dress fitted, mind changed, f bombs dropped

This post is FULL of profanity. I apologize.

I know I've been absent. Ironically enough, if you are actually doing wedding stuff, or your wedding is rapidly approaching (fifty seven days....shit) then you don't have time to blog about your wedding, what you've been planning, or how it's rapidly approaching.


But you all keep me accountable so...let's blog this thing.


First of all, I had a second Hastings super wedding weekend. This weekend was significantly less fun than the last weekend, mostly because people either reminded me at how far behind I am at this wedding thing (thanks) or made the wedding planning harder in various ways (again, appreciated) but I'm not going to let this get me down. I am a wedding planning machine, motherfuckers. You do not want to mess with this engaged lady. I have shit I need to do.
That is another reason why it took me so long to post.
But I digress. Obvs.

I had a dress fitting. Yay! I can't post pictures on here because I want to keep that at least SLIGHTLY under wraps, at least from Greg, but I can show you my face when I first put my dress on:
That is a look of joy and a deep love for pretty things that now belong to me.

Once I got over the initial giddiness of being in my Wedding Dress, I saw myself in the big mirror and it was...interesting. I love my dress, still. I just had one of those little diva moments when I looked at myself in a dress that was actually mine and freaked out a little when it didn't look like the dress I had tried on before...probably because this one was probably three sizes bigger. I needed a bigger dress because I am a big girl on top (not just big busted, but big waisted and big ribbed) but I'm pretty small in the hip area, so what had previously looked like a modified mermaid now looked like a big off-white tube and I was. Not. Happy. However once they got me all pinned up I was happily back into mermaid territory and that crisis was averted.

That crisis. Then we go to my hair piece. Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.
See those under eye circles? Those weren't there before they put that thing on my head. But it is very pretty, I will give you that.

So let's just break it down for a moment: I am with the design camp that is currently very popular that loves little birds and branches and leaves and deer and etc etc etc. So when we first went to the shop, in May, and I saw a pretty little headband that looked like the branch of a very sparkly tree that wrapped around the head, I thought "ooooooh pretty."
My sister also thought "ooooooh pretty" and I tried it on. We decided to order it as well when we ordered my dress. And then we drove away.
And the moment we drove away from the store I thought...do I want that headband, really?
And then I fretted over the damn thing for like four months.
First of all, they didn't let me take a picture of it, or give me the item number, so I was going strictly from memory about how the thing actually looked, which made trying to find co-ordinating jewelry a bitch. It was also gold, which made silver jewelry pretty much a no go. And it's very sparkly, which could lead to overkill of bling. It also eliminated the addition of feathers to my hair for the reception, which I had been toying around with and had really liked the idea. Also I worried about my hair, and how it would affect that.
'So I will say I was a little apprehensive. I thought that once I saw it and could try it on again things would get better. They didn't.
Look how happy I am. Oh no wait...this is my "flipping out on the inside" face. There were some issues with the headband.

First of all they didn't order me a head piece, they pulled it off the shelf. I am fine with sample items, but this one had been a-bused and was showing the wear and tear, and they had charged us full price. Some of the leaves and sparklies were hanging on by strings of hot glue. So that made me less than happy. Secondly, whenever it touched my hair it became instantly tangled, which would make it impossible to adjust any part of my hair style on the wedding day.

Finally I just didn't like the way it made me look. I couldn't make myself like it.

But I didn't let on that it wasn't working, because that's just not my style. I didn't want to disappoint my mom and sister, who had helped me pick it out. I didn't want the very nice ladies at the Bridal Isle to think I was being a diva bitch. I didn't want to put anyone out. Usually at this point I swallow my misgivings and just take one for the team.

Then I looked at myself in the mirror and thought "But it's MY WEDDING."

And that kicked it. I took the headband off. I found myself a big pair of earrings and I put them on and I said, this is what looks good on me. Big ass earrings. And everyone agreed. Even the lady who was supposed to sell me the hundred dollar headband.

But of course I'm still a pussy, so I was going to take the headband anyway, but my AMAZING SISTER earned her Mrs OH status in about five minutes by forcing me to speak up and getting them to give us a refund. I love that bitch sometimes.

So I guess the moral of this story is, in a world where the word "bridezilla" is thrown around a lot, sometimes you have to say "It's my special day, motherfucker! And I'm gonna do what I want!" As long as you say that part quietly to yourself. Outloud you say, "Excuse me? I don't think this is going to work out" and just say "motherfucker" with your eyes. It'll get you far, and it'll save you a hundred bucks.


SOooooo, any suggestions for huge ass earrings? My ears are now available.

Bridesmaid Dresses

or, alternately:
SHIT.
or, third title option:
Bride Lesson: Stop Assuming Things Will Make Sense
and last but not least:
Please Help Me.

Let's go back that beautiful moment in Loomis when I realized that I was actually wearing the dress in which I would be married. It was a lovely moment. Things were in place. We decided while we were there that we should maybe look into bridesmaid dresses and have my sister (the Mrs-0-H) try on a few of the styles and colors I had been considering so we could see those colors next to my dress because, you know, it all goes around the dress.
Getting married is a very selfish endeavor.
Well it turns out I was once again wrong about what I wanted for this wedding. Or I suppose "Ignorant to the Beautiful Possibilities" is a nicer way to say it. I said I wanted a short, simple dress, and I end up with a long, elegant, pleated to within an inch of its life confection of dress perfectitude. I also thought I wanted plain brown dresses for the bridesmaids, possibly bought from an online source like jcrew, overstock.com, or even Target. I figured brown was a nice neutral safe ground and would maximize re-wearability.
But then I realized, when I actually had Jessie trying on dresses next to my dress, that I had forgotten that I have really beautiful bridesmaids with lots of personality, and that neither of those things were being represented by "brown." So I decided to shake things up a bit and go back to a color scheme that I had briefly considered: purple and orange. Or, as we later discovered, "Grape" and "Sienna." These colors are really gorgeous together, are Halloween and Fall themed without making one gag, and lucky for me, I have two bridesmaids that will look brilliant in burnt orange and three that will glow in dark purple. Once we got down to the swatches, clearly the perfect colors were made by Alexia designs. They didn't have any dresses that really thrilled me in the store, but they gave me a website address where I could view all their styles. I went, I looked, and I was unimpressed...until I chanced a click on their separates collection, where I found this:


I really love this dress. The pleating on the top hollas back to my dress while also offering a little tummy camouflage (I figure if my dress lets me stick it out all the way, why not theirs?) I also loved the idea of separates because my maids are all different sizes and I didn't want them to spend an arm, a leg, and a sleepless night over alterations. It seemed perfect!
Until I emailed for a quote and it turns out they don't make tea-length skirts for their separates.
THIS MAKES NO SENSE TO ME WHATSOEVER, especially since most of their bridesmaid dress styles are available in tea-length and it's like the most popular style at the moment.
So I had to look somewhere else, where the colors are not "Grape" and "Sienna." (which, not to have a total bride moment, but other colors of burnt orange and dark purple are not the same. Boo hoo hoo. Poor me.)

I remembered Jessie trying on an Alfred Angelo at the store. I liked their purple color better, but the orange was just a little more orangey than I liked. But I would rather have "slightly orangey" than no orange at all, and I found out he has a separate line WITH TEA-LENGTH SKIRTS. As one OUGHT TO HAVE. Suck it, Alexia.Their separate line has several super cute options that add pleats and visual interest:





The only problem I have with their line is that in the virtual simulator the skirt seems to be a slightly lighter color than the tops. I'm not sure if this actually bothers me or not. Probably not. There's also a dress or two, although I'm not entirely willing to give up on the separates:
So I thought, let's go with Alfred Angelo then. These are pretty cute!


But then I was reminded today by one of my fabulous fellow costumer friends that if I really liked the Alexia ones, the skirts could probably just be chopped off by a skilled seamstress and it wouldn't look to funky. So now I'm totally torn.

Alexia pros: The orange is a prettier, more sophisticated color, and I think Alexia is slightly cheaper than Alfred Angelo. It also has the most structured pleating, and the skirt seems to match colors almost perfectly. And, here's a big one, Alexia is carried by net bride, so girls who couldn't find a salon or wanted a discount could order online through them.

Alfred Angelo pros: We wouldn't have to worry about someone butchering the bottom skirt because it would be the proper length. Alfred Angelo is also a lot easier to find in salon if not on net bride. Also I think the pleats on the first top pictured above look the most like the ones on my dress.

Please give input, ESPECIALLY if you're one of the bridesmaids in question...this has to be decided SOON!

But just so you can see I'm not crazy, check out how pretty the colors will look together:

THE DRESS, Part 1: The Dresses That Weren't

Note: I acknowledge that some people do not give half a damn about the experience of buying the dress and they just want to see PICTURES of the damn thing. So I'm going to post the whole story in a post or two and pictures above and you can look at one, both, or neither, depending on you cynicism and hatred of love and all things pretty. And how much I may have already told you to your face.

Okay, so the overly long story:

I realize that I never actually mentioned how our first wedding weekend went, all the way back in January, when my mom and sister came up and we went to a bunch of dress shops and a bridal fair.
I won't waste your time with the bridal fair...I wish I hadn't wasted my time with the fair either. All I got out of it were some tuxedo possibilities, the consideration of chair covers, and a bunch of unnecessary emails to my wedding email address.
But we did do dress shopping. Ohhh, did we do dress shopping.
I had gone shopping before, very early in the wedding process, but that experience had sucked, frankly, do to poor customer service/lack of my own enthusiasm. This time would be different, I decided, because we would really TRY to find something. And I thought we WOULD find something.
That weekend.
I was sure of it.
This was January, I'd like to point out. Four months ago.
Ashley (the Miss-0-H) was going to come but then she had to work, so just the Jackson girls (the Ma-o-B and the Mrs-o-H) set off on the magical fairy princess dress adventure. First, we went to Bridal Traditions on Pacific St. It took us a while to find it because it was in a strip mall, and we drove by it a couple of times until my mom finally noticed that it said "tuxedo rentals" on the side. The ladies at Bridal Traditions were very, very nice. My only beef would maybe be that they don't make appointments, so I think I waited half an hour for a fitting room. But that just gave us more time to sort through dresses.
Most of the dresses I tried on at Bridal Traditions were posted here, with the intention that I would talk about them later...which I am. It's just been months and months and nobody cares anymore.



The first dress we tried on was supposed to be a joke dress. We'd pulled it off one of the dummies because my sister said it'd be neat to see me in a mermaid dress. According to my body type, most bridal magazines and websites said I should be in a mermaid dress, but I'm not a wee person and I can be pretty self conscious. But I thought it'd be fun to see. We weren't going to actually consider it because it was over three times what I wanted to spend.
Here's a tip...don't try on really expensive dresses because they tend to be really, really pretty. Turns out those bridal magazines know their shit. I do look really good in mermaids.




Although that dress (which my family thereafter referred to as The Expensive Dress) looked REALLY good, I didn't get any strong feelings off of it other than "PRETTY" and "SOFT" and "THIS LACE MUST COST A FORTUNE PER YARD." I didn't think "MINE." And that's the feeling I wanted off my dress. Especially if it will cost me the down payment of a new car.

(However, as the months passed and I realized that I had to order a dress pretty much right away, I started reconsidering a lot of things, like the fact that maybe that feeling doesn't exist, or maybe it just doesn't exist for me. So I reconsidered at this dress, also from Bridal Traditions, which wasn't a big contender when I tried it on, but made me look really pretty in pictures. And I'm super vain like that.)


I would like to say that, except for the wait, the whole Bridal Traditions experience was VERY positive. They learned my name, they seemed to give honest advice about the dresses. Their dressing rooms were enormous and they let my mom and sister in to help me (and then my family could deal with the Worst Strapless Bra Ever). It really was a beautiful experience. I really appreciated that that was the first place I went dress shopping with my mom and sister, because it was very classy, comfortable, and nice. It made me feel a lot like a bride.

AND THEN WE WENT TO DAVID'S BRIDAL.

My mother HATED David's Bridal, and I've got to say, my experience there wasn't super positive. Now, I'm not a snob. I know a lot of beautiful dresses that have come out of David's Bridal, I have seen brides rocking the DB and looking like fairy princesses. It's not about the dresses. It's the experience. Maybe I went on a bad night, but we were given no help finding dresses (luckily I know my own size), the girl who was supposed to be helping me ignored most of my questions and didn't understand basic dress terminology, the lighting was terrible and unflattering and the dressing rooms are smaller than ones I've been in department stores. There was no room for people to come in and help me, luckily I was only trying on shorties and mermaids at this point because if I'd brought in a big poofy dress there would not have been room for me. My mom calls it the Dress Warehouse. I think it still gives her nightmares.

But, I do have to hand it to them, they had a lot of short dresses, which is what I really wanted.Had we not had Wedding Weekend II: Planning Extreme, and I hadn't shopped for other dresses, I probably would've gone with the above dress, without the jacket. It was simple, made me look cute, and if I wanted to wear it with a cardigan (which I so would have) and added an orange petticoat for the reception, it wouldn't have minded. It was easy like a Sunday morning.

Here are some other DB picks...I apologize for the incredibly ugly pictures...we had no digital camera with us at the time, and my scanner is broken, so I'm taking pictures of pictures. Eww. Maybe when all is fixed and done I'll do a big montage board of all the dresses I tried on.Cute, but too "spring." I, however, look really adorable.


Lacey. I like lace. A lot. But I hated their jacket with it and I couldn't figure out what else I would wear with it.

A DB mermaid (this was a favorite of some). I thought it was pretty but not me AT ALL. Also, the fabric was weird and scratchy.

We left DB with the style number of the short dress with ribbon detailing. The price was right, I could see myself wearing it, I knew how to update it to make it more "me." But I hadn't had that feeling, you know? The one everyone tells you about the moment you say you're going dress shopping. "Oh, you'll just put it on and you'll know. You'll have THE feeling." THE feeling for THE dress. They always say THE dress. Like it's a bigger deal than the fiancee, almost.
Well, I still hadn't had THE feeling.

We had only one place left to go that first weekend, The Bridal Gallery. The BG is right by my house and they have a stop light right in front, so I stop in front of it on the way to work pretty much every day and I leer at the pretty dresses in the window. The people at BG are also very nice, and the experience is very good. I know a lot of people who got their dresses there, as well, and they looked phenomenal. Got to say, though, that they have less selection than the other places I went to.
This was our third dress shop, so we kind of knew the routine. We wanted short, if they had it (they didn't), we liked lace, and suddenly, over the course of like, a day, we were obsessed with mermaids.

This mermaid was very similar to the Very Expensive Dress, and was slightly cheaper. My mom said if we went with mermaid, we should go with this one.I don't remember being this enthused about that dress, but I look pretty damn excited, don't I?

This dress was VERY pretty. (and look at the mock-antiqueness of the pictures. That's unintentionally very cool looking) My mom and sister said this dress might be It. I know, the front doesn't look like much, but oh, friends, the back...
I have a hundred pictures of the back of this dress. I love the buttons. I love the lace. Don't love the fact that on this day I forgot the strapless bra and went with a dark green number. It kind of ruins the feeling. But trust me, it was gorgeous.
Again, a very pretty dress that I felt nothing about except "it's pretty." My mom wrote down the numbers of some dresses, in case we wanted to order them later, and wedding weekend ended, not with a bang but with a "Now what?" We were tired, discouraged, I had a nasty case of bead burn (sequins hurt, yo) and we didn't have a dress.
I tried. I had tried on a lot of dresses, all styles and prices, and nothing felt like it was mine. I wondered if I was too practical to have The Feeling for The Dress, and maybe I should just settle on whatever was cheapest, or looked the nicest. Lucky for me, I didn't settle. The Knot kept sending me emails informing me that I should be on my second fitting by now, and I told the knot to eat me. I ordered a dress disaster off ebay, I considered everything I saw in department stores that was under $200 that was white. I developed a white taffeta ulcer. But I waited...or procrastinated...and I found something that was pretty AND cheap, and gave me all those warm fuzzy feelings. Wanna see it?
Well, too bad. I'm gonna go eat lunch. BE PATIENT.

ebay dress: failed

So much to cover, but let's start with something I'm sure you've been wondering about: the ebay dress.
I could've blogged about the dress a long time ago...but it was a big ol' disappointment, and hallowedding is about happy things! Pretty things! And well, on me, that dress is neither.It just had no oomph, you know? I put it on and made that exact face, that "Ehhhhhhhhhh, no" face. (Recreated for your viewing pleasure! Notice the new haircut!) Not super flattering or super comfortable. Also, although I was thrilled to ORDER a vintage dress, I remembered when I put it on that "vintage" usually also means "delicate."
I think if someone wore this dress they would have to be very gentle and careful. On a daily basis I am rarely either of those things. And at my wedding, pssssssh, forget about it. The last thing I want on the most stressful...erm, I mean, wonderful day of my life is for my zipper to split when I'm shaking my money maker to Paradise by the Dashboard Light.
So I've decided when I have a moment to myself I will resell it on ebay or something. The disappointment of this dress--which was exactly what I had pictured my wedding dress looking like, so why didn't it work out? why? whyyyyy?---prompted me to plan WEDDING WEEKEND II: Planning Extreme. Where I found my actual dress that gives me warm fuzzies. Which I will talk about soon, once I find some more pictures. Be patient.