Say No to the Dress Shows

I went dress shopping again!  SQUEE!

 

 

You can almost hear the angels singing...

 

For my second dress appointment, I decided I wanted to try on dresses from the Vera Wang White line. I absolutely love the floaty, soft, romantic quality of Vera’s dresses, and I especially like that she has created this line for those of us who don’t want to spend $20k on a dress but still want something interesting and designer looking, and not made entirely of shiny white satin.  So me and MOB went to the dress shop that carries them to check it out. 

 

 

Sigh.  So gorgeous....

 

The Vera Wang White line is beautiful, and I had so much fun trying on these dresses.  The fabric is luxurious, I love the interesting way it drapes and falls, and the dresses are definitely budget-friendly.  At the end of the day I didn’t choose any of them, mostly because the line is quite outdated by now (brides who had their weddings in 2011 have worn these dresses) and I’m still not ready to commit.  Just like you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince, you have to have the same patience when choosing a gown to marry him in!  ;)

 

Here are the two biggest lessons I’ve learned from dress shopping so far.  The first: it’s a mistake to focus too much on gown photos.  Every website that offers tips on dress shopping will place “research dresses and find out what you like before coming to the store” high atop the list.  I understand this, if you have no idea what kind of style you like, the consultant has no idea what to pull off the racks or where to start.  But I have found it is also a bad idea to over-research.  I have spent hours upon glorious hours looking at wedding dresses online, dreaming....admiring....fantasizing....and after heading down to the store excitedly clutching my magazine clippings and ready to see the gowns in real life, I expect to waltz out of the dressing room looking like this:

 

 

 

And sometimes, here’s what I actually look like:

 

 

 

Damnit.

 

So a good trick I learned is to stop poring over the bridal sites where any dress can look gorgeous on any model, and start focusing on real brides.   This is why I love the Maggie Sottero website – she has the dresses on models but on the same page there is a section called “Real Maggie Brides” where you can click on pictures of real brides actually wearing the dress on their wedding day and see what it looks like on.  It can definitely change your perspective on a dress, good or bad!

Model bride vs real brides:

 

 

Looks different on everybody!

 

 

The second is, it’s a mistake to wait for the “Say Yes to the Dress” moment.  I have probably tried on about 20 dresses so far, and have not so much felt a spark of electricity in a dress when I have been expecting lightning bolts.  There are some that I have liked, even loved, and some that I have downright hated, but I’ve never put a dress on and squealed with delight while crying a river of tears like some brides do on that show.  Maybe it’s because I’m overly analytical or maybe it truly is because I haven’t put on the right gown yet, but I think it’s important to enjoy bridal reality shows for what they are and be a bit more realistic when shopping for your own dress.  I’m sure when the right one comes along I’ll know, but I know not to reject a dress just because I haven’t cried over it! 

 

This is my dreeeeeeeeeeesssssssss!

 

I am very excited for the Wonderful Wedding Show coming up in January to try on some more dresses. But I’ll probably schedule another appointment before the end of the year...it’s too much fun!  :)  The dress shopping saga continues...

 

Happy Wedding Wednesday!!!

 

~M

Bling it on.

I have been teasing for a couple weeks about shoes, and I finally get to post about them today!  I consider myself a lover of shoes.  A connoisseur, if you will.  A shoe buff.  An aficionado!  An enthusiast!

 

Fine....I’m an addict.

 

 And while I am excited about all the different aspects of my bridal “look” for the big day and have been extensively researching everything – dress, veil, hair, makeup, jewellery, purse, garter....nothing gets my heart racing faster than bridal shoe shopping.  Woo!

 

I have known for a long time what my dream wedding shoes are.  There are simply no other pair.  May I present to you the Christian Louboutin Daffodile Strass:

 

 

 

And God said, “Let there be Louboutins.”  And it was so.  And God saw that it was good.

 

 

The price tag on those beauties?  Only $6,395. 

 

So.  Not surprisingly, I will not be purchasing the Daffodile Strass for my wedding.  I may be a shoe addict, but I’m not insane.  Especially since I know that I would probably be able to wear those shoes for about an hour tops – I am lucky enough to own two other pairs of Louboutins, and they are bar none the most uncomfortable shoes I have ever worn.  Since I’m going to be on my feet all day, and dancing to the sweet sounds of Lionel Richie late into the night with my new husband (who is away right now on a work trip and I miss him a lot...love you Eric!!!!) I need a combination of fabulous and practical.  Well, slightly more practical.  You won’t see flats or kitten heels on this girl.

 

 

 

Unless you're Beyonce. Then you wear them once to a Knicks game and throw them out.

 

 

So I picked up the pieces of my broken heart and started thinking about what else I might want to wear.  Then while cruising the internet, I came across a growing phenomenon called “strassing”.  Apparently many brides, not unlike myself, drool for the exquisite Daffodile Strass but cannot afford the exorbitant price tag, unless willing to serve Ramen noodles for the dinner entree.  So brides have taken it upon themselves to crystallize their wedding shoes themselves for a fraction of the cost.  And it’s actually even better, because then they are fully customizable.  Any shoe, in any color!

 

 

 

GENIUS. 

 

 

This of course opened up a multitude of new issues.  What shoes will I strass?  What color will the crystals be?  Where will I get them?  How many crystals do I need?  And probably most importantly, how long is it going to take me to individually hand glue rhinestones one at a time to a size 9 pair of pumps?  And when I’m done, are they even going to look good or will it look like a Grade 5 art class assignment?

 

I am too risk averse to put all my eggs in one basket and just do this for my wedding day without a solid plan.  I am an accountant, after all.  And while I have acquired my magical DIY talents after getting engaged, this seemed like a big project to take on with no backup plan.  I wanted to try this out before committing to it, and practice makes perfect, right?  As it just so happens, I am doing a “Wizard of Oz” themed routine with my Junior Tap Performance Team at the dance studio.  And my little Dorothy needs a pair of ruby slippers!

 

 

Haha!

 

 

So I researched and researched and researched...this was the boring part...and figured out how many crystals to get (about 7,500) and what sizes I need (ss7 to ss20) and where to get them from (Hong Kong) and what kind of adhesive to use (E6000) and what tools to use (rhinestone wax pickup tool), etc.  I got my crystals about two weeks after ordering them, and I honestly puked a little in my mouth when they arrived.  The smallest size crystal I got was ss7 (when most of the strassing sites said to start at ss5 which is even smaller) and they looked miniscule compared to the shoe’s surface area.  Suddenly this project was feeling overwhelming...

 

 

It would probably take about 35 ss7 stones to cover the surface area of a dime...

 

But I am nothing if not determined, and once I sat down and starting working on the shoes, I loved it!  I find strassing incredibly relaxing.  I have a pretty busy life, and it feels great to sit down, put some music on, pour a glass of wine, and just slow down and concentrate on one thing.  Plus, I am learning a lot as I go and perfecting my technique.  It does take a VERY long time.  Doing just the heel on one tap shoe took me about an hour.  I am about five hours into the project and only have the heel and one side of one shoe done.  Thankfully I have lots of time until Dorothy drops her house on the Wicked Witch of the East.  :)

 

 

 

Gettin’ my strass on...

 

 

I am happy to report that these shoes look more gorgeous than I ever would have hoped.  The Swarovski crystals look amazing, they are so sparkly and these photos don’t even do them justice.  So I will definitely be strassing my wedding shoes as well as a pair of ballerina flats for Aislin to match!  SO EXCITED!

 

 

 

Progress!

 

 

Stay tuned for more updates on both the ruby slippers and my fabulous wedding shoes!  I still have to decide the style of shoe (pump, slingback, open toe, closed toe, crescent toe, heel height, heel curvature, etc.) and what color they will be...OMG my heart is racing again... :)

 

Happy Wedding Wednesday!!!

 

~M

They Said Yes!

If you were to ask the people closest to me what kind of bride they think I am, you would probably get similar responses across the board – Princess Bride, Glamorous Bride, Over The Top Bride, Bridezilla....kidding!  But “DIY Bride”?  Never.

 

So you may be surprised to learn that upon my betrothal, my DIY switch flipped and suddenly I am all crafty and hands-on.  So when it came to “proposing” to my first two bridesmaids, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.  Bridesmaid boxes!

 

Tara and Melissa were basically shoo-in’s for the "lucky" (snort) job of bridesmaid as they are my closest girlfriends that I love to death!  We have a grand tradition called the “Margarita Sweatpants Party” in which we get together once a month or so, take off all our makeup, pile our hair in messy ponytails, put on our comfiest sweats, and drink copious amounts of margaritas (or other delicious cocktails) while eating really fattening food and listening to 90’s boy band music.  Our personal version of heaven.  So we had one scheduled for last Friday, and I knew it was the perfect time to lock down these two girls as my go-to peeps for the big day.

 

To start, I headed down to Dollarama (my love for that store could be its own blog post) and picked up a plain wooden photo box and a bunch of other supplies – stain, paintbrushes, ribbon, bling, etc. 

 

 

Easy enough.

 

 

Then I stained the boxes, added a little bling, and put my message in the top of the box in place of a regular photo.

 

It says: “I can’t say ‘I do’ without you...”

 

 

Next was the fun part.  I went through all my old photo albums in the back of my closet, and pulled out a bunch of pictures of me and Tara and me and Melissa from back in the day.  It was such a riot going through these pictures and even more fun laughing about them at the sweatpants party.  Two things we learned:  1) we went to the bar a LOT.  And 2) we thought we were pretty hot when really we actually looked ridiculous.

 

 

“Here’s us at the bar...here’s us at the bar again...”

 

 

I found some cute stickers about friendship so I stuck them all over the box, and added booze, which is one of the foundations of our friendship (ha!) and my ring pop to propose with.

 

 

 

Candy and booze - the perfect bridesmaid proposal.

 

 

Next step, the actual asking.  I decided to write each of the girls a card letting them know what their friendship means to me and officially asking them to stand up for me.  I am not normally the “mushy” type as everyone knows, but these girls mean the world to me so I wanted to make sure that I took the time to tell them that, and how important it was for me to have them standing beside me on my big day.  I also bought each of them a gift (Melissa a gift card to MAC and Tara a gift card to Studio Calico) as a small token of appreciation – come on, we all know it.  Being a bridesmaid isn’t a super fun job all the time.  So it was kind of my way of saying, “Sorry sucker!  But go buy yourself something nice!”  HAHAHA!

 

 

If you look really hard in the background, you'll also notice I have a huge glass of wine going.  A staple for any DIY project.

 

 

Then to finish it all off, I put everything into the box, added a bit more bling and tied it up with a shiny ribbon!

 

 

Ta-da!

 

 

I am very happy to report the girls loved the boxes and both happily agreed to be my bridesmaids.  Watch for future blog posts on my MOH Tara and Bridesmaid Melissa! 

 

 

They said yes!  (And let me break the cardinal rule of NO photography at the Margarita Sweatpants Party...)

 

 

As for my other two bridesmaids to round out my party of 4, I have something else special planned for those two, so stay tuned.  ;)

 

Happy Wedding Wednesday!!!

 

~M