I found the type of veil I want, it's the type from a Walk to Remember, with the lace on the edges. Turns out, it's called a Mantilla veil. A little awkward though, because traditionally, Mantilla veils are worn to Catholic weddings. I can still wear it though right? In the name of fashion?

Something like this, only elbow length and a bit more chic:

(item found at: http://www.headcoverings-by-devorah.com/headcoverings_bridal_veils.htm)

Now. Another idea is this adorable headband piece from Forever 21. At $4.80 it's definitely a bargain! I could even make it with a few items from the dollar store if I want it in white (which I might, because my hair is so dark). At any rate, I love the idea for the reception, perhaps. I think I'd like a traditional veil for the ceremony though. Thoughts?

Reflections on a dress

When Fiance and I were first talking about getting married, my wedding visions were pretty simple. Barbecue in the back yard, $200 cotton dress from J Crew or something (though they do have darling flower girl dresses. more on that later). The wedding day didn't matter so much as the marriage. Then I got engaged. And things changed. 6 months ago, spending $1250 on a dress would have been completely out of the question...

But you know what? I've spent most of my life buying clothes just because they fit or just because "it'll do." I don't feel beautiful from day to day once I get dressed. Sure when I do my hair and makeup, I look great, but my clothes are always woefully lacking and I've never felt I was thin enough to pull off the things I really think are cute. It's not easy being just heavy enough to buy clothing specifically and only as a cover-up for cellulite and fat, but not heavy enough to where it doesn't matter what I wear, if that makes sense without being insulting. So for one day, ONE DAY, I want to wear something I feel and look beautiful in. Not just cute, not just adorable, not just good. I want to be stunning, not just for the guests and Fiance, but for myself. I owe it to myself to know that I am beautiful. For the rest of the wedding I'm skimping and making things myself to save money and I'm happy to do it. But I'm not shortchanging myself on my dress.

Today, I contacted the owner of Bellina Bridal regarding the Sophie dress on her Etsy site. We began to email back and forth when I mentioned I was debating between the Sophie and Maggie Sottero's Rasharna dress. The Rasharna is my first love. It just makes my heart melt to see it. But the retail price is something like $1250, and while I would spend that money in a heartbeat for it if I had it, darling Karen of Bellina Bridal is going to get back to me with a quote to do a similar but custom-made dress, just for me! She said she should probably be able to do it for under $1000, and since it will be custom to my measurements, I won't have to spend an additional $200 in alterations, so really folks, I'm potentially saving upwards of $450. Lol, see what I did there? Haha.

etsy continued

Another etsy vendor: Cardinal Ink. They make invitations for a very reasonable price, only about $54 per 25 invites with envelope included, plus a 10% discount for orders over 50 invites. I could actually order all the invitations we need for around $300. That's about the threshold where I'd consider it worth the cost to just buy them instead of hand-make them. These are my two favorites:

Another Etsy vendor, Whimsical Prints, has these really cute cherry blossom ones that would be $2 a set including response cards, a major bonus. The only type of invitation the fiance seems to like so far is anything with a cherry blossom. It's like, his symbol or something. But since I'm controlling the rest of the reception, I wouldn't mind doing something with cherry blossoms on it for the invitation. I'm actually really considering this one, since it's $1.20 per invitation + envelope and $.80 for the response card + envelope. That's a serious bargain.

Falling...

I love Etsy.com. It's an awesome, overgrown site filled with tons of talented people. There's something for everyone and I love supporting individuals and small business instead of corporations.

I found several promising vendors on Etsy; Bellina Bridal of Italy (!!) makes beautiful bridal gowns at very reasonable prices. They don't even have a retail site outside of Etsy, as they are a custom-gown maker. Dresses are custom made for you and you can choose any color or tweaking on styles, etc. Very tempting!

This is the Sophie dress and I'm possibly falling in love with it. Even the fiance said whoa...that's cool.

This is the Jana dress and I LOVE the handkerchief/tiered skirt. I'm all about texture.

The Heather dress. The front is pretty standard, but I love the back of it, I think it's just gorgeous.

The more I'm going through this etsy shop and discovering these dresses, the more I'm seriously wondering if I should go this route. They are customized to my measurements so I don't have to worry about alterations or endless days of trying on a million dresses. Plus, it's a shop in ITALY. So when people ask, I can just casually say, oh it was made for me at a shop in Italy. Haha.

The long fall...

Welcome to Two Birds Bridesmaid. (small rant: if a website requires a loading page just to load all of the content, THERE'S TOO MUCH CONTENT! I don't need a Cinderella bird to lovingly drape each sentence onto the page over a period of 5 minutes! Anyway.) Turns out, this company makes a single dress style (your choice of colors and short or long length) that's basically a skirt with two really long straps attached that you twist and wrap in various ways. The premise is that your bridesmaids can have the same dress and color, but just a different design. AND, they can really really wear it afterward!

Those 4 seemingly different dresses are actually the same exact one, just wrapped differently.

I liked the idea a lot. Ordering dresses would be a snap too since they come in two sizes: size A, which fits sizes 0-14 and Size B, which fits sizes 16-24. But then I saw the price ($270 per dress) and started running. I still like the concept though, so I somehow found the blog of someone who had created her own similar dresses for her bridesmaids. Apparently this type of dress is called an Infinity dress (could I BE anymore behind on the trends?) and is quite simple to make. The site I found is: Our Wedding: The DIY, ultra-versatile bridesmaids dresses!

See?

She handmade those dresses! Apparently they were less than $60 a dress to make. It's something that could be an option...maybe? It's really up to my bridesmaids, but there are many ways, if you make the straps wide enough, to make them into modest dresses, which several of my bridesmaids requested. So hmm.

Here's the link to instructions on making one:

http://rowena.typepad.com/rostitchery/infinity-dress.html

Butter by Nadia also makes convertible dresses, but they're still in the same price range ($246). Still, it might be a cool and cheap idea to keep in mind.

I fell and I can't get up

I got sucked into online wedding research. Let me explain. I saw an article on SeattleTimes.com (yes, I know I don't live in Seattle anymore) announcing a new store opening: Bella Bridesmaids. I was intrigued because it was a store not for brides, but bridesmaids. So I clicked through to the BellaBridesmaids.com site, read up a bit on it, and clicked on one of the company websites of dresses they sell. More on that in the next post. Anyway I was intrigued and clicked around to see similar dresses, winding up on someone's wedding photography blog, which of course required that I look through a few peoples' weddings. Then I fell into a few wedding planner blogs with tons of awesome ideas on the little things for a wedding (chair covers, sparklers vs bubbles, etc). I also landed somehow in Etsy, searching for one thing from a blog, but ending up browsing the whole site for more wedding things. Thus, I now have 12 tabs open on my Google Chrome browser. I love the Internet! Anyway, the next few posts will discuss these various things I found! Yay!

Our Wedding: The DIY, ultra-versatile bridesmaids dresses!

Our Wedding: The DIY, ultra-versatile bridesmaids dresses!