detail post #1: the dress(es)

Since our professional photos won't be ready for another 2-4 weeks, we figured we'd pass the time with some posts covering all of the wedding details we hadn't already described. These are things we hadn't posted before either because we didn't want to ruin the surprise for our guests or because we were still working on them up until the wedding.

Since our guests have already seen all of these details in person, these posts are geared mainly toward readers who might be planning their own weddings.

The first detail to report, of course, is the dress. Or I should make that the dresses, because I kind of became of a "two dress bride" (albeit a very cheap one).

I posted earlier about finding my wedding gown. I loved the thick silk material, its 1940s style and shape, the buttons that ran down the back, the rounded seams in the front, and most of all its extremely affordable price.....but it was at least 3 sizes too large.

I found a fantastic seamstress in Lititz (where we got married), who was much more affordable than most of the ones in Philly and after several trials, she magically shrunk my dress. She even made a few other modifications at my request which made the dress almost begin to feel like a couture creation. The cathedral train was dramatically shortened, a one point bustle was added, the neckline was pulled back further, and the beads at the center of the v-neck were removed completely. In the end I got the dress of my dreams for $300 total. I love how it turned out and would highly recommend Karen Chow to anyone needing alterations in the Lancaster County area of Pennsylvania.

Before

(click to enlarge)

After

(click to enlarge)

My dress was super comfortable (one of my requirements while dress shopping) and I would have worn it all night long, but I needed a second, shorter dress for our getaway (I'll cover more on that soon). I had envisioned a fun, slightly retro party dress for this one, but it had to be cheap since I hadn't left any room in the budget for it. About a month before the wedding, my mother-in-law took me on a mad dash through most of the stores in their mall and I found this one at Boscov's department store:

(click to enlarge)

this photo was taken during my last hair trial and the band-aid on my ankle is due to a the worst cut i ever got while shaving, only a week before the wedding....like i said, i'm a complete klutz.

It was in the junior's department along with the after prom "sale" dresses, marked down from $65 to $20. And because I can't seem to leave anything well enough alone, I removed a couple of bows in the front and added an extra layer of tulle to make the skirt a more poufy. I felt like a glitter-y ball of party tulle while wearing it which pleased the 5 year old inside me to no end.

Next detail post to go: the favors

Guest Attire

I can't believe our year-and-a-half-plus engagement is finally six weeks away from it's end! We haven't posted in forever, mainly because we've been busy working on craft projects for the wedding and don't want to spoil them for the guests. So, I thought I'd post about something fun instead - guest attire!

photo from Martha Stewart Weddings Spring 2006, via bklynbride

So far, whenever anyone has asked what the dress code for the wedding will be, I've replied very vaguely "garden party attire" or "summer semi-formal", two expressions that don't help people out very much. So, in an attempt to be more helpful, I've written this post.

According to a recent post on weddingbee.com (one of the numerous wedding blogs I read and will be glad to give up after July 12th), the two more formal terms for what I have in mind are:

Informal - Suits, or dress shirts with or without ties, and slacks for men; short or tea length party dresses for women.

Dressy Casual - Similar to the above, but khakis are also appropriate for men (but not Jeans), and sun dresses and skirts are included for women.

But, seriously, we love all of our guests and if they showed up in Halloween costumes we'd still welcome them with open arms.

I wish I remembered whose blog I stole this from, but I *heart* the kid dressed like the paper bag!

flowers

If only daffodils were still in bloom in July (they're not, sadly), this would be my ideal bouquet.


It was created by Ez from the blog Creature Comforts using flowers from Trader Joe's and a velvet ribbon from a craft store and a thrift store earring. I love how simple, elegant and sunny it is. Even if I can't replicate the flowers, I'll still keep the monochromatic, hand-tied look in mind.

ties for guys and a little tease

We finally found five matching ties for all of the male members of our wedding party (Best Man, both Fathers, and our two wonderful ushers). Jesse and his Dad stumbled upon the perfect color that I had in mind (a light silver/grey) for only $13 each while at T.J. Maxx. They're Donald Trump brand, and I have no idea if that's good or not, but they look like they're good quality to my untrained eye so I don't care. We just need to press or steam out a couple of wrinkles and they'll be set. The men are going to pair them with white shirts and their own suits (in either black, navy or grey). It doesn't matter to me if all of the suits aren't the same color - we're not going for an extremely matchy-matchy wedding scheme. The ties should help create a simple, cohesive, classy look (hopefully!).

Jesse agreed to model again as long as I promised not to show his face (but why, it's so nice?).

with a black jacket

with a navy jacket
(Jesse doesn't own a grey jacket, so you'll just have to use your imagination for that one)

And I'll leave you with a sneak peak of what occupied most of our weekend. We put these babies in the mail today, and after we know that most of our guests have received them, we'll post a few more details.

it's getting very real now

Sorry for the complete lack of posts lately. It's because we've actually been getting a lot of wedding things done. Exhibit A in my defense:

Our wedding bands!

I can actually see the end in sight. Only about 3.5 more months until we're actually able to start wearing them (but just between you and me, every once in a while I like to try my band on and forget to take it off....for a couple of hours).

Our fake plastic dog likes them, too.

We've also picked out our cake and are about to mail our invitations! But, those deserve their own posts. Now that so much is going on, I'll just have to remember to write about it.

my seamstress is a superhero

You know how in my wedding shoe post, I described all of the klutziness precautions (ankle straps, thick heels, etc) my shoes had to have? There is a reason for that I constantly have to be prepared for falling down, spilling staining liquid, and breaking priceless objects. Here is a story to illustrate why.

While at my wedding dress alterations appointment a couple of weekends ago, everything seemed to be going swimmingly. Karen, my seamstress, was very pleasant and confidently started pinning up the sides as soon as I put my dress on. Well, no more than five minutes passed before atrocity struck. While chatting with Karen about whether I wanted my hem one inch off the floor or floor length (I opted for 1 inch due to our outdoor ceremony), I felt a wetness on the thumb and index fingers of my right hand. Looking down, I saw that they were covered in blood! Without even wondering what had happened, I immediately checked to see if any had fallen on my dress. My heart almost stopped. My once snow white silk dress now had two bright crimson exclamation points of horror running along the side of it!!

When Karen had pinned the sides of my dress, some of the sharp ends of the pins were facing up and because I gesticulate wildly when I talk (and have the deadly combination of poor coordination and lack of perception), my thumb brushed against them without me even noticing. As soon as I alerted Karen, she sprang into superhero mode, wrapping my thumb in a kleenex while blotting out the blood with a damp paper towel at the same time. Amazingly, the blood spots came completely out! The water dried without leaving a mark! That is why I love my seamstress even before I've seen any of her finished alterations to my dress.

That is also why I'm going to have to wrap may hands completely in cotton and avoid all dark liquids and messy food on my wedding day. Me and white silk just don't get along.

p.s. - Sorry I can't post photos of the alterations process. my future mother in law was awesome and took many, but Jesse is still determined not to see my dress before the big day.

suit up!

Jesse found his wedding suit last weekend! The boy has at least three suits in his closet, but all are hand-me-downs that he has to rig with a belt to keep from falling off him. We figured the wedding would be a good excuse for him to buy a suit that actually fit. He totally lucked out. A men's clothing shop in the mall was going out of business, so he found an fantastic black BCBG for a fraction of its original price (It used to be $800.00!). Best of all, it fits him like a glove. For those of you who've met Jesse, you know that he's kinda a slender guy, so he'd expected any suit he found to still need some pretty drastic doctoring. But this one only needs the trouser legs hemmed an inch! yay.

The tie he's wearing is just a stand-in (it's actually navy instead of black), but I like the pattern on it. I told him to give me his best "male model" face. He just smirked at that request, but I think he looks pretty debonair anyway.

shoes

I found my shoes over the weekend, which means that next time I go to Lititz I can schedule an appointment to finally get my dress altered - yay! They met most of my wedding shoe criteria - 3 inch heels (so I don't have to stand on tip toes to kiss Jesse), silver instead of white (better chance of re-wearing after the wedding), and on sale! I'd been looking for wedge heels, but these are at least thicker - stilettos are the death of me - and have an ankle strap so they won't fall off. Seriously I'm that clumsy. Plus, they remind of shoes that Ginger Rogers would have worn or Dorothy's shoes from the original L. Frank Baum version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which were silver instead of ruby. Both are huge positives in my book.

Bridesmaid dresses

Like I promised, here are the actual dresses that I e-mailed to Andrea as bridesmaid dress suggestions. (Click on the image to enlarge)

1st row: jenny yoo, priscilla of boston, david's bridal
2nd row: j.crew, target, j.crew
3rd row: j.crew, simple silhouettes (2), thread design, j.crew

These are all dresses that I really like and seem to fit the semi-formal, summer garden party tone that we're trying to set. They also seem to match Andrea's more demure, classic sense of style much better than the frothy confections from my last post and they're simple enough to hopefully be re-wearable in the future.

She won't actually be picking one of these exact dresses, but finding one on her own that fits a similar style. She may even have her MIL (mother-in-law in bridal blog speak) sew one from a pattern. That's why I put the four color blocks at the bottom, I picked these dresses based on their style rather than color. I'd prefer her to find a dress in one of the four shades of pink (like the ones in the 2nd row, minus the orange dress, or the middle three in the 3rd row). Our colors really aren't "blush and bashful"*, but a range of pinks, peaches, and yellows - I just thought pink would look best with Andrea's coloring and next to my white dress and Jesse's black/dark grey suit in photos. If she despises pink, yellow (like two on top right) is my second choice.

So, let me know what you think, and we'll see how close Andrea's dress looks to any of these ten months from now.

* if you do not know this quote, get thee to your local video store and rent Steel Magnolias immediately!

If I were my own bridesmaid....

.....I would so wear one of these dresses.

dresses l to r: unknown origin, anthropologie, betsey johnson

I'm not even joking. Jesse can attest to the fact that a few articles of clothing in my closet definitely resemble costumes more than every day wear. And with one of these, I could add a "50's party dress", "mod/sailor/pinafore dress" or "dress made for a 5 year old princess" to my growing collection. Wearing "fun" clothes puts me in a good mood all day. And these three dresses would make me feel truly divine.

But, of course, I will not be my own bridesmaid. I've asked my sister, Andrea, to stand beside me and she agreed on the one condition that I not ask her to wear an ugly dress - and I'm pretty sure she would think these were a trio of ugly dresses. Since Andrea will be my only bridesmaid, I decided it would be much easier to give her a few color and style suggestions and let her choose a dress on her own. That way, hopefully, she could find something she'd like enough to wear again or if not, at least find something super cheap.

So, this post is merely a teaser. Over the weekend, I'll post the real dresses that I sent her for color and style suggestions. And I promise you won't find a single ruffled, pinafore-d, or big-bowed number in the bunch. ;)

wedding dress - check!

So, what big wedding step did I get accomplished? I bought my wedding dress! Yay! I'm not allowed to post any pictures of it on the blog because Jesse refuses to see it or know any details about it before the wedding date. He's also adamant that he doesn't want to see me at all that day before I walk down the aisle. Well, I guess it's good that one of us is traditional.

I was a little worried when I started looking at wedding dresses in magazines because nothing felt quite like me. I am just NOT into princess ball gowns, loads of beads, appliques, or embroidery. The dresses I admired usually were much more streamlined or modern looking....but they were also usually $3,000 couture designs. What can I say, it just reaffirms my great taste. :)

But, I am just not a $3,000 dress bride, either. So, I planned instead to look for a simple bridesmaid dress in ivory or one of the simple, but elegant dresses from the J. Crew bridal selection. I figured it couldn't hurt in the meantime to try on a few salon gowns, so I stopped by Bridals by Danielle just a couple blocks from our apartment in Philly. My consultant there, Lisa, let me try on tons of bridesmaid dresses and sample gowns and was extremely supportive and encouraging. If you're looking for a wedding dress in Philadelphia, I highly recommend them. They carry tons of high end gowns along with two racks of sample dresses. I narrowed it down to two dresses and brought my friend, Lara, in for a second opinion. I ended up choosing a really elegant silk sample gown that completely felt like "me" and was marked down from $2,000 to $200! It needs to be taken in since it's about two sizes too big, but I already found a seamstress in Lititz, Pa who will do it for a fraction of the salon's price. So, good news all round.

Since I can't post any photos of the dress here, I thought I'd at least leave you with some pictures of some of some gorgeous dresses I love that are completely out of my price range. Luckily, none of these really look like the one I'll be wearing, so I'm not giving anything away. You'll just have to wait until July 12th (probably), like Jesse, to see the dress that I'm making such a big fuss about!

from l to r, dresses designed by: claire pettibone, nicole miller, lela rose

Mission: Mood Board

I've known girls who have imagined every little detail of their wedding before they even had anyone to marry. I am NOT one of those girls. So, ever since I got this ring I've been playing extreme catch-up. I'm a very quick study and my current obsession with wedding magazines and wedding blogs has provided me with excellent clift notes on the subject.

My favorite tool: The Mood Board. A mood board (aka inspiration board or storyboard) is a conglomerate of images a bride has been collecting to help her narrow down her vision for her wedding day. They proliferate on wonderful wedding blogs like weddingbee.com and stylemepretty.com (yes, to have a weddingblog you MUST name it something very silly).

Here are some other brides' mood boards that I plan on stealing (I mean borrowing) ideas from to create a fun, summer mood for our little shindig. There are other styles and colors that I've fallen in love with, too, but I think these work best with our location and time of year. And if I do make my own board, I'll definitely post it here.

I don't remember where I found all of these from, but the top was from stylemepretty.com, the second and fourth were from weddingbee.com, and the last was from ohjoy! (click any of them to see larger versions)

New Haircut

As soon as it started to get really hot outside, I knew that it was time for my long hair to go. I had never intended for it to grow as long as it had anyway, but I'm kinda lazy about going to the hairdressers. Plus, it's still a year away from the wedding, so it'll have time to grow if I decide to do something with it that requires it to be longer.

***Yeah, so this post and the next one aren't really wedding related, but since this is the best way for me to send news and show pictures to lots of family and friends at the same time, they're going up. Plus, I can make every detail of my life wedding related these days if I try hard enough.

Wedding dresses I won't be wearing

Jesse and I went down to Alabama over the weekend for my sister's wedding, which was wonderful (I'll post those photos in a second). While I was there I also went on my first wedding dress shopping trip with my mom. I know it's still really early to start looking at dresses, but since my parents live in Alabama and I live in Philadelphia, this was one of the only chances I would get to go with my Mom before the big day. We went to David's Bridals in Tuscaloosa, which was okay, but none of the dresses really stood out to me. I definitely didn't find "the one" or anything like that. At least now I have a better idea of what I'm looking for though (no halter dresses, no big frou frou skirts, and no crazy lace-all-over patterns) and my mom and I had fun. So, here are three that I definitely won't be wearing on my wedding day. And I should credit my Mom with the awesome camera skills.

Ring!

Well, even though Jesse went to Lititz this weekend to see his folks, I ended up staying here and working on an assignment. So our wedding planning is getting put off for at least another week. We will actually do this, I promise!

Here's a pic of my lovely engagement ring in the meantime. Jesse looked for months in different antique shops and finally found this beauty. The band is white gold and from 1928 and the stone is from the 1940s. I LOVE it! He had to guess my size, 'cause I'm not really a jewelry person, and he did a good job because it fits perfectly!