The Dress Part Four

I broke the cardinal rule of dress shopping on Wednesday. I continued to try on dresses after I had decided what I wanted to wear. Now, it wasn't the end of the world for me because 1. I have yet to make any purchases and 2. the experience helped me define what I want.
I went to visit a friend of mine who has experience catering to get his advice on how to cater the wedding which put me on 6th Ave, the hip and trendy neighborhood in Tacoma. On 6th Ave there is a little wedding dress shop called the Wedding Bell. On a whim, cause I was there, I decided to stop in and see if they could put me in some dresses, just cause I could. The girl who helped me was really nice and listened to the things I was looking for in a dress. I told her I wanted tulle and for it to be short. She pulled the near perfect dress right off the bat. The sample she had in my size was long but of course it could be ordered in the shorter length.

Pretty right? I loved the fact that it had a tulle skirt and LOVED the way the bodice made me look. I was not in love with the detail on the skirt though. After trying on several other dresses that weren't as awesome as this one, I told the bridal consultant (cause you can't call them sales people) that my parents were the ones supplying my funds and I'd have to go talk to them. I did call my mom and asked her if she'd buy the dress for me but when I told her how much it cost, she said no (and I don't blame her).

What we decided to do is stick to the original plan (and by original I mean the most recent incarnation). We'll purchase the tulle skirt and make the top ourselves.
Mom seems to think we can recreate the bodice of the dress I tried on. I, on the other hand, am a little nervous about attempting something like that.
I've never done anything like it. I can't seem to find a sewing pattern with a sweetheart neckline that defined and I have only made one garment without a pattern. We'll see what happens.




In other wedding news, I feel like I've got everything planned and now I'm just waiting to start working on things. That's not entirely true. I need to get in touch with a rental company about securing a couple more tables and chairs and maybe catering equipment. I'd really like to get engagement pictures done to use for the save the dates. The wedding website isn't even close to being done and I have been procrastinating about getting it done. At some point in the next couple of months, we should register. And I should be gathering materials for all my projects. I guess I'd better get working. :-)

The Dress Part Three: Tulle!

So, as mentioned in my last post, I've been reading Offbeat Bride and the associated forums. On the forum, someone posted the following picture.

How I wanted that dress, but I put it out of my mind. A dress like that was probably too expensive plus it didn't really fit in with the style of the wedding. Then I found this wedding profile on OBB. The bride had a short tulle skirt! I decided then that I really did want a tulle skirt.
When I pitched the idea to Lawrence, I mistakenly used the word tutu. This brought on comments about how I might be perceived as silly and not taking the wedding seriously. I explained to him that what I wear does not dictate how serious I am about our marriage. In the end, he said he'd marry me if I was wearing a paper bag, so if I wanted to do it wearing a tutu, it would be ok.
With that settled, I moved on to how exactly to put together my vision. I figured I could make the skirt easily but was stuck on what to wear on top. After a search though sewing patterns, I picked out five tops I thought would look good. Truth be told, though, I didn't really swoon over any of the tops. Then I remembered that often in the special occasion/evening wear section of pattern catalogs there'll be mix and match patterns, where you have one skirt and several different styles of tops in one pattern. I found two that I really like.
I also found an alternative to making my own tulle skirt.Sisters of the Moon Designs on Etsy makes really cool tutus for reasonable prices. I'll probably get this one.
Now, dear readers, help me decide which top I should wear to my wedding.

Option A

Option B

One Year to Go! A post about cupcakes, decor and the venue.

A year from today, if all goes well, I'll be married on on my honeymoon with my husband! Exciting isn't it?
I realize that I haven't posted in over two months. I hit a planning dry spell but since I recently started having an excess of free time (the nice way of saying being unemployed) I have restarted my planning efforts. An aide in rekindling my planning fire is Offbeat Bride and the Offbeat Tribe (their planning forum). I have gathered many a DIY tutorial, creative ideas and pieces of advice, as well as motivation to continue to plan this wedding of awesome.

Yesterday was the actual pre-wedding anniversary and I spent the whole day doing wedding related things.
To save space on the main blog I'm going to put a cut here. Behind it is a lot of really cool pictures so read on.

The Flowers

When I began to plan this wedding I had recently stumbled upon this tutorial for paper flowers. I thought that it was such a good idea. Paper flowers don't wilt, you can make them ahead of time, and they're probably cheaper than real flowers. Then I made some. I really didn't like them. So, real flowers. I did some research about which flowers would be in season in August. I thought daisies would be cute and playful but when the ladies decided on black dresses, I was at a loss as how to add blue to their ensembles. More research turned up the only naturally blue flower, the hydrangea. I searched the Knot and found the best of both worlds.

I was thinking of having my ladies carry hydrangea and daisy bouquets and I could carry a bouquet of just hydrangeas. This whole time, I've been planning on having my mommy grow the flowers and figuring out how to make bouquets then I started to wonder how much would it cost to have a florist make four bouquets. Nothing set in stone yet but a florist would have the resources to find the blue hydrangeas and it would save me some sanity. I will have to do some research.

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.