Boston Tea Party, part two

After chatting with all the guests and a few photo shoots, it was time for the main event.... Opening the gifts. A wedding is one of those times in life when your just so overwhelmed by other's generosity. Between this and our shower at the shore, we now have a fully stocked kitchen!
I was super careful to not break too many ribbons, because I was told that each ribbon you break means another child. I was also told back in the day everyone used pink or blue ribbon, so if you broke pink it meant you'd get a girl, and if you broke blue you'd get a boy. I broke about 4 at the Jersey shower and I don't think I broke any at the MA shower. Can you guess how many kids I want? :)
The Newport Girls and Newport Mom splurged and got us our entire bed set! We can't wait to re-do our bedroom to match our honeymoon suite! While we opened presents our guests were served cake. Cake was made by Sweet ResultsPracticing for October!
You may have noticed no mention of games in this post. I absolutely love games, Me, Mr. Newport, Sister Newport and BILN have game nights with our friends and I love games in general, but I don't like games that draw attention to me, so you may have noticed there weren't any games at the shore shower and the only "game" played here was the timer game, in which guests receive a gift if the timer goes off while their present is being opened.
Newport Flower Girl had fun "helping" with the timer game gifts!

There was no lack of sweets at the shower. As a sweet send off, there was a candy bar with bags for guests to take home. It looked so pretty! And the guests also got bottles of lemonade, which were pretty perfect, since they have a husky them! A fun way to include Sky in the day.

It was so amazing to have almost all of my favorite women and Mr. Newport in one room. I can't think of anything better, other than the wedding!

photo by family friend

Did your shower get you excited for the big day?

All photos unless noted by our wedding photographer, David Bibeault

Choosing the Wedding Bands

Mr. Newport just ordered our wedding bands! We went to pick them out last weekend, but had to wait for a quote on the rings. My choice was easy. I knew I wanted a band that matched my engagement ring. There were two options in the store, one was too thick, the other two thin. The associate looked up my ring, since we bought it in the same location and found out that the exact match is no longer in stock, and it just happend to be right in between the size of the other two. So I ordered the one that is hopefully just right.

Mr. Newport's choice was also pretty easy. He walked up to the counter, found a style he liked and tried a few on, then picked the two he liked best. We got a quote for the two and then made his decision. Super easy.

The one thing we were both surprised about during the process was cost. Prior to our band shopping experience I had no clue how much a metal choice can impact the cost of a ring. Sure I know platinum is pricier than silver, but I didn't really know about the metals in between. Common ones include silver, yellow gold, white gold, platinum, palladium, tungsten, tungsten carbide, and titanium.

I didn't really have a choice in my band's metal, as I knew I wanted a matching set and that includes metal. I've heard different metals wear differently, so I wanted my wedding band metal to be the same as the engagement ring. When we first put together our wedding budget, I did some online research on my matching wedding band and budgeted a little over that amount in case anything changed over the next year (remember we had a long engagement).

Mr. Newport was dead set on not spending a lot of money on his ring. BILS found a ring, I believe it is tungsten carbide, at T.J. Maxx for about $26.00 and purchased it for his wedding band. Mr. Newport thought this was great and decided he wanted to do the same. Problem- he has a larger finger, which wasn't as easy to find. I figured it would be tough to find a deal like this, so I budgeted a bit more for Mr. Newport. Also, in case he changed his mind about his metal choice. We came up with dollar amounts and put it in the budget.

Like many of our wedding plans, other than the big things, we put this off until the checklist told us we should really be doing it. We went to the closest Descenza's and looked at wedding bands. I tried on mine and asked for a quote. Mr. Newport tried on his and asked for a qoute for two rings, but asked to get quotes for different metals.

A few days later I got a call. My ring ended up being about 2/3 of the price I had budgeted! My ring is palladium and the rings I saw online must have been platinum. I had no idea a metal could vary the price this greatly. I'm super happy Mr. Newport opted for a more practical metal. This savings is definitely helping at a much needed time.

This also worked out great, because Mr. Newport opted to go with white gold as opposed to his original idea of going with tungsten carbide. He was surprised at the cost of the white gold ring, because in the store the price tag was much greater- again I'm assuming this must have been based on a platinum ring or other costlier metal. We hadn't budgeted enough for the white gold, but after the savings from my ring, we were able to get both of our top choice rings with a bit of money to spare.

Our rings should be in within 6 weeks, I'll post photos once we get them.

Did metal type have an impact on your decision? Were you surprised by the difference in metals prices?

How Sweet it is...

Some of my earliest childhood memories include cookies. Every Christmas all the girls in the family (and Mr. Newport and BILN- they are great dough rollers) bake at least 15 dozen of about 10 types of cookies-no lie! My mom is known for her cookies. She makes every type imaginable, some of my favorites being classic chocolate chip, pumpkin with a maple glaze, chocolate with caramel and almonds, snowballs, and her famous sugar cookies.

Searching the web I have found so many great places with the cutest sugar cookies, the only real test is whether or not they tatse better than my moms. Ever since I found decorated sugar cookies on the web, I've been in love with the idea of a cookie favor at the wedding. I've been to a decent amount of weddings and my favorite favors always seem to be edible or picture frames.... or honestly, they tend to get thrown out. I love cookies and other edible favors because they are never wasted...at least with me. I've found so many sites with cute cookies, I thought I'd share some favorites.

Eleni's in New York is one of my hands down favorites. Every season there are new options that are cuter than before. I am especially in love with the Wedding collection below. It would be perfect for a "Breakfast at Tiffanys" themed shower. I also think it would be cute to send to a friend who just got engaged.

Casue Sweets seems to be the couture designer of cookies. How amazing are these shells? Perfect for a seaside wedding.
Casue Sweets has the most intricate designs, they'll even custom make cookies designed to match your wedding gown! How unbelievable are these: I love these starfish and shell sugar cookies from Ali's Sweet Treats. They fit perfect with our nautical theme. I think they would be a cute addition to our Out of Town Welcome bags. A Dozen Eggs, located in New England has so many cute options. My personal favorite is Penant Fever. My sister's fiance proposed to her at Fenway Park where they had their first date. So we threw them a Red Sox themed Engagement party and of course we bought a few of the Penant Fever Cookie Collections and they were a HUGE hit at the party!



At my god-daughter's baby shower, we used K-Delights. The cookies were delicious. I think the diamond ring sugar cookies would have been perfect for our engagement party. After a lot of price research on sugar cookies on the web, I think K-Delights was the cheapest option I found. Most cookies range around $5.00 up to much more, but they had options under $3.00.
I love these cookies from Meli and Angi. I like that they are personalized. I think they would be a cute favor tied up in a package with a ribbon.
One of my favorite cookies I've seen on the web is this clever "Crabcake" from Maine Cake and Cookies. It's perfect for a clambake wedding.


I found these monogrammed beauties at Rolling Pin Productions. They are perfect for a garden party or English tea themed shower.

Are you trying to incorporate a favorite family memory into your wedding?