Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Wedding Dresses I Wish I Was Daring Enough For

If I was more bold and sassy here are some of dresses I would choose. (Or just had a 2-gown wedding or had multiple wedding receptions or was just filthy rich and wanted pretty dresses. Alas none of these are true.)

Melissa Sweet (courtesy theknot) - which was on my short list and looks even better in person
I felt so Carrie Bradshaw in it

Vineyard (courtesy of theknot) - was on my short list. While classy and sophisticated wanted something more romantic

Monique Lhuiller (courtesy of theknot) - the colors are surreal and divine


Oscar de la Renta (courtesy brides.com) - so classy
Vera Wang (courtesy of brides.com) - saw these in runway show and its stunning

J Crew (courtesy of brides.com) - to live out my Jane Austen fantasy

Sunday, September 28, 2008

How lovely is this ....

Was surfing looking for possible cake toppers and ran across this on Etsy.




This is from the seller stjudescreations. She creates the most lifelike flowers. This is listed for the purpose of pew flowers but I could also see this as a lovely cake topper. The possibilities are endless in terms of what you could do with her flowers.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Weddings are Not Cheap


[source www.thedigeratilife.com/]


After going through another week of running the budget (for like a whole hour - I keep running month over month comparisons. How anal am I?), looking at where we stand in our wedding fund, sending out another big deposit check for a vendor (sending out the checks really hurt the worse - it's like someone clutching a fist around my heart), and purchasing other little incidentals I had to stop and ask myself : Is all this worth it?

This week I began to doubt myself and the choices we are making. For a wedding of our size, 50 people including ourselves, plus no alcohol or dancing are we spending too much? While not disclosing our budget lets say for our brunch reception we are kicking out the same per person price as people having their wedding at county clubs (which includes open bar). My girlfriend who is also getting married next year raised the same question. An acquaintance of hers just threw her whole wedding for $12k with three times the number of guests as mine!!!! (And I saw the pics it was a nice affair) When I heard this I nearly dropped into spasms on the floor and said to her in a whiny voice, "Am I doing something wrong? "

I think I have come to a point where all if not most of our vendors are locked in and I am starting to second guess our judgement. Could I have gone with a cheaper florist and gotten more arrangements? Could we have had a bigger wedding for the same price? Are we just spending too damn much money for 50 people for one day? And there are still little things that we would like to do that are not in our original budget (like draping, lightening, etc.) Also we decided that since we are doing a nine day cruise of the Carribean in October we are changing our honeymoon plans, which means more expense for us since we had planned to do an all inclusive resort. The little costs here and there are starting to add up and I see that we are easily going to come in over, when just last month we were $2K under! (Which by the way is my fault because I had the burning desire to have a videographer after seeing the work of the company Wellspun which pretty much ate the surplus up.) I feel like its spiraling out of control and I can't stop it. And I know there will be other items that "I just have to have or I will die and the wedding will not be right ....". But will there be money in the budget? And believe you me, Roe and I will not be the proud receiptents of an economic bail out if we get ourselves in trouble.



My fiance ever the pratical one constantly reminds me that its just one day and not the rest of our lives and that we have other priorities. Very easy to for him to say. I want us to have a fantabulous wonderous day with everything just right, but at what cost? And me who never worries and is the most non-chalant person is starting to stress over it. At one point I just wanted to junk everything and just go to the City Hall.

Drawing the line in the sand is hard. When do you say enough is enough and my day will be special regardless. No one will notice there is no pin lighting on the florals, or that we have no big florals in the ceremony room, or that its a dry wedding (Who are we kidding? People will definitely notice that). And that day will be special with or with out these things.

Help! Are other brides panicing about costs and asking "Is it worth it?"

Friday, September 19, 2008

Wedding Purse : Is it Really a Must Have ????

Right before I departed for Hawaii, I had been working with the etsy seller blueorchidhandbags to design a wedding bag for myself. It came the day before I left and I must say I was thrilled!

Here is a photo courtesy of blueorchidhandbags.


I really loved working with her, she was so easy and accommodating. First I sent her pictures of my dress and described the colors of my wedding and the color of my dress sash. She then sent fabric samples of things she thought would go well with my outfit. And she was willing to work with me until I found the perfect match. From there I think the turn around for my bag was about a week.

THANKS BLUEOERCHID!

I was originally drawn to her because of her simple yet elegant clutch design and she has a lovely range of fabrics to choose from. Wanted to also choose something that I could use after the wedding as a fancy going out bag and to carry on our anniversaries.

However, it did get me to thinking about why do we as brides obsess about our pocketbooks so much? For the weddings I have been to I can not recall seeing not one bride carry their purse on that day. For my friends wedding last year, for which I was a bridesmaid, I did not know she had a bag till the professional shots came back and I saw it in only 1 shot of her accessories laid out on the bed. Now my cousin who was married 40 years ago said she wore her little pouch wristlet bag the whole wedding as a means to collect cash gifts. (WOW, how often does that happen these days!)

My question is do we really need to carry a bag that day? While I am uber excited about mine, I wonder as to its practicality. When I need something such as blotting paper or a retouch of my lipstick will I just ask a bridesmaid for something? Are we just so entrenched in the habit of getting purses to match our outfits that we feel compelled to get one on this day as well? And I find it super ironic that I put so much energy into getting a purse when as a little girl and into most of my teens it was like pulling teeth for me to carry a purse (YUCK!). My of my, how things change!

Friday, September 12, 2008

Invitations to be a Bridesmaid

So here was my inspiration for my bridesmaid invites courtesy of Mrs.Lovebug on Weddingbee.Com:


So I had already told my bridesmaids beforehand that I wanted them to be in the wedding. But I wanted to do something special for them and really show how much they mean to me. So I decided that this would be my first DIY project! Yeah.

I decided to do a backstage pass as well as a ticket to the wedding. All was done in Microsoft Word since I have no clue about Photoshop. And all was cut out by hand since the fanciest cutter I have are scissors. The tmeplate for the ticket I got from the Microsoft website and I just modified it to suit my needs. (can pass it to anyone who wants it - assuming someone other than Roe and I are reading the blog.) I decided to get each of then monogrammed totes from Etsy seller loyalty and blood (to use as supermarket bags, to carry stuff for the wedding, etc). Then I just packaged it together with a ribbon.

They loved it.



OMG! MY FUTURE ANNIVERSARY!

Our conversation while watching HGTV House Hunters (one of our favorite TV shows)

Roe: "Tomorrow it will be officially one year."

Me : "Huh ...."

Roe: "One year exactly till we get married"

Me (pausing for a second to remember the today's date. I swear I am clueless half the time.) : "Oh Yeah"

Roe: "Want to do something special tomorrow to celebrate?"

Me: "Sure why not."

Do I come across as nonchalant and lackadaisical? Yup. Is that me 95% of the time? Yup.

But inside I am doing the Happy Dance!!!!

(image: www.selmanc.info)