wine bottle lamp

today's post shares a work in progress.

so excited for this one.

(and lots of pictures to show.)

it starts on the night marc and i got engaged.

marc used to live with his friend niles in boulder.

the night marc proposed (unbeknownst to me), niles suggested we all go to carelli's, a great italian restaurant near williams village in boulder. really?! yep- it's great inside.

while we were there, we ordered yummy food and a bottle of wine. almost the entire area of the restaurant we were in hosted a long banquet table for a party. halfway through our dinner, we realized- it was a couple's 50th wedding anniversary party. so cute- they even had a cake that they cut 'wedding style' (you know, both hands on the cutting knife!)

after dinner, we took niles back home and went up flagstaff mountain. we wanted a bench, but on a warm may evening, we figured they'd be all taken. they weren't! ours was perfect.

marc asked me to marry him.

of course i said...

"no way! are you serious?! no way! really?!"

...."yes"

hey- we all think we're gonna be sappy

but i've talked to more girls who say they can't believe it is really happening! :)

from there, you know the rest- engagement, wedding, etc.

or so i thought.

the night of our rehearsal dinner, niles stood up and said he had a present.

but first, some background....

i've been friends with a couple for about twenty years, nate and diane. i've babysat their children, watched their dog, but mostly shared life with them. sitting on various tables throughout the years has been a lamp with a wine bottle for a base. (wish i had a picture of it.) one day diane told me the story- it was the bottle from the night they got engaged. diane's mother had it made into a lamp. i remember thinking how romantic and sentimental- and interesting- a lamp it was.

i had asked nate to walk me down the aisle. here we are:

nate and diane hosted a small engagement party for us before the wedding. during the party, we all played guitar hero downstairs near where the lamp sits. i told niles the story, just thinking it was such a great story.

here's where the whole story fits together.

the night of our engagement, niles didn't stay home after we left. he drove back to the restaurant and asked for the wine bottle we had used. the staff remembered him and retrieved the bottle. niles kept it, not knowing what he would do with it. months later at nate and diane's, he realized that i really loved the idea behind their lamp. so he bought a lamp kit and a glass drill bit. he DRILLED a HOLE into the wine bottle (figuring if it shattered, we would never know!) of course, it worked.

so, the night before our wedding, we received our engagement wine bottle lamp.

i just love this lamp. i love that so much love goes into it. nate and diane have been married for over twenty years, and the idea started with them. (more romance: they shared another bottle of the same wine on their wedding night, and a third bottle on their ten year anniversary, and the vintage is the year diane was born.) while we drank the wine, a couple one table over celebrated their fiftieth anniversary with all of their children in attendance with grandchildren running around, giggling. niles is such a great friend and his thoughtfulness warms my heart. and mostly, this reminds me of that feeling of pure joy i had knowing i was marrying marc.

when niles gave us the lamp, it had a *super* small shade on it. the one that is on there now is better, but not what i want for good. i'm on the hunt and just cannot find the one i want. i also want to take the lamp to a professional electrician and have a base attached with a gold cord. so someday when that all comes together i will post another picture. but for now, it lights up our little dining room and we love the character and memento it holds.

nate and diane get all the credit for this post, with niles being so tricky and wonderful to get the wine bottle and make it all happen. diane also told me to go back to all the places from our engagement night and take pictures so we would always remember. of course we didn't take pictures on the real night, cause i would have known what was goin' on!

one year later, to the day: may 16, 2009, we recreated our engagement night.