440 Days and counting

I have a count down on my desktop. It's actually 439 days to go today but 440 sounded better.

On Saturday, I went to Paper Zone to pick up some paper to make another mock invitation. When I arrived, I found that the store was closing and everything was 50% off. After a quick call to my mom to confirm that she would reimburse me for the cost of the paper, I went in and bought all the materials needed for making the invitations, including envelopes. I did have to make a change due to the lack of choices but the invitations still look good. Now I just need to find a balloon stamp and design address labels.

I also made more cupcakes on Saturday. Orange vanilla from cake mix. The cake was good but I wish I could have made the frosting taste more like oranges. I think I'm going to get orange extract for the frosting next time. I much prefer this recipe to the Martha Stewart one because it's more orangecicle-y and easier to make. The frosting, on the other hand, is labor intensive but one batch of frosting frosts multiple batches of cupcakes. The frosting is, if you recall, a Swiss meringue buttercream which requires you beat egg whites until stiff then beat in butter, one tablespoon at a time. My arms get really tired using only the hand mixer. I've got to find someone with a stand mixer to help.

After much discussion about the menu, Lawrence and I have decided to go with Mexican food instead of BBQ or picnic food. Mexican is something I know we can easily make ourselves, offers vegetarian options (my dad doesn't eat meat), and is a menu that has lots of room for people to help out. I need to get a hold of a friend of mine who has worked as a caterer. I really need his help figuring out how much to buy and how much to make of everything. Another thing on the food to do list is find out what it would cost to rent or buy those food heating things for serving (I'm sure they have a name, I just don't know what they're called). If it'll be too expensive to get those, we'll probably end up using Crockpot borrowed from friends and family.

Bridesmaid dresses and a veil

During our trip to David's Bridal, Rebecca, Jessica and Kat tried on bridesmaid dresses. Rebecca found this nice black halter dress that she loved and looked pretty good on her. She bought it. Jessica pulled a bunch of dresses to try on but didn't really like any of them. Kat found this really cute black sheath dress and though she didn't buy it, it was settled that because we were doing black bridesmaids dresses, the ladies were going to buy their dresses instead of making them.

Kat and Rebecca in their dresses (Jessica refused to photographed in any of the dresses she tried on)

I also tried on a couple head pieces with the dresses at David's Bridal. At the suggestion of Lawrence's mom, the consultant brought me some fifties inspired head pieces. This fascinator was perfect except for the $99 price tag. After examining the hat, I decided that I could make something very similar for a quarter of the price. We even went to Jo Ann's afterwards where I found feathers and a flower that work.

It did look really cute on me (though I can't seem to take a decent picture)

The Dress Part Two: Commercial vs. Handmande

So I've been procrastinating about posting (amongst several other things completely un-wedding related). I'm here now though and will probably make a couple posts since Lawrence and I have made some headway in making decisions.
On April 30th, I thought, for fun, me and my ladies would go to our local David's Bridal so I could try on dresses. I invited Kat, Rebecca, Jessica, my mom and Lawrence's mom, Maria and all of them showed. I of course was not intending to purchase a dress but what's the use of having a wedding date if you can't use it to try on dresses? So we riffled through the plus size racks (I admit it, I'm plus sized) and pulled the allotted three dresses for me to try on. Let's call them dress A, dress B and dress C.

Dress A

Dress B

Dress C

Now all these dresses were pretty. I especially loved dress C because of the length. My bridal consultant also pulled a dress that everyone seemed to love.

Dress D

Dress C and D were top contenders but the $500 price tag of both made them unattainable. Honestly, I was a little confused. The dresses were beautiful and looked good on me but even if I had the money, I wasn't sure either of the dresses were what I wanted. As I was mulling things over, I got a call from my dad. He had seen the pictures of me in the dresses and loved dress D. To my surprise, he offered to buy me the dress! Thing was, though dress D was pretty and made me look pretty, it was not what I was looking for, it didn't fit the feel of the wedding I've been planning. By the end of the conversation with dad though, I got him to agree to help pay for whatever dress I decided to wear.

I now had commercially made dresses as an option. Though I wasn't set on buying a dress, I started looking around for dresses that fit my vision that were also around the same price as the David's Bridal dresses. On The Knot I found Dolly Couture, a designer of short wedding dresses that were just a bit over the $500 price point. Then an epiphany! At the beginning of the dress search, before the Vogue pattern, I had Unique Vintage bookmarked. When I had initially looked, their selection was limited but my second look yielded more results. In fact, I found the perfect dress. I also found a great dress to change into at the end of the night! Now we just have to order the dresses.