckered out.

Ack! The ring is hidden in our apartment and I'm expected not to hunt for it! Not fair!

Ryan spilled a little info tonight. He's picking up the ring tomorrow, but the proposal won't be this weekend because his mom is in town and he'd rather we have some privacy. But he promised it would be within a week from now, so he has a little window of time during which to come up with and execute something decent. So tired of waiting!

V-day was a nice, low-key evening in (other than a little grocery shopping at Weggies). I got a kitten card and Lindt chocolate, so I'm happy. I'm really getting antsy about the ring now. I would expect it to be done soon. I've been taking extra care to moisturize my hands because the air is really dry and I don't want my hands to be red and crackly when I show off the ring!

Ryan's mom emailed him a list of proposal ideas. #1 was: "dress up as a knight and rent a white horse." Ignoring the groan-inducing cheesiness of it, I don't think Ryan has any horsemanship skills. I don't think it would end well.

Stress has been getting to me lately. The imminent engagement is a happy sort of stress, but still a looming change. I've been able to accept that I don't need to plan an entire wedding ASAP, but it's still in the back of my head. School is busy to the point where it's time to start counting down to spring break (March 3). And we're house shopping, which had me very angst-y yesterday.

We went to 4 open houses, bringing our total of houses looked at to a dozen or so. Basically, we found the perfect house for us at an unbelievably reasonable price. I know, it just sounds awful, doesn't it? 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath, big recently remodeled kitchen, recently remodeled bathrooms, spacious rooms, new roof, new central air and heat, new driveway, nice looking exterior, decent sized yard, relatively close to the train, and all for the price of a fixer-upper. (Dan, what's the inside scoop on Magnolia?) Both Ryan and I agree that it seems too good to pass up, but we really hadn't seriously considering buying soon until we saw the house.

The main obstacles in our way are our lease (not up until end of August, up to $4000 lost if the complex isn't able to find replacement tenants), and inexperience with the big, scary house-buying process. With the amazing house deal and likelihood that tenants would be found within a couple months, the lease doesn't seem major enough to pass. For the scary process, we're going to find ourselves a buyers' real estate agent soon (next 2 weeks) who can help guide us through the process and probably identify if there's a sketchy reason why the house is so cheap. So I'm hoping that the house isn't sold in the next couple weeks, after which we can return with our brilliant agent and possibly make an offer.

I have a real problem getting emotionally invested in things like wedding locations and houses. That's the main source of my stress, I think. I would not be a good businessperson.

What do you think?!?!?!









Hahahaha, just kidding. This is not my ring. Thought I'd play with you a bit. That ring is, uh, interesting, but mine is a little more, uh, classy. But not in my possession yet.

Engagement Watch 2007: Not yet!

Really, I don't think the jewelry store would be done making it by now, figuring that it's their busy season leading up to V-day and all. I'd expect later next week, probably. Of course if it was earlier, I would be surprised, which is one of the objectives.

Plans for the weekend: none, really. Maybe some house hunting. Shopping for major purchases is fun, like picking up a new hobby.

Ryan is currently entertaining proposal suggestions. You can send him your ideas at kalckid@hotmail.com

A few guidelines from me:
Not on Valentines Day. Too cliché.
Not in a restaurant, or in a glass of champagne. Also too cliché.
On the collar of a new real live kitten? Not cliché. Probably the best idea ever.

Also, a surprise would be nice. Ryan saying something like, "How about we go to NYC this Saturday. Maybe we could go to the top of the Empire State Building," would be a little suspect.

I think my initial surge of wedding-on-the-brain is over. Thanks to some "help" from my first midterm and a couple problem sets, I didn't look at a single wedding-related thing yesterday or today. Still really looking forward to the ring, but as I know it's too soon for it to be finished, I'm not too antsy at the moment.

So. Without wedding/engagement blabber, unless you want to hear about school, nothing interesting is going on. It's really cold outside. The apartment is about 10 degrees cooler than usual with the cold snap on (usually it's 78ish, now it's 68ish), so Jibblies seems to want to cuddle more. It's very soothing to cuddle a warm cat when it's cold. Warm boyfriends/fiance-elects (lame duck boyfriends?) are also cozy, although Jibblies has the advantage of silky soft fur.

Last weekend we only watched the first half of the Superbowl, as the commercials sucked and we didn't care who won. We also went to another open house after just driving around and looking for signs. It looked cute and small from the outside, like something we would be interested in, but once we got inside and picked up a flyer we quickly realized that it was beyond our means ($409K!). It was an older house that was fully updated and remodeled inside. That's what we've got to do: find a small older house and fix it up all fancy-like, then sell for a huge profit.

There was a funny bit of conversation between Ryan and the ring salesman on Sunday. As relayed to me by Ryan:
Guy: "How would you like to pay for the deposit?"
Ry: "American Express"
Guy: "I can let you put the deposit on the AmEx, but for the balance we only accept Visa and Mastercard. American Express takes 3% of the charge amount. Do you get frequent flier miles or something on it?"
Ry: "Cash back, actually."
Guy: "Oh really? Hadn't heard of that. How much do you get?"
Ry: "1.5%. So they're taking it away from you and giving it to me."

:) We went to the jewelry store again today, and Ryan put down a deposit on the ring! It's going to be gorgeous and I feel spoiled rotten. Ryan knows how long it's going to take for them to make it, but he's not telling me so he has more of a chance to surprise me. But soon, people, soon!

I wish I knew what more people thought about me and Ryan getting married. Like, "oh, I totally saw that coming" or "whoa, they're crazy" or "I'd bet $100 they'll get divorced within three years." Well, maybe you could keep it to yourself if you're in the third category.

Any more unique suggestions or ideas for the ceremony or reception? We want to have a non-boring wedding, so "unique ideas" doesn't mean getting monograms on napkin rings or anything lame like that. Something a little crazy that people will remember as representing our personalities.

“Cat people should marry cat people, and dog people should marry dog people.” -Danny DeVito in War of the Roses

I'm not just excited about having a wedding; I'm thrilled about spending the rest of my life with Ryan. We make such a great team. My favorite memories of things we've done together often involve times when we cooperated to make something, accomplish something complicated, or make major decisions together. Examples: gingerbread castle, Thanksgiving dinner, cooking in general, moving from Cornell to Syracuse, planning trips to St. Thomas and Washington, buying two cars, apartment-hunting, moving from Syracuse to Jersey, house-hunting, ring shopping, and now wedding planning.

The best aspect of all of this is how we are equals and when you love someone as much as we love each other, compromising to make the other person happy feels just as good as getting what you want. It's not all that often that we have to compromise, though, because we seem to see eye-to-eye on most things.

I got a good lesson on how a marriage should not work from my parents. My father rules the household by authoritarian means, and when, growing up, I told my mom that she should have as much say as he did in family decisions, she would always tell me that the Bible gives husbands the right to be "the decider:" "Wives, be subordinate to your husbands, as is proper in the Lord" -Colossians 3:18. My mom always wanted me to grow up to be a good Catholic, but I don't know how she ever thought she'd be successful if I had that kind of marriage to "look forward" to.

So. Ryan and I are not at all like my parents, and have no intentions of becoming so. We're happy. We're the perfect team. We love each other more than words can express. It's going to be hard to write my vows.