a poem by Taylor Mali.

First of all, it's a big responsibility,
especially in a city like New York.
So think long and hard before deciding on love.
On the other hand, love gives you a sense of security:
when you're walking down the street late at night
and you have a leash on love
ain't no one going to mess with you.
Because crooks and muggers think love is unpredictable.
Who knows what love could do in its own defense?

On cold winter nights, love is warm.
It lies between you and lives and breathes
and makes funny noises.
Love wakes you up all hours of the night with its needs.
It needs to be fed so it will grow and stay healthy.

Love doesn't like being left alone for long.
But come home and love is always happy to see you.
It may break a few things accidentally in its passion for life,
but you can never be mad at love for long.

Is love good all the time? No! No!
Love can be bad. Bad, love, bad! Very bad love.

Love makes messes.
Love leaves you little surprises here and there.
Love needs lots of cleaning up after.
Sometimes you just want to get love fixed.
Sometimes you want to roll up a piece of newspaper
and swat love on the nose,
not so much to cause pain,
just to let love know Don't you ever do that again!

Sometimes love just wants to go for a nice long walk.
Because love loves exercise.
It runs you around the block and leaves you panting.
It pulls you in several different directions at once,
or winds around and around you
until you're all wound up and can't move.

But love makes you meet people wherever you go.
People who have nothing in common but love
stop and talk to each other on the street.

Throw things away and love will bring them back,
again, and again, and again.
But most of all, love needs love, lots of it.
And in return, love loves you and never stops.

...is wedding cake."  -James Thurber

We don't want a gigantic 5-tier fancy-pants wedding cake.  I have tasted some delicious wedding cake in my day, but it always seems like so much of it goes to waste.  At this point it's just a little bit hard for me to rationalize spending hundreds and hundreds on something that will either be eaten or thrown away. 

So.  We are thinking that we will have a small 2-tier cake.  (bottom layer to ceremoniously cut, top to stash away in our freezer.)  For our guests, we would like to have a delicious, summery, strawberry shortcake.  This will probably be a sheet cake that will be cut and plated behind the scenes.  We're imagining this will be a less expensive approach, but who knows what kind of surprise we'll be in for when we meet with a baker!  While we both enjoy strawberry shortcake, this is also kind of a nod to my wonderful Papa, my grandfather, who has always adored this dessert above all others.  I think he'll enjoy it.

As an alternative, this also looks amazing:

And the fish-theme-crazed woman in me is in love with this beauty:

I'm not with any band and I realize that's a corny post title but it's late at night so cut me a little slack.  What this post IS about is our wedding bands.  We got them!  I'm guessing this is way early on any regular timetable, but I am glad that we did.

When we started thinking about where to ring-shop, we decided we'd prefer to support a small local jeweler.  Several people had suggested checking out Glennpeter.  Although I doubt anyone from upstate New York will ever read this, I highly recommend them.  Mike and I had decided ahead of time that matching bands weren't really a priority for us - we both have very different tastes, and we thought it would make more sense to each find a ring we adored.  And that is exactly what we found. The whole experience was much easier than I ever anticipated...much like my dress-shopping experience we knew what we wanted and the wonderful staff helped us find it pretty quickly. 

As an aside - although our bands won't match, we do have plans for some corny engravings for the insides. 

Now we get to wait over a year to wear them!

I've said it before and I'll say it again.  I adore Etsy.  I've spent hours browsing the many shops, but actually made my very first purchase(s) yesterday!  I fell in love with this stamp months ago:

As I type, it's being made with our names across the top and our date across the bottom.  I also ordered another one-of-a-kind, tiny, fantastic fish stamp for other stationary purposes...

Can't wait until they arrive and I can try them out!