My Jewels

I am so proud and excited about my wedding and engagement rings, I couldn't wait to share them with everybody! My engagement ring is a white gold custom made diamond ring, TDW of 1 carat in a halo setting around a 1/4 carat Tiffany's diamond. There is a total of 24 diamonds in this ring, in numerology terms 2 + 4 = 6, 6 means love in numerology. 

My wedding and eternity rings were also designed by me, they each hold 15 diamonds, 1 + 5 = 6 which means love and when you all the total diamonds in all three rings together it adds up to 9. A 9 means endings in numerology so to Brad and I, this means that we will be together till the end. 

I can't tell you how I feel when I look at my rings. Not only have they got so much personal meaning to my husband and I, but they also look so stunning together that they make me feel so blessed that an amazing man thinks I am worthy of such beautiful jewelry. It has taken a long time for my self-worth to build up to the point that I can believe that I am worthy of the rings of my dreams; I am so blessed and so grateful for what I have in my life. 

Love

Kylie

Announcing Mr & Mrs Stone

On the 4th of May at 6.00 pm my amazing fiancee and I eloped at the Little White Chapel in Las Vegas. Whilst in hospital recovering from my transplant an entire year ago I decided that I wanted to have something big to look forward to for if I made it to 12 months, so Brad & I opted for an overseas holiday. We had been engaged for a while so we decided to combine the holiday with our wedding and make it our honeymoon! 

We flew into Las Vegas on 1 May and stayed at the Trump Hotel and then got married on Saturday 4 May. The next day we did a tour to the Grand Canyon, which was breathtaking, then we flew to Auckland, New Zealand on Monday. We did the Auckland Harbour Bridge climb while there then we arrived home on Saturday 11 May, just in time for Mothers Day! 

My husband and I had a fantastic trip and I am very proud to say that I designed and made my gown, I decorated my shoes and I also make my birdcage veil and feathered headpiece; it was so much fun and so interesting a project to undertake. I'll be posting some pics of the process I went through soon. 

Life is good!

Love

Kylie

Just a Quickie

I just couldn't resist telling you all about this. The other morning I went to check emails and my mouse wasn't working. I mentioned it to Brad whom was standing next to me and he suggested that I check if is dirty. I turned it over to find this:

Awwww. I'm a lucky woman ❤❤❤❤

The Most Unromantic Night of my Life - The Night Brad Proposed

The night Brad proposed to me, what a night it was! He had picked up the ring from the jeweller during the week while I was still in hospital but he was under strict instructions to not propose until I was home again. I was discharged on Friday morning and guessing that tonight would be the night, I planned a special dinner to be proposed over, lol. Dinner. Well, in short, I ruined every single aspect of the meal. I put the vegetables in the oven then went to have a bath and shave my legs. A good deal of time later Brad called out that something was burning and we discovered that the vegetables were charcoal. Next came the chicken breasts in creamy green peppercorn sauce. I am told that I must have had the heat up too high because when I came into the kitchen to check on my delicious delights, the cream had split the curds from the whey and they had splattered onto the inside of the glass frying pan lid, looking very much like white diarrhoea, and the very overcooked chicken fillets were floating in whitish water. Gross.

Ever my hero, Brad proceeded to cut the burned bits off the vegetables and discreetly tipped the sauce into the sink while I went and got dressed up for the big moment. I came out of the bedroom looking ravishing in a lovely dress, hair done, jewellery on - that would compliment my soon-to-be engagement ring of course, only to find Brad had turned on the tv and we were watching "Gene Simmons Family Jewels" as we ate. Oh dear. We struggled our way through dinner when my stomach started making some very unladylike sounds. I had had a colonoscpy the day before and the nurse told me that I may still be a "little loose" the next day. Since I had poo'ed approximately every meal I'd eaten since my teens, I thought I was fine. Little did I know because my stomach got louder and louder and louder. Finally I ran to the toilet and proceeded to make some of the most un-godly sounds that have ever been emitted from a human being before. I was in there ages and when I finally came out Brad was standing there waiting for me because he was worried. I looked him in the eye and said, "Don't go in there."

Next Brad suggested we go for a family walk. Sure, why not? I was now as bloated as a 6 month pregnant woman and felt horrid but who could resist a family walk? I got changed into my oldest, most baggy trackie pants and a tshirt and we strolled to the park with Brad's skipping ropes he uses in his workouts. I say strolled to be kind to myself, I walk at a snails pace but not out of choice. We get to the park and go to the half basketball court and start mucking around skipping. Well, the best way to describe it is to say that Brad was showing off; I would do 2 skips then have a coughing fit but Brad would do 12 before he stopped. After a while I decided to show him how well I could skip so I got up and started to skip like the blazers. I was feeling pretty good, we were in a park on one of the busiest main roads of Brisbane with hundreds of cars whizzing past and I was skipping like a champion. Then it happened. My tracksuit pants fell down to my ankles. OMG. I was standing there in my knickers, tshirt and shoes. We both went hysterical laughing as I scrambled to pull my pants back up and we laughed ourselves silly. Which of course made me have a coughing fit and cough and cough and cough until I vomited up all of my dinner. It was then, sitting in the middle of the half basketball court, having just vomited, that Brad decided to do the deed. He took me in his arms, said many beautiful things then asked, "Will you be mine forever?" I gave an ecstatic yes then he took the ring out of his pocket and slipped it on my finger.

So there ladies and gentlemen, is the story of how Brad and I got engaged. A ruined dinner, some serious bowel upset, losing my pants and vomiting, it had it all. And I love him for every second.


love
K

What is Marriage?

It has always fascinated me when a man and woman become engaged and suddenly their whole lives are taken up with planning the wedding then they find themselves married and have no idea how to be a husband and wife to each other. Even though my ex-husband Michael and I got engaged when I was 16 and he was 17, we talked extensively about what kind of marriage we wanted to have and this guided us through all the wedding preparation dramas. The decision to spend our lives together was quite a long one for Brad and I, mostly because of my personal issues and my health but none the less we have still discussed in detail how we want our union to be, which will be very different from the one that Michael and I had simply because I am a completely different person now. Brad and I know what we want our marriage to feel like, we know that things will change and we know that we are each others first priority, first time and every time.

I personally have found that you become truly married over time, through all the bouts of diarrhoea and arguments over the remote, and the visiting in-laws driving you crazy, the small and large moments that you could never plan for, but you find yourselves in none the less and you get through them, together. This is the making of a marriage, the making of a husband, the making of a wife. I know that when I'm laying in a hospital bed after I've had the transplant and Brad isn't there to visit me yet, I won't be thinking about the colour of the ribbons on the handle of the knife used to cut the cake at our wedding. I will remember that Brad has never let me down when he tells me he will do something. I will remember that Brad likes to buy me a treatie to make me smile one his way to the hospital, a packet of lollies, a chocolate bar or a magazine. I will remember that Brad will sit through an entire episode of The Bold and the Beautiful when I'm in hospital, even though he hates it but he knows that I love the show.

Brad and I have gone through some hard times and I remember at one particularly emotional junction I was asking myself what did I want in my partner? My answer was simply this: I need my partner to be my soft place when I fall. That's what I need in my husband as well. And Brad always has been that for me, whether we were just friends before we dated, or broken up and apart from each other, Brad has never wavered in supporting me and plain caring about me. Recently we got in the car to go out and before he started the car, Brad turned to me, kissed my hand and looked into my eyes. He told me that he just wanted me to know that even though lots has happened in our lives, he still wants to date me and hang out with me and be with me just as much as he did that first time we went rock climbing together.

How lucky am I? Not only do I get to live my life with my best friend and lover, but I get to marry him as well. I am the luckiest girl in the world.
love
K

My Engagement Ring

Today I attended my Aunty Toni's funeral so it's been an emotionally heavy day; therefore I would like to tell you about something uplifting, my engagement ring. Brad and I knew we wanted to get engaged and decided to have our ring custom made in order to incorporate stones that we already had. I did lots of research into styles so I knew exactly what I wanted when we went to the jeweler. Our jeweller was recommended to us by my boss Loretta as being top quality and very reasonably priced. Loretta has a particularly beautiful ring that I have always admired so we were happy to trust her recommendation and then when we met the jeweller we were impressed by his wealth of knowledge and experience and willingness to make what we wanted a reality.

Brad first proposed to me when we had only been seeing each other 6 months; we were not ready for an engagement so I said no, however we stayed together as a couple. The ring he proposed with was from Tiffany's, a fact that gives me an untold amount of pleasure. The fact that a man not only wanted to marry me but also thought I was worthy of a Tiffany's ring, wow. The ring was beautiful, it was a quarter carat set in a very delicate platinum band. Stunning. But just not me. I have chunky man-knuckles therefore rings with thin, delicate bands just get lost on my man-hands so while the ring was beautiful, it just didn't suit my hand. I am into feng shui and in my research I learned that the optimum shape for an engagement ring is the feng shui bagua so that's the shape I decided to go with. I am also into numerology so I wanted the number of diamonds in the ring to add up to 6, which means love. Altogether we had the Tiffany's ring, my parents eternity ring and 4 other rings with small diamonds that I had been given over the years but didn't wear anymore.

We really liked that the jeweller was an older man with many years of experience; we had spoken with another whom was young, in his 20's and while he was lovely, he didn't have any creative solutions to the few very minor issues we had. The guy we went with was roughly the same price but his experience and the suggestions he made were priceless to us. In the first design the ring had a total of 19 diamonds, which is a 1 in numerology, not good for a marriage. We had diamonds left over so the jeweller placed 5 more on the inside of the ring where they will never be seen but I know they are there! Most people think I'm crazy but I've been divorced once and I don't every intend to divorce again so if I can do one little tiny thing to enhance my marriage then I'll do it! I also really love art deco jewelry so I wanted my ring to have a classic, vintage feel to it. I decided to go with white gold instead of my usual yellow as white gold makes the diamonds sparkle brighter.

All up my engagement ring is 11mm across, it has 24 diamonds set in white gold and all edges are mill grain set, which are little bumps that add to the art deco feel of the ring. Unfortunately I don't know the total diamond weight, I have to get a valuation done to find that out. Originally my wedding and eternity rings was going to be a straight channel set white gold bands to sit under the raised basket but now I'm not so sure, I'm thinking of having them shaped so they go around the engagement ring bagua, like the picture below. I think it will make the whole thing look more substantial, what do you think? If anyone has any thoughts please let me know.

love

K