The Wedding Blog

This weekend was my champagne birthday, and to celebrate, Darren and I flew to Edmonton to visit my family out there. I remember commenting to Darren on the plane that I was sad that my sisters wouldn’t get to see my ring. His response was, “Don’t worry. I’m sure they’ll get to see it eventually.” I didn’t realize that eventually meant that very night!

Just before boarding the plane, I warned Darren that my ears have a hard time dealing with the pressure changes involved with descending from high elevations. I always experience shooting pain in my ears. To preempt this attack, I bought and took Advil with a decongestant but it didn’t take away the pain.

After beating Darren at a game of Phase Ten and almost eating someone else’s dinner, I dozed off and on throughout the showing of The Island. I was awakened by the Captain telling us the descent had begun, only to discover that the vision in my right eye was blurred. Immediate panic set in — this was the first time I had flown since my eye surgery. I was already disoriented that the movie was over (I hadn’t seen the end), and then my ears started to send those anticipated sharp pains into my head. I spent the next 20 minutes with tears rolling down my face. All the while I’m sure Darren was panicking, thinking that all his plans would be ruined since this blinded, deafened, face-streaked girl wouldn’t want to think about marriage.

We pulled into Alicia’s driveway and Darren took our luggage into the house. She seemed very interested in showing me her new Mitsubishi Outlander, so I obliged her. In the carseat there was a beautiful bouquet of flowers which Alicia said Darren wanted to be there. She also told me I should unwrap them there in the garage so she could throw the paper directly into the garbage bin, at which point I called her the most unromantic person in the world. (I have since apologized; buying time for my boyfriend to get ready to propose is anything but unromantic.)

As we headed toward the door of the house, Darren came out to bring me in. I said something very eloquent like “Look at these nice flowers.” He didn’t really respond…too much on his mind, I guess. He led me through the hallway lined with tea lights and into the family room. My sisters had emptied the room of all its furniture and hung pictures of Darren and I all around the room. The room was so beautiful, all warm and candlelit.

Darren brought me to the blanket that was laid on the floor in the corner of the room. (I stopped to put down my jacket, purse, water bottle and flowers, by the way.) Neither he nor I remember exactly what he said to me. What I do remember is that he wished he had prepared a speech, he was much more nervous than he thought he would be, and he got choked up while saying wonderful things about me and to me. Then he got down on his knee and asked me to marry him.

A few moments later we heard, “Can we come in now?” and we were joined by my 3 sisters and brother-in-law who had orchestrated the whole thing, under Darren’s direction. We then enjoyed some sparkling juice (2 of my sisters are underage) and cheesecake while we called our parents.

I learned a lesson in patience and trust this weekend. I had imagined many different scenarios in which Darren could propose, but this was better than all of them.

I am a curious little monkey. It’s not that I don’t like secrets; it’s that I don’t like waiting. So perhaps I’m an impatient little monkey. Either way, this has the potential to kill me.

Last Thursday Darren and I were talking on the phone, filling in the other about our days. Part of Darren’s update included going to Mississauga to run an errand. We both know what he’s talking about, but I let him finish what he was saying.

Looks like the tax return came in.

Part of me can’t believe he actually told me that piece of information, whereas the other part knows that he tells me everything so it was bound to come out. And part of me is glad to know where we are in the process while the other part knows that if I were more in the dark I wouldn’t be so curious.

Saturday I was at Darren’s place and I noticed a bag on his dresser with the Spence Diamonds logo on it. When he wasn’t looking, I picked up the bag and shook it. Thankfully it was empty. Darren’s clever enough to know that I cannot be trusted with such a blatant test of self control.

But come to think of it, I don’t know if any girl would be able to resist opening such a package, “just to be sure it fits” or “just to make sure that I still like it” or “just to see what it will look like.”

I’m choosing to believe that the bag wasn’t left in such an obvious place as a means of gentle torture. Rather, it’s Darren’s way of building anticipation. Well, it’s working.

The idea of ring shopping freaked me out. But that is no surprise to those who know me. Even after I knew that I was going to marry Darren, I couldn’t bring myself to say the words out loud. That doesn’t mean that nobody knew; there were select people who discovered our intentions through deciphering my secret code. Even yesterday my sister said, “If…oh, what code words are we using now? …never mind …if you and Darren get married…” That’s telling.

I think Spence Diamonds was built just for people like me. I know I wouldn’t have been able to handle a traditional jewelry store! Before going, I watched the video online in which the president explains how his chain of stores is different. That gave me a little more confidence. We also had looked at some ring styles online to get a general idea of preferences. That gave me a little more confidence. But still when Darren parked the car in the Spence parking lot and the engine was off, I froze. The only thing I could say was, “I can’t go in there.” A little reassurance and a little coaxing got me out of the car and into the store.

Once inside, I was completely overwhelmed. There were thousands of rings to choose from and what seemed like hundreds of smiling salespeople waiting to assist us. I hate that! When I worked at a Christian Book Store, the most challenging part was having to approach the customers to ask them if they needed help, simply because I HATE THAT! Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that those smiling salespeople (there were probably 6 of them working on a Saturday afternoon) were more like consultants. One offered us a drink. Another said to pick a ring, wear it around the store, and compare it to others, eliminating as we go. They left us to ourselves, coming over every 15 minutes to just make sure we were ok.

That’s good salesmanship, in my opinion. I definitely didn’t want to have to explain to a diamond expert what I wanted (mostly because I had NO IDEA) nor did I want their help. The concept of choosing something I would wear every day from now until the grave was overwhelming enough. After all, I’m the one who can’t decide on a watch for the same, although much less permanent, reason!

We did end up giving Spence our business that day. That’s surprising considering that Darren’s reason for choosing this particular store was not that it is Canada’s number one diamond retailer, or that it had a great selection, or because of its buy-back or trade-up policies, or that they took the time to educate us about the 4Cs of diamonds (Please don’t ask me to explain; I was too emotionally overloaded that day to pay attention. All I know is that diamonds are pretty!). No, the reason was that he thought the advertisements were interesting and appealed to him on an intellectual level. How’s that for reasoning?

I don’t know if I can say that I have nothing but wonderful things to say about Spence Diamonds. At the end of the day, it is a business and their job is to make money off of people like us. They were sure to give us the spiel about why their store was the best one in which to make a purchase like this. But I can forgive all those things because it’s done, we’re happy and should anything tragic happen in the next few weeks, they’ve got a great return policy!

A few months ago my friend shared with me that he was considering buying his girlfriend a promise ring. He has since bought and given her this ring and recieved a very positive reaction. My reaction, however, (be prepared all you romantics out there) was not so positive. It was certainly not the reaction he expected or wanted but it came out of my ignorance on the subject, lack of tact and hatred for our society’s materialistic mindset.

But maybe there is more to this promise ring thing than I thought. So I did a little research to find out what the deal was. It seems that there are a million places to purchase what Walmart calls “a symbol of love and devotion.” However, many of the informational websites I looked at included a kind of warning. For example, promise-rings.info writes:

When Giving A Promise Ring
The most important rule in giving a promise ring is to be up-front about the terms of the promise, especially if the ring contains a diamond. There is nothing more heartbreaking than a person reading something into a gift of a ring that is more than intended! A simple note accompanying the ring, to be read prior to opening the gift, can clarify your sentiments.

It seems this little piece of jewellery can cause lots of confusion. And of course since its purpose is never clearly defined. Buzzle.com says “promise ring can be given or used for any sign of commitment.” How’s that for open-ended?

Sheesh! This confirms my suspicion that the promise ring is really an invention of the jewellery industry in order to make more money. If they can get people to purchase rings to commemorate special events in their lives, that’s fabulous, but if they can get people to purchase rings to commemorate mere ideas and intentions, that’s even better!

I think it is important to note that I did apologize to my friend, though. The not-so-cynical part of me understands that they want to make their commitment to each other known. And maybe an established symbol is what some people need to be able to define their level of commitment. It’s true that there are no other official steps between “we like each other and are dating” and “we are getting married.” There are, however, many, many unofficial steps between those two places and my question is: do they need to be advertised?

Having said all that, I have fully bought into the need for engagement and wedding symbols (namely, rings) so I’m not the best one to be staging this rant. I’m just so glad my boy and I are on the same page. As long as we’re dating, you’ll have to ask if you want to know the level of our commitment. But since a promise ring really can mean anything, I guess you’d have to do that even if I were wearing one.

My boyfriend is ridiculous. There are a number of reasons why this is true, but what I am referring to today is the fact that he filed his taxes less than a month ago. Regardless of what time zone you live in, that’s 5 months after the May 2 deadline. As a result, I’m sure he’ll get audited!

Here’s my theory: at tax time, when everyone files, Revenue Canada is so busy just keeping up with everything. Now they’re bored (at least the staff who doesn’t get let go when the big rush is over) with nothing to do and here comes a tax return. I can see their little mathematical eyes lighting up at the thought of being able to do an audit…in November!!

How is this related to the wedding blog? Well, this tax return includes the money that will pay for the engagement ring. Yup, that’s right; I’m privy to the information about the status of the engagement ring. I did, after all, go with him to pick it out. I did sit through the “let’s educate these young’uns about the important aspects of diamonds talk before we take their money” talk. I do know that my ring is sitting at the jewelry store just waiting to be given and worn!

The romantic side of me thinks I really shouldn’t know all this information. He should just surprise me with a grand, well-devised sweep-me-off-my-feet-type proposal. But the practical side of me thinks that of course we’re going to discuss this - we talk about everything.

I don’t feel gypped in the least having this information at my disposal. Darren is smart enough to keep specific plans to himself. I know he’s a creative guy with just enough romance in him to give me a fabulous story to tell you. Romance and practicality can live together.

So anyway, now we wait…we wait, completely at the mercy of Revenue Canada. We wait for the Canadian version of Uncle Sam to give my baby back the money that he overpaid. We wait to get engaged.

It’s hard to believe the but the story of Darren and Larissa begins nearly 3 years ago. We were different people then and the road that lead to this place was neither quick nor easy. But the story has a happy ending.
Enjoy reading about our journey.