Much ado about engagement rings

Like any other girl I can appreciate the beauty of a nice engagement ring although they are not really my style, which is why by popular request I started the rings & rocks series to shed some light on the process of choosing a ring. However I'll start by saying I personally do not wear an engagement ring.  That's right. I love all things wedding related except engagement rings.  I guess you could call me the scrooge of engagement rings?
 I'll tell you why. 
Firstly aside from my wedding band, I don't wear any jewelry; no ear rings, bracelets, necklaces or rings.  I've never been that girly girl that has to desire to be sparkly at all times so engagement rings never appealed to me in that sense.  Secondly engagement rings seem a tad outdated to me and  if I must be 100% percent honest I don't really understand the point of them. 

-From my understanding, engagement rings symbolize the fact that you are betrothed; promised in marriage to another, so then why do we continue to wear them once the wedding is over and we are officially married.  If they symbolize engagement then maybe we should only wear them during the engagement period?
- I do understand that they hold sentimental value and that's why people wear them for a lifetime in combination with their wedding band,  but why are they more expensive, more valuable and more of a big deal than the wedding band? To the extent that people actually spend all their savings or go into debt for the perfect engagement ring, but spend only a fraction of that amount on the wedding band. Is the promise to marry, more important than the marriage vow itself?
-In my traditional West African culture, both rings are really only meant be worn after they have been presented to the bride on the day of the traditional marriage ceremony, at which point since you are already married, what is the purpose of the engagement ring?

All in all I like a nice classy ring, but I'm not convinced that engagement rings are worth all the time, money and worry that goes into them...

And while we are on the topic of engagement rings, I can't help but comment on the newest celebrity engagement ring: Kelly Clarkson. I love her voice and style of singing and even had one of her songs in my wedding, but I have no words for her engagement ring!  She managed to combine all the features I like the least.  I guess she wanted to be original with the colored stone but the combination of the halo, size, color cut and band, is just way too much going on.  Sorry Kelly but my eyes are offended.. Congrats all the same :)

Lace bridesmaid dresses...

 

 

 

Lace is definitely the fabric of choice for 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pnina Tornai Fall 2013

As usual Pnina Tornai's new collection contained many "shock factor" gowns that a lot of brides wouldn't understand. Pnina's bridal collections always have a few gowns that are sexier than your average wedding dress, usually featuring a sheer bodice that is very reminiscent of lingerie. In fact the sheer bodice, combined with lace up corsets and super size ball gowns have become her signature style. This season she used less corsets on her gowns and instead many of them featured daring open backs with crystal embellishments. I guess you could say Pnina has made it her mission to infuse as much 'sexy' into the bridal world as possible. I love the first gown, that's my absolute favorite in the collection, its sexy and stylish with out being ridiculous. I would totally wear this for a beach wedding or a vow renewal..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

xoxo

DIY PROJECT: Paper Cranes

Without really planning it,  I ended up being really inspired to incorporate several Oriental elements in my wedding such as hand fans, hair sticks and of course hanging paper cranes.  I also nearly added Chinese paper lanterns to the list but there was a sudden surge in their popularity so I decided to ditch them at the last minute. I literally was seeing paper lanterns at every wedding I attended for several months in a row!  Anyway I was very intrigued when I came across the Japanese tradition of folding 1000 origami paper cranes for their wedding. I've always loved origami it's such an interesting art form; simple and yet quite complex at the same time.  I quickly became quite obsessed with weddings that featured hanging paper cranes and decided to bravely attempt to fold my own cranes. I knew I would never make it 1000 but decided to at least aim to fold 100 or more.

In the end I managed to fold a whopping 200 cranes, although it honestly felt more like 2 billion, but as with all DIY projects, patient diligence pays off! I planned to have the cranes hanging from several locations at the reception, but in the end decided to only use a few strings as a back drop for the head table hanging from a lit arch.

This is the tutorial of how I made my hanging cranes and a picture of the final result. Below my tutorial I attached other inspiration photos of hanging paper cranes.

 

 

 

Picture 4

1. Choose your paper. Although you can order special origami paper I went with regular card stock.
2. Cut the paper down to size.  Perfect squares of paper are needed for this project, but I didn't want to pay extra for that size, so I ordered colored paper in regular letter size (8.5" x 11")  and used my fiskars paper cutter to cut it down to size. Tedious to say the least.
3. Fold the paper into cranes, using a bone folder to get the crease lines perfect. If you don't know how to fold paper cranes, here is a great video that teaches how to fold them
4. Cut a long length of fishing wire. The length depends on how high up you plan to hang the cranes. I used a 9 ft length of wire, just so I would have extra wire in case I needed it. 
5. Thread the fishing wire into a large eye beading needle
6. Tie a knot at the very end of the wire
7. Push the needle through the center of one bead as if you were making a string of beads
8. Push the bead to the end of the wire and and secure it by passing the needle through the center of the bead once more. This bead forms the base of the string of cranes
9. Push the needle through the center of one paper cane and pull the wire all the way until the crane is resting on the first bead from number 8 above.
10. Thread another bead until it is resting directly on the crane ( If you look really closely at picture 4 above you will see a bead on the top of each crane, sorry for the bad lighting)
11.  Leave about an 2 or 3 inches of space on the wire and tie another knot
12. Repeat steps 7 to 12 until you have as many cranes on the wire as y
13. ou like.

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xoxo