So what am I going to make with all of these flowers? Here's the list:

One bouquet for me
7 bouquets for the bridesmaids
1 flower girl container of some sort (basket, flower ball, flower wand, etc)
3 corsages of some sort
15 centerpieces
Decorations for our altar/arbor
A cake topper
An arrangement for the entryway/escort card table.

Whew, right?

Nothing will be too fussy; the general idea is that by saving money we can have lots of flowers, and the beauty of the flowers will be in the fact that there are so many of them (1,885, to be exact!). I think it will work out beautifully. I might still farm out the corsages to a florist, but I have time to make that decision. Eric doesn't want boutonnieres, so I don't have to make or buy any, and the guys will wear pocket squares instead. The aisle decorations will be paper lanterns, so no flowers needed there. Anything I'm forgetting?

Now, for the logistics. First, I have to place the order, and I'm going to do that soon, assuming I don't decide to change the color scheme :) They'll be delivered on Thursday and Friday of the wedding week (Sunday wedding, remember), and I'll tend to them and get them into water and let them open until Saturday morning. Saturday will be flower day, and when they're all done we'll bring them over to the reception site to be stored overnight.

To keep the apartment chilly enough to not have the flowers burst open upon arriving, I'll be turning the air conditioning down a few degrees for a few days (ozone layer, please forgive me!). I have to acquire some 5 gallon buckets to hold the flowers in, as well as some floralife to keep the flowers happy, and some oasis foam forms for the arbor arrangement and cake topper. To make it a group project, I got a few pairs of floral shears (I got them in the Target $1 aisle sometime last year, when they were selling lots of gardenening stuff). I've already acquired about 100 assorted small vases from various thrift stores to use on the reception tables, so we'll be putting multiple small vase arrangements on each table to add to the feeling of overabundance. The plan is that any crafty bridesmaids, friends, or relatives who want to help out on Saturday, can, and everyone else can hang out on their own in Louisville or head down to Churchill Downs, where a group will be headed.

I acknowledge that it sounds like a lot, but I'm fully prepared to tackle this project, and to not freak out if for some reason it all goes horribly wrong. You read it here: I hereby promise not to freak out if for some reason the flowers go horribly wrong!

I don't have too much of a plan for the actual designs themselves. For the bridesmaid bouquets, if the bridesmaids want to pick out their own flowers or make their own bouquets, that will be great. For the centerpieces, all the vases will just have a mix of flowers, and same for the arch and escort card table arrangement. The only big question mark left is my own bouquet. Once upon a time, I really loved the idea of a cascading bouquet in all white. Right now, multi-colored hand-tied bouquets are really popular. I like the idea of both. What should I do?


All white, cascading bouquet (source). Granted, it looks a little dated with the ivy, but you get the idea:

Colored, hand-tied (source):

Another colored, probably hand-tied bouquet (source):


All white, cascade (source):

Maybe the fact that all of the cascade bouquet pictures I can find all line look so dated should tell me that I'm leaning toward a really 80s look?

But wait! Here are some viable options:

Colored cascade, smaller scale, with ruscus instead of ivy (source):

Another colored bouquet (it's even purple and green!), sort of a cross between hand-tied and cascade, with amaranthus to give it the cascading look (source):

According to The Knot, I should pick a smaller round bouquet because I'm petite, a smaller round bouquet because my dress profile is slimmer, a smaller cascade because the wedding is in a loft-type space, or a smaller hand-tied bouquet because the ceremony is outdoors. Hmm, that doesn't help me much, other than telling me I should keep my bouquet small (boo; I like big ones!).

Round or cascade, white or colored? Decisions, decisions. Something tells me I'll decide on Saturday, May 23, as I'm about to put it together...

Flowers chosen?

Sorry, I know it's been a long time since I've given you any sort of meaningful attention, Harry Kalas aside. There isn't too much big stuff going on, just lots of little progress every day, chipping away at various things on the to-do list.

Well, here's an update for you. I think I've decided what flowers to order!

I worked at a florist in college, which was by far one of the best jobs I've ever had. Even on the most stressful day (think Valentine's Day), you were super busy boxing and wrapping up dozens of beautiful flowers. How stressful can that really be? I loved seeing the wedding flowers that we put together, and developed a very strong sense of what flowers I preferred. I will admit to one day, 9 years ago (oh my gosh, has it really been that long!?), writing down what I wanted my wedding bouquet to look like. My tastes haven't changed too much in the ensuing years, I have to admit.

One of the best/worst things about working at a florist was the development of the idea that I am capable of doing my own wedding flowers. A double-edged sword, to be sure, and I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for everyone, due to the stress that is sure to come with it. And who knows, after the wedding, I might not recommend it to anyone!

Actually, I'm really excited and looking forward to being able to work on my own flowers, although some of the logistics are going to require attention. Over the last few days, I've been perusing bulk flower websites, and here's what I've decided to order:


I'm aiming for mostly purple (all shades) and green, with a hint of pink. Sort of a wild, loosy goosey look, not too structured. Does this meet the mark?

Here's the flower breakdown:
Lavender roses
Pink/white bicolor roses
White spray roses
Purple lisianthus
Lavender sweet pea
White alstromeria
Purple alstromeria
Bupleurum (green)
Purplush/bluish limonium
Assorted colors of hypericum berries (for the berries in our "vines and berries" motif) (I'm hoping there's not too many red ones in the mix, but more of the green, pink, and peachy ones)
Assorted colors of statice (any color this comes in will be fine, except for maybe the hot pink)
And for greens, I'm using ruscus (evoking the vines in our motif) and lemonleaf.

I don't want too much of a pastel color scheme, but there are more flowers that come in bright pinks than come in bright purples. Hopefully the purple lisianthus will help keep things in the bold spectrum.

What do you think about the sweet pea? It comes in a variety of bold pink colors, but not a true purple, only lavender. Stick with the purple shade and risk being too pastel, or trade it for a darker pink and risk bringing too much pink into the mix? Similarly, trade in the lavender roses for something else (white or pink?) or leave them alone?

I actually have no problems with pink, and love bold pink flowers, but I've seen a few pictures of florals done in all purple and they're really nice looking, too, so I think that's what I'm going to go for. On the other hand, the eggplant bridesmaid dresses might look nice with a punch of pink, don't you think? Or should I stick with the color scheme and go all purple and green? You see where I'm getting stuck...

I traded the ability to pick the exact varieties of some of the flowers (roses and alstro in particular) for the lower price that comes with just ordering "lavender" roses. Hopefully they'll be blue curiosas, but if not, it won't be the end of the world.

Here's an interesting dilemma that occurs when ordering bulk flowers: They only come in bulk sizes! So if you want a huge variety of flowers, you quickly end up adding $3000+ worth of flowers to your online shopping cart and kicking yourself because one of the main points of doing your own flowers was to save money! Or you can find sites that let you buy in smaller quantity, but you end up spending just as much money because the unit price goes up a lot. For example, I originally had lilies, ranunculus, amaranthus, freesia, anemones, and delphinium in the mix, not to mention a bunch of other shades of roses, lisianthus, and alstromeria. But I really don't need 100 of each flower. Well, I'm sure I could decide that I did need them, but our budget can't take it. Instead, if the deliveries arrive and I still wish I had some lily, freesia, or anemones to help balance the color scheme, or I still wish I had some amaranthus just for the luxury, I can head across the street to our local florist or out to Whole Foods to see what I can get on short notice and in small quantities.

So that's the plan for what to order. Have any suggestions for colors/flowers? I welcome them! In a later post, I'll talk about what I'm going to make with all of these flowers.

Crafting the Invitations -- Assembly

Finally, it was time to assemble everything.

To refresh your memory, here is our invitation suite:

I simply stacked the RSVP card on top of the invitation, and stacked the insert card on top of that. In between the invitation and RSVP card, I slipped our rehearsal dinner invitation.

The RSVP card is a postcard, so I made sure to pre-stamp it:

The front of the card asks our guests to RSVP for both the wedding and the rehearsal dinner, and asks where they're staying and what day they're arriving. That way, I'll be able to make sure I get an out of town bag to everyone. We're having a buffet, so no food choices were necessary.

I used leftover strips of the purple Unryu Thread Paper to create 1/2" wide belly bands to hold everything together. I didn't want to use an actual inner envelope for most of the reasons already discussed in previous posts -- extra money to buy them, extra wasted paper being thrown away, and added weight threatening the 1 oz limit. Instead, I put the inner envelope information on a small piece of cardstock.

The cardstock actually came from these blank greeting cards I found at Archivers while looking for other stuff. They were in the cheap bin, and were a great find! They're embossed in a stripe pattern, so they added a little bit of architectural interest to the layout, rather than just a boring piece of flat cardstock:
I only ended up using a handful of them, too. First I cut each card in between those stripes to create strips 5.5" x ~1". Then I trimmed off the unembossed ends, leaving me with a 5" strip. I cut that strip into either two 2.5" pieces or a 2" and 3" piece, depending on how much I needed to write on each one. I wrote the guests' names on using a purple roller ball pen, and it went on top of the belly band. The belly band was attached with a Zot and the "inner envelope" cardstock was attached to the belly band with another Zot.

The completed assembly:

I'm a little wishy-washy about the size of the belly band. I think, if I were to do it again, I would make them at least 5/8" wide, rather than 1/2" wide. I've seen some examples of really fat belly bands, too, and while that might look nice, I really didn't want to waste too much paper. In the end, I'm satisfied with it.


Into the envelope it goes!
The repositionable sticky tape I had used to attach the liner to the envelope ended up remaining fairly repositionable after a few days, and that made me nervous. So at the last minute, I secured everything down with a permanent Glue Dot, one of the very flat ones, so everything remained nice and smooth.

And then all that's left is to seal and stamp it!
We went with the Chinese New Year stamps. Neither of us is an ox, but it's a small nod to my heritage.

In the end, they weighed 7/8 oz each, perfect for a single first class stamp!

Crafting the Invitations -- Envelopes

Once the invitations were all printed, it was time to get the envelopes ready. I ordered samples from EnvelopesExpress.com, ActionEnvelope.com, and checked out every other envelope website I could find via Google. I also looked at the envelopes stocked at Arvey, my local awesome paper supply store. One of the frustrating things was that a lot of places only sold envelopes in large quantities, like hundreds, and I only needed about 125. In the end, we went with ActionEnvelope's 70-lb Bright White A8 envelopes, sold in packs of 50. They also have an 80-lb envelope, which feels nicer when compared to the 70-lb one, but I really wanted to stay within the 1-oz mark for weight, so I went with the lighter one. In the end, you can't tell.

The envelopes were the most expensive per-envelope that I looked at, but we ended up using them because they were the closest brightness to the cardstock we were using and they were the only ones I could buy in a pack of 150, rather than 200. If I had gone with a pack of 200, I guess I could have tried to resell them, but I feel better not having to rely on that. Sometimes it's worth it to spend a little more if it means you'll have less waste in the end.

I laid out our return address to print on the back flap (in the same purple color, of course), bought a new color ink cartridge for my very old HP Deskjet 810C (I got it in 1999!), and started printing. I had to play around with things a little bit, but it turned out if I printed them in batches of no more than 6, the printer stayed happy. So one afternoon I fed envelopes through the printer while catching up on my Google Reader reading.


The printer had a brain fart and only printed this much on one of the envelopes. Poor thing, I hope it lasts another two months through the rest of my wedding printing projects...

Running the envelopes through the printer made them all a little wrinkly, but I figured no one would notice by the time they got delivered and had all other sorts of marks and blemishes from the postal service:
Wrinkly, crinkly.

And here's the final product:


Next up was addressing and lining. I read a trick somewhere, at some point during the last almost two years of planning, that it's easier to address the envelopes first, and line them second. This allows you to use a wonderful tracing trick for guide lines. What you do is you take a piece of cardstock and draw straight lines across it. Place it inside the envelope, lines facing out, and you have guide lines to help you write straight!

Now, at what intervals should I make the guides? This is just one example of why I'm so happy I've saved every wedding invitation (and accompanying paper paraphernalia) I've ever received. I was able to pull out all the outer envelopes and do a little bit of measuring, and it turns out that 1/2" increments are pretty standard and look good:
Left to right: Bridesmaid Karen's invitation (2004), bridesmaid Paula's invitation (2007), bridesmaid Jamie's invitation (2008), longtime friend and penpal from the 3rd grade Becky's invitation (2007). Other invitations I've amassed over the last five years not shown.

Seriously, I'm so glad I save all of these, because I was constantly able to go back and look at what other people's invitations looked like, to make sure I wasn't doing anything weird.

Here's my guide card:

Using the guide card, I was easily able to address all my envelopes using my handy dandy purple calligraphy marker. I know I've talked about my handwriting before, but I can't resist showing it off just a little bit more...


Once all the envelopes were addressed, I lined them. I used Unryu Thread Paper in aubergine from PaperMojo.com. It's a gorgeous deep purple color, and has a very organic look to it.

First, I cut all the sheets to the right size:

Next, I lined the envelopes. Since my envelopes have square flaps, it was really easy to cut the liners, because I just made them all rectangular. No cutting rounded/pointed flaps out! I adhered the liners with repositionable sticky tape. I initially was going to use Glue Dots or Zots, but I found a roll of sticko brand refill tape at Archiver's for 75% off! It was a little annoying to work with an open roll of very sticky tape, but it was worth it. I wanted to use repositionable tape so that I could move the liners in case I made any mistakes, and I'm glad I did, because there were a few mistakes. At that point, with the envelopes already addressed, I really didn't want to have to start completely over if I screwed up the liner.

Put the tape down, position the liner:


Peel the tape backing up, attach the liner:


And voila!


Beautiful purple-lined envelopes, ready for stuffing!

Crafting the Invitations -- Graphics

So I sent the invitations Wednesday morning, and on Thursday afternoon I had heard from the first people in the Louisville area that they had received them, and on Friday afternoon I got back the first RSVP card (it was a yes)! Quick work, USPS! I know my bridesmaids in Baltimore and Pittsburgh have gotten them, too, so I guess I can start the recap for you.


I told you about how I took this piece of scrapbook paper and sent it off to someone to turn into digital images:

Here's what happened after that.

First, I received this image from the designer who let me down, which I really liked:
By playing around in Paint.net (Free program! Similar to Photoshop, but a little dumbed down, as opposed to Inkscape, another free program I initially tried to use that was as complex as Photoshop), I was able to make a couple related images:




















Notice that I also changed the colors around a bit; I wanted a brighter green, and more of an eggplant purple rather than a bluish purple.

Trying to find the right color was quite a project in itself, but through some Googling, I found this great site, Colour Lovers. OTHER people find pretty colors, upload them, and tell you the RGB numbers needed to recreate them! I was able to find a bunch of colors in the range I was looking for, and make a whole bunch of samples in those colors to test print:

The one I settled on was the second one on the top row. That became my new theme eggplant color.

*Disclaimer: In the end, the purple color didn't come out exactly right, but since the images were sent off to Sue, my awesome graphic designer, before I printed them, there are a couple sources of possible error. The most obvious one is that RGB colors are meant for computer viewing, while CMYK colors are meant for print. Sue knew that I had ghetto-checked my RGB color in print, but something still might have happened on her end of things. It's also possible that my printer's printer read the color differently. Who knows. In the end, the purple on the berries on the final printed product is a little more in the bluish range rather than the reddish, but Rule #1 of DIY is "Let go of your OCD and accept what you cannot control. Your sanity is worth more than you think."

In any case, I sent my three re-colored images off to Sue to make them nice and smooth and hi-resolution and suitable for printing.

Flower girl dresses

I always had it in the back of my mind that it would be more fun to dress our flower girl, Lea, in a pretty purple dress, rather than dressing her like a mini-bride in white. And even if I did dress her in white, I wanted something age-appropriate, rather than a satin ball gown. I mean, really, what 2-year-old needs to be wearing a white satin ball gown? Plus, you know, those dresses that are "meant" for flower girls are pretty darn expensive! At least if I tell one of my bridesmaids, "You can totally wear it again!" (channeling 27 Dresses), it's kind of sort of true. But between appropriate occasions and rapid growth, when will a 2-year-old wear a white satin ball gown again?

So my frugal (read: cheapskate) self also figured I could take advantage of our long engagement by trolling Easter dress sales. I kept an eye out last year, but the shopping began in earnest this year. A couple of weeks ago, to be exact.

It all started when Lea gained a little sister on January 22, Susanna:

So one day a couple weeks ago I headed off for Target to look for new baby presents. (I got Susanna this adorable sheep-themed set, and a couple other things.) And wandering through the baby section led me gradually to the toddler section, and then to the party dresses, where I found this:
It's a little more purple than it looks in the picture, so I bought it. And that night, I checked out the websites of a few department stores, like Macy's and JCPenney. And on the JCP site, I found this dress:
I couldn't tell how floofy it might be, so a few days later I headed out to JCPenney to see it for myself. It was cute, but more of a dress-up-for-a-nice-normal-day dress than a special occasion one. But there were PLENTY of other dresses to look at, and I did much more than look. Within 15 or 20 minutes, I had grabbed every potential flower girl dress from the rack in a size 3T and wandered over to the infant section, because wouldn't you know it, all of a sudden I needed to dress Susanna as an honorary flower girl, too.

As I plopped 11 dresses on the counter, I have to give the salesgirl credit for not batting an eyelash, but simply asking, "Do you need gift receipts?" And the best part? All the dresses were 20-30% off!

Top left: The cotton eyelet dresses, in toddler and baby versions. Less fancy, but oh-so-cute and adorable.
Top right: The plaid collection, toddler version from Target and baby version from JCP.
Middle left: The polka dot collection. Neither dress had any purple in it, though.
Middle right: A gorgeous green dress with purple flowers on it. Can we say, perfect?
Bottom left: Another gorgeous dress, in white with pink embroidery. If this came about a million sizes larger, it would be my wedding dress.
Bottom right: The purple collection.

Last weekend, Eric and I both traveled to Virginia to visit Paige, Brian, Lea, and Susanna. In addition to the requisite visiting-my-nieces-to-be presents, I brought along the flower girl dress contenders, and everything got settled!

Which do you think were chosen for each girl?

Nah, I won't make you guess.

The green-with-purple-flowers dress was chosen in about 5 seconds by Paige. It's my second favorite of the bunch for Susanna (the first being my dream wedding dress), but since the white-and-pink one doesn't match the wedding colors at all, the purple-and-green one is clearly the best choice.

We narrowed Lea's choices to the purple one (bottom right) and the polka dot one (middle left), then held them both up for her to choose. And guess which one that super-smart girl picked? The purple one!

To check for fit, I put the dress on her over her clothes after she finished her dinner, and she loved it (and it fit!). She was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and pants, so running around in that outfit with a purple fairy dress over it, she totally reminded me of Bo from Signs. So adorable. Oh yeah, and she was running around singing Jingle Bells. A month after Christmas. Don't ask.

So, yay, we have flower girl dresses! The rest are in a bag, waiting to be returned this weekend. And I can't wait to see these two all dressed up in three and a half months (yikes!)!


So, I know I can't be the only cheapskate shopper out there. Who else bought an Easter dress for their flower girl(s)?

Bridesmaid dresses -- the final account

Well, I hope this is the final account. I feel like I've been stringing everyone along all this time as I (and my bridesmaids) change my/our minds over and over again!

When last we left off, everyone had the choice of a purple or green dress. The acceptable designers/colors were:
-Mori Lee eggplant
-Jim Hjelm eggplant
-Bill Levkoff European eggplant
-Alfred Angelo grape
-After Six, Renaissance satin, eggplant
-Bari Jay, eggplant
-B2, bordeaux
-Da Vinci, aubergine
-After Six, Nu Georgette, aubergine (probably)
-Jim Hjelm moss
-Alfred Angelo clover
-Mori Lee patina, maybe

In the months since, I confirmed that After Six's nu georgette fabric in aubergine was the right color, and determined that no one wanted to wear green. I had thought Paige, Eric's sister, might, as she already had a gorgeous Jim Hjelm dress in "moss," but after it had been altered so much to fit her pregnant belly in October, she didn't think it was salvageable. Plus, she said she didn't really mind getting a new dress and liked the purple color, so I didn't argue. Everyone would be wearing purple.

I mentioned before that Paula, one of my college best friends, already had a dress that we thought might work, and it turns out it does. It's a pretty chiffon, mid-calf-length dress in the exactly right shade -- how fortuitous! I don't have a picture of it, but it's got a halter top, a v-neckline, and some beading embellishment at the bust. Perfect! Maybe something kind of sort of like this:

Minus the sash, and with not as much of an A-line shape, and with sparkly stuff at the neckline. Yeah, kind of sort of like this but really not so much at all :)

In December I was able to go dress shopping with Marjorie and Karen, my two best friends from high school. We went to a bridal salon in New Jersey where the most wonderful thing happened: The salesperson asked what my vision was for the bridesmaid dresses, and when I explained that I didn't care what style, fabric, or designer they were, as long as it was on my list of approved colors, and I knew that the shades might not be exactly the same, she replied: "That's wonderful! How easy!" I was instantly in love.

You see, most places, over the last year or so, have given me the standard spiel that my bridesmaids HAVE to match. If not the exact style, then at least the same designer and fabric. To ensure that the dye lots match, you know. And as much as I've explained that I don't care, no one seems to really believe me or want to agree. So the fact that this woman instantly approved took a huge weight off of my shoulders. Not that I NEEDED her approval, mind you; it just made the experience so much more pleasant.

After a fun morning of trying on dozens of dresses, we went out to lunch, then went back to the store and had Marjorie's mom stop by to give her opinion. Marjorie had it narrowed down to two dresses:
























L: James Clifford BH1814 R: Jim Hjelm JH5822

They are very similar, with the ruffle detail at the top. The ruching on the James Clifford dress was really flattering on Marjorie (but that ribbon was random and unnecessary), but the portrait neckline made her shoulders seem very broad. We loved the neckline on the Jim Hjelm dress (awesome cleavage!), but the ruching didn't happen at the most flattering spot. While trying to decide between awesome cleavage and awesome tummy coverage, the aforementioned awesome salesperson came over to see how we were doing. We explained what the problems were, and we brainstormed possible ways to address each dress with alterations. Suddenly, the salesperson exclaimed, "I know!" and ran off to get another dress. She came back with this:

Alfred Angelo 6549, the perfect blend of the two, in satin and chiffon in grape. The portrait neckline isn't as severe as on the James Clifford dress, and even though it doesn't have ruching, the cut of the dress fit Marjorie well. Plus, the fact that the ruffle cascades to the waist really camoflages the tummy area. The ruffle is accompanied by a dangling cord, which none of us really liked -- I believe the word "dingleberry" actually came out while discussing it, but it can be removed easily. Jackpot! Hooray for helpful and nice salespeople!

Karen also made a choice:
Alfred Angelo 6556. Organza and satin in grape, totally adorable!

I emailed back and forth with Paige regarding when she might want to order her dress. You see, she's due any day now, and if we could wait just a few weeks for her to lose at least the weight/girth of having a full-term baby inside of her, getting measured would be a lot simpler. I thought David's Bridal, with it's off-the-rack-if-you-can't-wait-to-order-a-new-one philosophy, might work well, so I checked out their color and style options. After Christmas, Paige stopped in to a store near her to check them out as well, and found one she liked. She'll wait as long as she can to place her order (DB told her the dress only needs a 6-week lead time) for this dress:
David's Bridal D02101, flat taffeta, in plum. I love this dress and want it for myself! The top is good because, as Paige (who will be breast-feeding) said, it "would also allow me to wear a hard-core bra if necessary, which is appealing." Good thinking!

With those decisions made, I told my sisters it was time to place their orders. Shannon had previously decided on Alfred Angelo 6518, and stuck with it:

Here you can see my ghetto photoshopping trying to turn it into a purple dress. I apologize if I've burned your retinas! The satin trim on the dress can be any color, and Shannon chose to match the trim with the nu-georgette body, so the whole dress will be in aubergine.

Laurel had previously chosen Bari Jay 756:

But when she went to order it, she went back to the Bari Jay website one last time and found that a new season's worth of dresses had been posted, and changed her mind to Bari Jay 382:

It's chiffon, in eggplant. I'm not sure what color choices there are for the strap, but I told her I don't care what she does, so we'll see what she ordered.

Finally, my other best friend from college, Jamie, was stuck dress shopping on her own. I did get to go shopping with her and Paula back in September, but I still wish I could have helped her pick out her final choice, if only because she seemed a little more distraught at having to search on her own. She settled on After Six 6513:

"Renaissance" satin, in eggplant. Even though it's pretty damn near to the exact same color as the nu-georgette that Shannon's dress comes in, Jamie's color in "Renaissance satin" is called "eggplant," while Shannon's color in nu-georgette and "Matte satin" is called "aubergine." After Six had to go and make things difficult, but by looking at enough swatches, I figured it all out. This dress has a really long sash that is shown tied in the back here, and was tied in the back when Jamie tried it on back in September, but Marjorie actually tried on the same dress and tied the bow in the front, and it looked really good, so Jamie is thinking about doing that as well.

Here's a composite I made up that shows all 8 of our hot dresses together:


Models standing in for, clockwise from top left: Jamie, Marjorie, me, Paula, Laurel, Karen, Paige, and Shannon. The actual color of purple we're using is somewhere in between all of those, but you get the idea.

After about a year, it's all coming together! I can't wait for all the dresses to come in so I can see how great they look on everyone! What do you think -- will it work?

Usually I'm an inclusive wedding planner

A conversation from the other day

Me: Do you have any opinion about using a dark purple table runner on our reception tables?
Eric: I just don't want anything so long that it gets in people's way or in the way of things on the table.
Me: No, this would just be a strip of purple fabric no longer than the tablecloth, just for a punch of color against the white. No objections to the color or the idea or anything except potential interference with people's comfort?
Eric: No, I don't really care.
Me: Well that's good, because I already bought them. Done deal.
Eric: laughs

Shoe dilemma

So, you may or may not remember that I bought a pair of wedding shoes a year ago. (I know; a year ago?!?! Geez, our engagement has been long.)

They look like this:















Mossimo "Hailey," Target, $19.99, in silver (also comes in other colors)

They're fantastic. I always tend to gravitate toward tall, strappy heels, and these fit the bill perfectly.

Then, around Christmas last year, I bought these:















Mossimo "Heidi," Target, $19.99, in white (also comes in other colors, and I bought them in red also, and I always get complimented on them)

Another tall heel, this time a peep toe, d'Orsay heel, and a bow. Adorable, and very bridal!

Well, you also may or may not remember that about a year ago I mentioned

"a GREAT pair of purple pumps by Michael Shannon, style name "Anna," which seems to be a discount brand that only Off-Broadway Shoes carries, which means they do not exist on the internet at all apparently, but they were ADORABLE. If you see an Off-Broadway Shoes commercial, they're the first pair they show -- peep toe with striped purple fabric... hard to explain, but very cute. And I think because they are so difficult to find, I might just have to buy them. Sigh."

At the time, those Annas had a list price of $69.99, and an Off Broadway "discount" price of $49.99. Certainly not extravagant, but I had already bought the Heidis, so I put the purple Annas out of my mind. Sort of. A few months later, I popped into the store to see if they were still there, and they were -- and still at their original price.

A few weeks ago, though -- a whole year later, I should remind you -- I popped in again (really for no other reason than to check on these shoes, because I really don't need any other shoes right now) and quickly scanned the racks. No Annas. Had I missed them completely, or might they still be on the clearance racks now? I saw a pair in an 8, which was too big (I'm always somewhere between a 7-8, but I always have to try on the shoes to be sure), and scanned the 7.5 and 7 racks, finding only a pair of 7s in another (still pretty) color. And on sale for $34.99. If only I could find a pair of purple 7s!

Out of desperation and knowing that the clearance racks are not always properly organized, I continued on into the 6.5 section. And there was a 6.5 in purple. I have to admit to trying to squeeze my feet into them, Cinderella-style, but it would have been disaster to try to dance like that. And then, on the next row, I saw another pair, in purple. I assumed they, too, were 6.5 or even 6, but checked them just to be sure, and lo and behold -- 7s!!!!

And even better, there was some sort of sale going on, so they were discounted a further 10%, for a grand total, with tax, of $33.33. And here's what they look like:



Please excuse my ugly feet. I think I took these at the end of the day after being in the OR on my feet all day. Please also ignore how stumpy my legs look; I promise I don't actually have cankles, and I actually really love my legs!









Great shoes, right? Peep toes, d'Orsay heel, and purple! So which ones do I choose? The silver ones will go with my dress really well, the white ones will go with my dress reasonably well, and the purple ones don't go with my dress at all, but would look great in pictures (you know, those shoe shots that are so popular these days). Truthfully, I think I like the silver ones best, but a part of me wants to wear the purple ones just because they're purple (sounds crazy, but it's par for the course for me).

Help!

Bridesmaid dresses, part 3

A year ago, when we got engaged, I was pretty resigned to the fact that I wouldn't have a lot of girly shopping time with my friends or family. I'm in the midwest/south, everyone else is on the east coast, (um, not to mention my parents are living in Brussels now) and we are ALL super busy.

I was going to be super-accommodating about the bridesmaid dresses anyway, but I knew it would also help for me to have that mindset since we couldn't get everyone together for a big bridesmaid dress try-on session. I never even thought twice about it; I just told the girls to find a Mori Lee dress they liked in the color eggplant and to let me know when they had decided.

But then, I came to the east coast for two and a half months. And even then, I didn't really put it all together. But then, in the last week, I've been lucky enough to see all of my bridesmaids but one. SIX of them! And not only was there eating and drinking and chick flicks and general all-around fun, but we got to look at dresses also!

First, I got together for dinner last week with my two friends and bridesmaids from high school in Cranbury, NJ, and we ended up going to a local bridal salon just for fun. They didn't carry Mori Lee, but they carried lots of other designers, and nearly all of them had the color I'm looking for (side note: when I started looking for bridesmaid dresses a year ago, NO ONE had the color I was looking for. I was having a fashion-forward wedding. Now, EVERYONE has the color I'm looking for, and suddenly my choice of eggplant is the trendiest thing out there. Just remember: I chose eggplant before the designers did!). There were also lots of choices for green dresses, in case any of the girls want to wear green. While I was continually saying, "Whatever, I don't care" to my friends' questions (short or long? satin or chiffon? sleeveless or sleeves?), they made some decisions on their own.

So by majority opinion, we think short, tea-length dresses are better than long dresses, in order for everyone to have a similar level of formality.

Yesterday, I got together with my two friends and bridesmaids from college, in the Baltimore suburbs. One of the girls was down for the weekend from Pittsburgh, and it was total serendipity that we were both planning to be in Maryland the same weekend, because the three of us have tried hard to get together before, and we can never find a free weekend in common! My two sisters came up from our house in southern Maryland, and the five of us went to a bridal shop that did carry Mori Lee.

Our experience at the shop near Baltimore was OK, but not great. The salespeople, while nice, weren't very knowledgeable. They told me that certain dresses were available in certain colors, when I knew for a fact that they weren't, based on the catalog I picked up from another shop a few months ago. They had no idea what I was referring to, and seemed flummoxed by the fact that I knew so much, and even had a catalog ("Where did you get that?!?" -- in a confused/amazed, not antagonistic tone). It was disheartening. On top of that, they were the kind of shop that rips the tags out of their dresses, which I think is evil. I actually think it might be illegal, but we found our way around it -- first of all, while they ripped the tags out of the back of the dresses, many of the designers print their names on the straps used to hang the dress on the hanger, so it wasn't too hard to figure out. Plus, of course, just our luck, no pictures allowed.

Anyway, decisions were made by my two college bridesmaids and sisters as well. Yay! I like decisions, especially when they involve people picking out their own clothes!

Here is the dress sister #1 (the older of my two younger sisters) has picked out:

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Bari Jay #756, made of "Bella" chiffon, which comes in the perfect shade of eggplant.


Here is what sister #2 (the younger of my two younger sisters) has picked out:

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After Six #6518, in Nu Georgette with matte satin trim. Both the trim and the dress can come in any color in those lines, which is pretty cool. My sister could get all purple, all green, or purple with another color trim, like cream, ivory, black, or even green to coordinate perfectly! (It will be up to her.) The only problem is that we aren't yet 100% sure whether the color "aubergine" or "bordeaux" is the one we're looking for -- I'll have to go back to a shop with swatches to see.

During the fitting room escapades, both of my college friend bridesmaids expressed concern that the softer fabrics like chiffon wouldn't be as forgiving for our late-twenties mid-sections, and I agree (about myself and my midsection! Not them and theirs!!), so they looked at satin dresses instead and found one they liked:

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After Six #6513, in "Renaissance" satin. The picture shows it in eggplant, but I think it looks different on the computer screen than in real life. This morning I put in an order for a swatch of fabric ($15 for 2 6x6" swatches! The worst part is, I can't believe I actually paid for it...) to see if the color works. Of course, right after I placed the order was when my sister told me about her interest in the aubergine color in the nu georgette line, but I can't bear to place another fabric order. I'm planning to go to the extremely nice bridal shop in Louisville that I keep bothering and see if they will cut me a tiny snippet from their swatch card instead. I think they will. I find it very frustrating that different types of fabric come in different colors, although I understand (sort of) why. I just wish it could be a little easier, to accommodate the accommodating brides like me!

Surprisingly, some of the Mori Lee dresses that looked great on the models looked odd in real life. Actually, that's not very surprising at all, is it? For instance, both of these dresses were strong contenders from the website/catalog collection, but didn't fare so well on our real-life models:

Mori Lee 761

Mori Lee 767

These dresses were essentially the same from the bust down; the only difference was that #761 is strapless and #767 has spaghetti straps. The problem was that at the waist, the pleats were constructed in such a way as to make the skirt bubble up and out from the waist, instead of lying flat and creating a normal A-line skirt. Even on my sister, who has the body of a super model (seriously, I'd submit her for ANTM except she's not quite tall enough), it looked poufy and awkward and gave her an unflattering waistline. Kind of like this, only without being colonial and therefore at least kind of cool:

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They also tried on this Mori Lee dress, which looks absolutely amazing and adorable, but it doesn't come in anywhere near the right colors. Darn.

Mori Lee 768

Later, after we had left, one of my college bridesmaids remembered that she has a dark purple dress already, and wondered if it might be appropriate. She showed it to me last night, and I think it's perfect! We're just going to double-check the shade of purple once I get my swatch, but otherwise, she's good to go. How randomly perfect is that! She said she bought the dress a year or so ago on sale at Macy's. Even better than being able to wear a bridesmaid dress again in the future is being able to wear a dress you already have as a bridesmaid dress.

And as for my high school bridesmaids? Well, at the shop in NJ, they didn't cut the tags out of dresses, allowed us to take pictures, and might have made more of an effort to take down my information and enter me into their system (which I did not want), but were overcome by other walk-ins, so we were left to our own devices -- yay!

First up, seeing how eggplant and green look together:

I was being a horrible photographer that night, and my best friends' faces don't look that great, so I cropped them. It's totally my fault; I take full responsibility.

The purple dress on the left is Alfred Angelo #6904, in grape. The color is gorgeous, but the dress looks a little young for us. The green dress on the right is Jim Hjelm #JH5710T, in moss. Because of my flash, it looks a lot brighter than it does in real life. In real life, it's a gorgeous dark green, and looks pretty much exactly the same as it does here. I think the two colors look fabulous together.


Next up, we have two dresses in the same color, but in different fabrics. On the left, we have what I think is Jim Hjelm #JH5653T, in eggplant chiffon, and on the left we have Bill Levkoff #901 in eggplant satin. Again, I think the dresses look fabulous together, and any difference between the colors in satin and chiffon is barely noticeable. The Bill Levkoff dress is a floor-length one, while the Jim Hjelm is a tea-length, and this was the combo that sparked the decision to not mix lengths, because the girls felt the level of formality between the two was just too different.

Then, we played with different shades of purple:

On the right, the same possibly-Jim Hjelm dress in the "right" color, and on the left, a Jordan dress in plum -- I think it's Jordan #520, although the model is wearing the shoulder a little differently.

I was OK with the color combo at first, especially when you add in the possibility of a green to the mix, but for some reason, by the end of the night, we decided it would be easier to keep the purple color choice standard.

We also played around with different shades of green, but I didn't take any pictures. What we focused on was the Jim Hjelm moss color and the Alfred Angelo clover, which is a lighter green. Here is my ghetto photoshopped (actually, I used Paint.net) montage of my vision:

Clockwise from top left: Bill Levkoff satin eggplant; Jim Hjelm moss chiffon; Jim Hjelm eggplant chiffon; Alfred Angelo clover satin.

I think they all look pretty damn good together!

My high school bridesmaids didn't choose dress styles; we were getting hungry and wanted to go to dinner, so they'll keep looking on their own.

So that leaves one bridesmaid who I did not get to see this week -- my FSIL. She was actually the brains behind the idea of having the girls in two (or now three!) different colors. She was in a wedding today in Maine, and the bridesmaids all wore Jim Hjelm dresses in moss green. Jim Hjelm is actually a pretty pricey label, at least by my standards, so I wouldn't ask my bridesmaids to buy any of those dresses unless they really wanted to. At the same time, though, it would be nice if my FSIL could wear her dress again, since it would fit into our color scheme so well. Plus, she had to sink additional money into the dress to get it altered to fit her ever-expanding (due to pregnancy!) belly, so it seems like a waste to only get to wear it once. Of course, by the time our wedding rolls around, she will be 4 months post-partum, so we'll probably have to get the dress taken in again, but that will be OK. I actually haven't talked to her yet about all of this, but I know she reads this blog, so Paige: What do you want to wear?

This morning I sent an email to all of the girls with a summary of our decisions: tea-length or unformal floor-length gowns, in any of the following designers/colors:
-Mori Lee eggplant
-Jim Hjelm eggplant
-Bill Levkoff European eggplant
-Alfred Angelo grape
-After Six, Renaissance satin, eggplant
-Bari Jay, eggplant
-B2, bordeaux
-Da Vinci, aubergine
-After Six, Nu Georgette, aubergine (probably)
-Jim Hjelm moss
-Alfred Angelo clover
-Mori Lee patina, maybe

As long as no one is the odd person out, I'm happy to mix colors, styles, and fabrics.

Overall, I'm really happy I was able to go shopping with so many of my bridesmaids. They all thought it was productive, which makes me happy, and we're getting ever-closer to a decision! My goal is to order the dresses by Thanksgiving, which will give everyone plenty of time to get alterations if needed. I'm getting really excited about this and I can't wait to see what everyone's final decision is and how they will all look together!

What do you think about our color palette?