Ring Pillow Alternatives

My future hubby and I originally disagreed on the issue of ring-bearer, but weddings being the compromise they are, we are having a friend's son do the honors. Helpfully enough the ring-bearer's father is one of the groomsmen so we won't have to worry about wrangling a small child. He'll be four or five by the time the wedding rolls around next year so i'm not worried about him being old enough to handle the responsibility.

I'm just trying to come up with a fun alternative to the standard pillow that the ring-bearer carries down the aisle. I've seen a few interesting things; nests, teddy bears, treasure boxes, etc. None of these ideas really fits with the wedding or gets me excited. We are having a scrabble themed wedding so I kind of thought a pillow with a "P" either painted or attached would be neat. If anyone out there has any other ideas they'd love to share, I'd love to hear them.

I also found a websites where this same problem was discussed; it didn't solve my problem but it was at least interesting so i'll at least give credit:
http://www.weddingbee.com/2008/01/24/fun-things-for-rings/

Since you're here, I'd like you to take a short quiz. No really, just one question.

Where is Vancouver?

Yep, that's the question. If you answered Canada, you're mostly wrong. There happens to be a Vancouver, USA about 7 hours south of Vancouver, BC. Whenever I say "I'm from Vancouver" I get the inevitable "Oh, you're Canadian?" which sucks because the USA one was established in 1857, 29 years before the Canadian one. I've also tried out "I'm from Washington" and got "Cool, have you ever seen the President?" Not that Washington. There happens to be a Washington state on the west coast, you know, the state that Seattle is in.

My point is that no matter how much I love my hometown, it invariably gets boiled down to being a suburb of Portland, OR. In fact, Facebook doesn't even have a Vancouver, WA network, my zip code gets me popped into the Portland, OR network. Which isn't so horrible, I guess, since I spend quite a lot of time in Portland going to work and stuff.

Right now we are looking for a wedding venue and let me tell you, even the wedding gods have forsaken Vancouver. There are a total of two places in Vancouver proper to have a wedding. There are about 500 places to have a wedding in Portland, and it's outlying suburbs on the Oregon side of the river. Am I angry? No. Just frustrated. Everytime my fiance and I make it to a family gathering, there is always the "where do you live again?" so we thought that our wedding would be a great time to show off where we live.

At this point we've got one more place to look at in order to decide the venue for the big day. After next weekend we'll have seen a total of 7 venues, including the two in Vancouver. That is boiled down from the spreadsheet of 44 venues that I researched and requested information from. I guess we'll see if Vancouver gets to shine or we break down and hold the wedding in P-town.

Contests are for ... me?

I never enter contests. Well, i never used to. Probably because i'm such a pessimist and I think "well i probably wont' win, so why bother". But recently i changed my outlook on the whole contest, drawing, raffle thing. I went to a bridal show. Yes, that is right, a bridal show. I took my mother and my future mother in law to the Portland Bridal Show two weekends ago. Almost every booth had a giveaway of some sort. Free flowers, free getaway car, honeymoons, discounted rentals, dresses, jewelry, etc. If it was wedding related they were giving it away. Now i know that this was a great way for them to get my information and then send me a million postcards or brochures about why their company is the best florist/venue/caterer place in the greater Portland area. But i didn't care. I figured, you know what, even if i don't win i took the chance. And i have much better odds of winning if i take a chance rather than just walk on by. So yes, i wrote my name, email, wedding date a hundred times and entered almost every contest in that convention center. I haven't won anything yet, but you never know.

Which brings me to this week. I was opening my mail as usual and enclosed with my bank statement was a flyer. This flyer to be exact:

It's a contest by USBank to win $5000. Awesome right? The catch is, you have to get votes in order to win. Your reason for wanting five Gs has to be better than everyone else's reason. So i think to myself, why not? I go to the website and enter, in 75 words or less what i would do with $5000. You can read the story by clicking on the link (you can vote for me that way too) but i'll just tell you, since you're here. If I won $5000 i would pay down my student loans. I currently owe about $15,000 so the money wouldn't pay it off completely but it would get me a good chunk of the way there.

Now you might have figured out I'm engaged. On New Year's Eve my wonderful boyfriend proposed. I was surprised to say the least. Not long after he popped the question the issue of finances came up. Right now we are saving for the wedding, but whatever we don't spend is going to our debt. Our goal after we get married is to pay off all our debts, personal debts, medical bills, student loans, car payments. You name it and we are paying it off. We figure it will take at least three years to be debt free. After that, we want to build our own house. So now you know what i'd do with $5000. I'd love it if you voted for me, but there are plenty of other stories on the site that deserve a vote too. Heck, you should probably enter yourself. So to whoever wins this contest, congratulations because you deserve it.

Click the link below to vote for my story, to scout out the other stories and vote for them, or to enter yourself.

https://getaheadin2010.usbank.com/Story/8757