The Proposal

Onto the good stuff — the engagement! First of all, you should know that, in Switzerland, girls just get a simple gold or silver band as their engagement ring. And there are quite a lot of girls who don’t get a ring at all for their engagement. I told my boyfriend at the very beginning of our relationship that, if he wanted to marry me someday, he needed to get me a real American engagement ring. A girl needs some bling, right?
We have been together for a bit more than six years when he finally made the decision to get me an engagement ring. We don’t have the same taste in jewelry, so he wanted to be on the safe side and let me pick the ring by myself (Alright, probably because I’m juuuuuuuuuust a bit picky). So, we took a vacation in Florida and visited as many jewelers as we could find. By the end of the day, I found the most precious and gorgeous ring at the very last jeweler we visited!
I told him beforehand that, even if he bought me the ring, it didn’t mean he that could skip the proposal. But guess what? After that wonderful day we spent together, I didn’t need a proposal as it just felt right!
The night I finally took my ring home (they resized it three times), we went for a romantic dinner. We drank red wine and just enjoyed each other’s company. I could not have asked for a better or more meaningful "proposal".

Photos taken by us

Coloring Book Template

A few  people have asked where I found the coloring book template that I sent my cousin. I, um, "borrowed" it from Tara, who found it on the blu sky designs blog.

Image: In This Instance

A Sweet Wedding Present

During our wedding ceremony, our officiant read my answer to this survey question:

What do you have in common?
Sadly, the biggest thing that Andy and I probably have in common is a love of cheesy casseroles and red meat. We both love food and eating out. Saving up for the wedding has been tough because we haven't gone out for sushi since we had gift cards from Christmas!

Which gave all of our guests a laugh. On Friday, I received the coolest wedding gift from my friend Janet:

• One of my all-time favorite Snow & Graham cards:

• A gift certificate to Coast Sushi in Chicago. Coast is seriously one of our favorite restaurants and Janet picked it on a whim, as it's one of the best in the city. It is the first place that I took Andy for sushi, we celebrated our engagement night there, and we celebrated our one-month wedding anniversary there (with a bottle of Cakebread Chardonnay Reserve from our honeymoon.) Look how cute their gift certificates are:

• And since Coast is a BYOB (yeah!):
  
• A BYOB bag from BUILT NY*.

• A bottle of wine from Farrari-Carano winery, which we visited on our Honeymoon.

Isn't that so nice? I've always thought that free nights out on the town are the nicest thing that you can give someone - especially in a recession. Both Andy and I were so touched and impressed by this creative and personal gift.


*I often give BUILT bags and wine as gifts. I think that they're great things to have around the house.

For an Organized Bride, I was very Unorganized.

In the week leading up to the wedding, our condo looked like this:

Planning a wedding in a 400 square feet is not easy. I misplaced more stuff in that last week than I have in my whole life. As a result, my flower girl was the only guest who did not have a favor for her place setting at the Rehearsal Dinner. Until today! I just packaged these up for mailing tomorrow morning. I think that I found them under the couch the weekend that we returned from our honeymoon. (Not kidding.)

I included a note to remind her to clean her room so that she doesn't end up like her crazy, messy cousin!

Bling Redo II

If I would have gotten married back in my ingenue days, I would have loved a short, flirty dress.

Image (Clockwise): Martha Stewart, J. Crew, Neiman Marcus, J. Crew

I wonder if I should stop torturing myself and just buy this bracelet? Andy would never even notice that I bought it, but I feel guilty spending money when we're supposed to be building a Recession Fund.  We have a wedding to attend in June. I can always recycle my navy J. Crew Sophia dress and shine it up with this pretty bling.

Images: J. Crew

Bling Redo

If I had seen this last year, my whole look would have been styled around this bracelet. I can just hear it clinking as I move through the room.

Image: J. Crew

Images (L-R):
Top Row: J. Crew, artikal, In Style Weddings

Bottom Row: J. Crew, J. Crew, Venus Bridal

I'd swap out the shoes for a lovely light gold d'orsay or add a pearl and diamond clip to them. And I'd don a retro fur caplet that my mom and I would find in an antique store.

"Hello" from Severine!

Hello, Everyone:

Wow! This is so exciting! I was so honored when Tina asked me to be a contributor on her wonderful blog. I said, “Yes,” faster than I could even spell it! So, here I sit thinking about my first post in a foreign language. I better start at the beginning…

I live and will get married in Switzerland. Since I read InStyle magazine on a regular basis, the first wedding-related Web Site that I visited was InStyle Weddings. It was there that I was introduced to the wonderful world of wedding blogs. I read most of them (the popular ones and, of course, THIS one!) from beginning-to-end and added them into my Google Reader. I even started my own blog, but I think I may be the only girl in Switzerland blogging about her wedding. I can’t wait to write in English about our journey to the altar. I hope you will enjoy my posts as much as I do all of yours.