rick!

A special thanks to everyone who was there or thinking about us on our special day 10-09-09. Nikki and I had a wonderful time with all the friends and family and everything went as planned. The Valley Ho Resort was so gracious and Sergio captured the essence of the wedding with his incredible images.  Nikki has uploaded a billion images to our wedding photo site for your viewing pleasure. The honeymoon was perfect, London is an incredible place. Nikki and I fell in love with it the first day we were there. Thanks again everyone for making it the most memorable day for Nikki and I.

We decided to setup a wedding website for all the wedding info like event times, accommodations, maps etc. We will continuously update the site with new information. The URL for the wedding site is: http://www.rickandnikki.com/ 

We are in love with a wedding photojournalist named Sergio (Link to Sergio's website). Photographik, a photographers network, is running a contest for brides. They are looking for the most creative, fun and romantic engagement story. We posted our engagement story and now it's up to you to vote and help us win! (Click here to read the post and vote!)

*Note - When you rate our story you need to input your email address. The site then sends and email with a link that you need to click on in order to cast your vote. If you don't receive your voting email, check your spam/junk email folder for an email from photographik. Thanks!

For our 8 year anniversary Nikki and I stayed at our favorite resort, The Valley Ho; little did Nikki know that I have been planning on proposing to her.

The Ring:
With Nikki and my extreme contemporary taste it was hard to find a setting that defined us both as a couple. Several years ago we were introduced to the jewelry designs of Niessing who is well known for state-of-the-art, highly contemporary rings, jewelry, and watches. Nikki had purchased me one of Niessing’s “economy” tension set rings for our two year anniversary and from then I was stuck on their designs. I did a little research on their engagement settings and found one called the ‘High End’ which I knew was just perfect when it was time for me to buy a ring. Six years passed (with a lot of hinting from someone) and it was finally time to propose and I was still adamant on buying that specific setting. The only problem is that the setting is created around the diamond, so I had to buy a diamond and send it to Niessing’s design studio in Vreden, Germany.

The diamond is a whole other story, but I feel as if I could take a Gemology test to become a Gemologist with flying colors. Niessing only allows for certain quality diamonds to be mounted in their settings due to the tension settings. If the diamond has internal flaws the pressure placed on the stone by the tension setting may cause it to shatter, so the diamond had to be of certain specifications. A family friend who owns a Jewelry store helped me find the perfect stone and then sent it to Niessing for them to make the setting.

Another interesting thing about Niessing is their metal color choices. Not knowing much about jewelry I thought there was only yellow and white gold, but Niessing has many color choices including red, green, gray & others. I decided to have the setting created using a matt gray gold which is white gold with the nickel content removed and replaced with palladium and sandblasted to a matt finish.

I was very excited to finally receive the ring as I had not seen the stone or setting at all. They call this an E-Ring which is where someone completely purchases the stone and setting online and HOPE it’s exactly what they wanted when received. To my amazement it was better than I could have ever imagined!

The proposal:
I wanted to do something out of the ordinary to propose to Nikki. Plus I knew that if I tried to plan something she would automatically know that something was happening, because I’m not the best at planning. So with that decided I needed to let Nikki plan something and inject the proposal in so she wouldn’t expect anything. Our eight year anniversary was the perfect time to do it.

I created a piece of art inspired by Roy Lichtenstein’s work which would help me propose. I took a picture of Nikki from our four year anniversary and used photoshop to make it look like pop-art. After the work was completed I had it printed on a 20x30 piece of stretch canvas. I worked with the concierge at the resort to have them place the artwork in the room before we arrived.

When we arrived at the room I was carrying two bags, a backpack & two pieces of luggage, the ring was in the backpack. We walked in the room and I tossed the luggage and immediately saw the picture, but Nikki didn’t. She made a comment about the chairs that were in the room and then turned around and saw it. She screamed “BABE” and then went into tears, turned around and saw me on one knee with the ring. It went off without a hitch.

In the gallery I uploaded some pictures from the anniversary/engagement weekend and also a photo shoot of the ring. View the full album by clicking here.