wedding junk PART 2

Ok, I think this one should be all about the outfits. Dresses, dresses, dresses and the easy stuff for the guys.

Wedding Dress
I LOVE my wedding dress. Still do. I want to run to my closet and put it on right now. Actually, while I was engaged, since BC and I were living together, my MOH kept the dress at her house. Periodically I would go over to her house and put it on and bounce around for awhile. Again, LOVE.

My advice on this topic is simple. OPEN MIND. You must keep an open mind when wedding dress shopping. First, do NOT get stressed when the dress you buy is one or two sizes bigger than you normal size. Wedding dress companies are all re-re's and want to make us feel like fatties. So that 6 is a 10 and that 16 is a 20. Seriously, don't stress. Second, don't go in there bound and determined to only buy one style of dress. I went in to dress shopping thinking I wanted a certain kind, but still keeping an open mind. I had my dress narrowed down to #1 a bright white, strapless, beady, a-line dress and #2 a ivory, one shoulder strap with flowers, fitted to the low waist dress with fun rouchey fabric folds. I ended up going with #2. I didn't want to take it off!!! Third, do not expect to cry. I did not cry. Sometimes those bridal shows are stupid and make you feel bad when you don't act the same way. Fourth, DO NOT bring crazy people with you. I brought my mother and my MOH. I only asked for their opinions once I was done stating mine and I finished admiring my gorgeous self in the mirror. Do NOT be a spineless turd when shopping for YOUR wedding dress.

It is wise to consider your body type and skin color. As a pale pal, I did not look too great in the bright white. I looked much better in ivory. Also, having one strap suited me better. I am a little, ahem, blessed up top (no do NOT be jealous, don't even get me started) and I would not have been comfortable hiking up a dress all night. Plus, I wouldn't want the seamstress to take that sucker in so much for it to stay that all my back fat was popping out (even though it kinda was already). GROSS.

Now, I only tried on like 4 dresses. Total. From one store. I found mine in that trip. Less than an hour. And it was on sale! HOWEVER, it may take you much longer. It may take you less. Do not expect to find your dress in the first trip BUT do not count out the possibility that that could happen. Just roll with it. If you are freaking head over heels with dress #2 of your whole shopping experience (like I was) don't put it back because you need time to look. But if you are waffling, keep looking. Just go with your gut.

In contrast, my friend from the most recent wedding bought her dress pretty early. There were multiple times where she told me she was having second thoughts but I think in the end she ended up really loving her dress, and that's what is the most important. These dumb dress shows tell us you have to visit 40 dress shops and try on 700 dresses before you find "the one." Not so. And I think that that idea can really freak people out when they find what they like so early. I had a few of those thoughts myself.

Shoes
People, do NOT wait until 3 weeks before your wedding to get shoes. Look early. Nina's has some great wedding shoes (I got mine from there) and they do good sales from time to time. Plus, I was kinda freaking out as it got closer.

It took me a while because I kept waffling back and forth on whether I wanted to get dyeable shoes to match the bridesmaids dresses. Good grief, dyeable shoes are so freaking hard to find!!! Payless is actually a viable option is you are looking for something a little cheaper, with not such high heels, or want to dye them. I was thinking about Payless for a while, but you have to have their company dye them you can't just buy undyed shoes from their store. LAME.

I ended up finding amazing shoes from Nina (shown in pictures two posts ago). In ivory. 4 inch heels. Awesome. My friend bought dyeable shoes from Payless. She got some with lower heels, maybe 2 inches? I don't really know what happened, and maybe I looked at them wrong, but I think she was wearing white shoes with an ivory dress. I was, and still am, very concerned.

Jewelry/Accessories
My dress had one strap, so clearly I didn't really need anything around my neck. There were flowers on the strap, so I did NOT want to overwhelm it. There were some iridescent/Swarovski crystal things down in the flowers, so I chose some small dangly earrings to match. No bracelet, nothing else. Just earrings and my ring.

Now, my friend gave us pearl necklaces to wear for her wedding. Which worked for us because there were no beads or anything on our dresses. Conversely, her dress had some decorations on it. I guess in the vein of wanting to match us, she wore a pearl necklace. I'm not sure I personally would have done that, just because the beading on her dress was so pretty, and I don't think there were any pearls on it. But, to each his own.

Ultimately, don't be overly concerned about accessorizing your wedding dress. This is the one day where, I personally feel, simplicity is beauty. If you need that one signature piece because your dress is plain, fine, but if you pick out a heavily beaded dress, beads all over your veil, and then beads all up on your face and neck? Its going to look ug, promise. Your face should shine in the pictures, not the reflection from all your jewelry.

Also, I allowed my bridesmaids to wear whatever jewelry they had, as long as it was pearls. I felt like this gave them the ability to be a little unique in their choices, and still stand out a bit because they were all dressed the same. I also allowed them to wear their hair however they wanted because I wasn't going to make them spend money on a hairdresser. See? I was an easy-peasy bride :) By doing this, my bridesmaids ended up looking so great!! Some wore heirloom pearls, some had basic cheap-o strands. Some wore their hair down, some had it up, and one with really short hair had a peacock feather headband! I loved it!!

Bridesmaid dresses
The talk about the bridesmaid dresses leads me here. As previously mentioned on my lil blog, I found dresses on Target.com for my girls. They were AWESOME and only $40!!! Yes, $40. Yes, I am the best bride ever. They were simple A-line dresses, in navy, high quality fabric (according to my seamstress), and even had little bra-strap holders under the shoulder-straps! Yay for no stupid strapless bras!! The dresses come from Target with navy sashes, which I thought looked stupid, and since my colors were navy, apple green, and ivory, I decided to have sashes made. Now, because this was my idea, I didn't make the girls pay for the sashes, which because of the effort and time involved, ended up probably costing us about $20 a piece. Again, good bride here. All of the bridesmaids wore ivory sashes, my junior bridesmaid had an apple green sash, and the flowergirl had an ivory dress on with a navy sash (left over from the other sashes). And can I just say the flowergirl's mom found her dress on ebay for $30!!!! Yes, ebay, $30. She asked me if that was ok, and I said heck yeah girl! Get that thing! All in all the girls looked AMAZING. Oh yeah, and I told them to wear whatever silver-ish shoes they had. With the blue dresses and the ivory and green bouquets....I was SO happy with how everything turned out.

Now, this is going to be my harshest contrast. And what I say in the following paragraph is simply based on outfit etiquette, from what I've seen, heard, and read. So....as a bridesmaid in my friend's wedding, we wore long red dresses. I believe that was chosen based on the time of year, but from what I can understand from etiquette boards and other information, its more about the time of day, not necessarily the time of year. Evening weddings and more formal occasions call for floor-length gowns. Also, we had red rose bouquets with red ribbon. Before I go any further, this is not my taste. I felt like everything blended. This could have been exactly what she wanted, I don't know. I was reading a wedding etiquette board the other day that talked about matching flowers and dresses. The wedding professionals that had been doing their jobs for 30+ years recommended diversifying. That you want the flowers to accent the dresses. But, I guess if I'm going to sit here and say "do what you want," I can't start putting rules and laws on things. What a conundrum I have written myself into here. With her wedding, for example, with her colors being black, white, and red, I would have tried to work in white roses, or perhaps black dresses with the red and white, or even white roses with black ribbon? There are tons of possibilities.

Also, please PLEASE keep in mind the abilities of your bridesmaids. I you know off the bat you are going to want a certain look (you found J. Crew dresses you've been wanting forever, you know you are going to want couture floor-length gowns), you should disclose that to your friends. Some people are just not going to be in the right sort of financial situation to oblige your needs. Honestly, my friend's wedding made my budget pretty tight. The dress, after alterations, ran close to $250. If I would have known the price of the dress, or at least the basic idea, early on, I would have been able to better budget for it in the upcoming months.

Guy stuff
Now, a lot of people don't spend much time thinking about the guy stuff. But this topic is very important.  In our wedding, I wanted tuxes that looked like suits. Mostly because I think tuxes look like crap most of the time. I hate the shiny reflector material on the sides. We worked closely with our local tuxedo rental place, and they were able to find us some tuxedos that looked like suits. I also haggled them to death, trying to get a lower price for the ring bearer's suit. I mean, hello that suit is half the size of a regular suit and you are going to make him pay $120 to rent it too? No. Not acceptable. Plus, for some reason they gave us a tiny discount on the other suits too. Now, my dad and BC's dad also wore the same suits. Everyone matched. The minister also wore a black suit. It was very uniform, and looked very put together. I was really happy with the outcome. I was also very careful to pick out IVORY shirts for the guys since my dress was ivory. Everyone except BC had a navy tie, and BC's tie was ivory. It looked AWESOME.

Again, another contrast with my friend's wedding. First, her husband wore tails. I have to stop here and say....no. Sorry. Mostly because his groomsmen were not in tails and their wedding was not formal. The one thing that every etiquette thing I have read says in unison is regarding tuxedos and tails. Now some comments say that tuxedos should be used for only evening wedding as well and suit-type tuxedos should be used for every other time of the day, but that seems to be more out the window these days. Sometimes tuxedo stores just don't have any variety. We really lucked out in that department. Now, I was the first bridesmaid to walk out at my friends wedding. When I walked down the aisle, honestly I was surprised, because I had no idea, based on everything she had told me, that he alone would be in tails. I suppose it was done to set him apart, but there are other ways to do that. Beyond that, little things I noticed (and probably only because I had just planned a wedding) stuck out to me, like the facts the guys all had white shirts and her dress was ivory. It looks so uniform if you can keep it all one color. And I guess that seems super nit-picky, but when you have white right next to ivory, it really stands out.

Additionally, her husband is in the military, as were most of his groomsmen. I was surprised they didn't wear their dress uniforms, as this would not only look extremely classy, but would be free! That's definitely something to think about if you are marrying a military guy.

Finally, I have to do a quick talk about the dads and the ministers. My friend's father, her husband's father, and both ministers all wore different color/types of suits. Personally, I thought it looked a tad disjointed. Of course, again, it could have been a way for each person to stand out and wear what they are comfortable in, but, speaking from my own lil experience, it looks so incredible when each guy is uniform, even if they are just wearing a plain black suit with a muted tie.


This is very long. It is also all right. I am speaking from experience, albeit my own, but I'm saying things that at least one person will think (even if I'm that one person). In situations like this, it is important sometimes to get a little validation on what you are thinking. If you don't have a coordinator under the age of 80, ask a fashionable friend. Outfitting your wedding party is VERY important. Don't be left in the dust.

my opinion about everything you need to know about weddings PART 1

People, this is going to be very important information. I have been married for 2 months and two days. I have been to about 5 weddings in my whole life and I consider myself a pro. So listen up.

A friend of mine got married today. I was in the wedding. I will compare and contrast and offer helpful tips.

This is part 1. I will be discussing photographers and flowers.

With BC and I, the MOST IMPORTANT THING we have to offer advice-wise, is to figure out EXACTLY what you want, and what you refuse to compromise on. Ultimately at the end of the day, this is YOUR wedding and you want to look back on it with fond memories. Want a specific kind of flower--GET IT. Want a certain photographer--GET THEM. Want a certain color dress--FIND IT. Don't compromise.

We searched out certain people because we wanted to work with quality people. HIGH quality people. The kind you don't have to check up on and worry if they have a clue about what they are doing. We spent the majority of our money (probably a little over half) on the photographer and the flowers. People were surprised that food didn't take up a large amount, but I will get to that later.

Photographer:
There are two AMAZING photographers in my hometown. I wanted one of those two soooo bad. UNTIL I found out that both of them start off at pretty much the entire amount of our budget. (Which, I will share was $10K.) We decided, you know what? We will look around until we find someone equally talented for less price. And we did. We found a photographer in a nearby county who did not charge for travelling. It worked out perfectly. You never know until you meet the person, and after we met with her, we felt really confident in our decision and knew that we had made a sound compromise.

Why is a photographer important? Well darlings, one of the only things you will take away from this day, besides an expensive dress and a frozen cake topper, are pictures. Pictures to take up the space when your brain forgets about that day. So, PICTURES ARE VERY IMPORTANT. By the same token, a good photographer is even more important.

Now, at the wedding I went to today, my friend had a delicate situation to deal with. Her husband-to-be had a cousin who decided he wanted to be a photographer when he grew up (like 95% of the people out there these days). So, she decided to take her chances with his cousin, whom she had never met. I say all that to say this...PEOPLE: THIS IS NOT A DAY TO TAKE CHANCES WITH. This is not a birthday. You will not have another one of these days next month. This is a wedding. In all fairness, I haven't seen the pictures yet, and they may be amazing, in which case I will have to eat my words. But I stand by my advice.

Flowers:
I freaking loved our floral arrangements. Again--quality people put out quality work. I knew that I wanted something more than what my hometown neighborhood florist could give me. I wanted amazing, inspired arrangements. My wedding coordinator worked with a florist in a town about 30 minutes away and suggested him to me. We met with him in the summer, probably about 4 months before we got married. This, of course, was risky. You MUST get your florist early. The only thing that saved us was the fact that November weddings aren't like May and June weddings. We had a little more flexibility. But not much. Now, I'm not that creative, but I knew my colors. You MUST know what colors you want, or at least the theme you are going for. Now, the beauty of working with talented people (read: expensive), is that you can tell them your colors and your overall vision, and trust them to do an amazing job. And that is EXACTLY what I did. Our flowers, bouquets, boutonnières, arrangements, everything looked great. It wasn't over the top. And that is another thing to think of..do you want people to remember the stuff? Or do you want them to focus on why they are there? The ONLY flowers we had in our ceremony were two big arrangements. Now...before I offend, to each his own. Really. If you LOVE flowers, go for it. Just keep in mind, everything in moderation. Case in point: I know a girl who got married in November at an outdoor pavilion. She used the same florist as me, and had TONS of flowers and decorations. Of course, they were stunningly beautiful arrangements. But they were EVERYWHERE. I mean...everywhere. Thats all I saw in any of her pictures. And even then, I had a hard time distinguishing what her colors actually were. It was a hodge-podge of colors.

At the wedding today, my friend picked red dresses for us to wear. I found out our bouquets were red roses, with red ribbon. The arrangements were red roses with pink calla lilies. She had tons or candles and candelabras, with long strands of beads and tons of faux rose petals all over. Not my taste. I went for a much simpler look, and I think she was trying to embrace the late afternoon ambience. I talked to my wedding coordinator about it today at church and she said, "well, he can only do so much with that person's ideas." And that is exactly true. If you yourself aren't clear on your colors or theme, then a florist isn't going to be a miracle worker. And I remember talking to my friend about this. I tried to tell her: sit down and figure out exactly what you want. What do you want your day to look like? And go from there!

Stay tuned.

Hi friends!

Well, I have been MIA for a very very long time. Too long in my opinion. Problem is, every time I'd come back to the blog, I realized I just had waaaaay too much to talk about and I would have a 75 page long post. So I'll just spend my sweet time updating.

For the time being, know that I got married and am, today, celebrating my 2nd (month) anniversary with my new husband! I love being married. When you're married to your best friend its a thousand times easier. A friend is getting married this Saturday. I'm not her maid of honor, just a regular ol' bridesmaid. I do not want to be in this wedding because I have gained 8 pounds since the wedding and my dress is too tight. However, I do not care enough to stop eating cookies. Plus I'm still studying for the bar in February, and SORRY IF MY DIET ISN'T AT THE TOP OF MY LIST.

Ok, off that high horse.

I'm studying for the bar exam. AGAIN. barf. I'm also still working, which makes it next to impossible to study. So I'm taking a bunch of leave without pay coming up. I'm afraid my next paycheck is going to be for like $75.

Also, BC is starting to play music again and send it to one of his old bandmate's to write music for. I'm so excited for him! BC is excited, his bandmate is excited, and they ultimately want to make a record. I think its great. I also think being a billionaire is great.

In the meantime, here are some wedding photos for your enjoyment!

love the fall :)

Today is going to be a fun lazy day. Football, football, FOOTBALL, shopping, and a lil studying. But mostly football. And maybe a fall candle.

The day that ruined my weekend.

That day was last Monday. Bar results came out. And...I didn't pass.


I was in NC with BC's family. They had throw us our first wedding shower that weekend, and we were also set to see Lady Gaga Sunday night. All of which we did and had a lot of fun at. Then Monday morning rolled around, and right before we hoped in the car, I saw it on the website.

I probably cried until we hit the SC/GA border. I just couldn't stop. The thoughts wouldn't stop swirling. I can't take this again/my heart can't take all this stress again/am I going to get fired/I AM MORTIFIED/how will I tell people/what will people think when they find out/I couldn't pass the test while not working, how am I going to do it again/is this what I'm supposed to do with my life/is God trying to tell me something/I can't cut back my hours, we can't afford it/what if I don't pass again/omg I'm getting married in November/when am I supposed to finish planning/I have a jillion invitations and thank you notes to do/I want to jump off a bridge.

Yeah, I was going nuts for a little while.

It hurt to see the fb posts of all my classmates, seeing they passed. My other intern co-worker that passed. Knowing I was the ONLY person I knew who didn't pass. I was embarrassed. I felt dumb.

Good news: didn't get fired. My bosses were all very nice. HR told me they would give me some admin leave once it gets closer. Other bosses said to bring my books to work to study. My concern is all the work I have to do--the trials, motion hearings, research, etc. I just want to ensure it all gets done.

BC and I also discussed amping up our free time to make sure all the wedding stuff is planned and done asap. I will need my nights and weekends to study again, so we need all that to be done.

More than anything, I can already tell God has grown me through this. I obviously wasn't prepared, but I will be next time. I haven't started studying yet, I still need a little more time. Yes, I am still very embarrassed. Yes, I'm concerned I will run out of time. Yes, I'll need to be more focused than ever now. But I feel different this go around. During the summer, I prayed for strength, confidence, focused attention, motivatation....and never felt like I got those things. Funny enough, now here's my opportunity to be strong, confident, focused, and motivated. BC told me, God never gives us more than we can handle. I guess I was the only person I knew that could handle something like this. So I guess I have to now!




Back to work.

Long Overdue!

Hello blog world friends!

Many apologies for my silence.

Lots of things have been going on! I've been getting more responsibility at work, which I l-o-v-e, BC has been swamped with school work, and we've been spending our spare time doing wedding planning. I have to share now that we have: both sites secured, a florist, a photographer, a cake maker, a caterer, and, as of YESTERDAY--MY DRESS!!!!!!! WOOHOO!!

Now. I cannot share a picture. Although I am super excited about it. But BC is a reader of SJ, and I don't want him to see it and the surprise to be gone. Let me just say this: it is Ivory (gasp!), and is fitted (bigger gasp!), and is a style I never thought I would like. It was the 2nd dress I tried on and we were only in the store for an hour and a half!! GO ME!!! It fits great, and only needs to be hemmed a bit! Score! And I found my veil. I told the store clerk I deserve the Bride Who Gets Crap Done Award.

I also realized I have a great deal of arm fat to rid myself of by November.

There is a girl who planned her wedding the weekend before mine and has decided, even though I barely know who she is, that we are now in competition. I could care less. She informed me I would not be able to find a dress because I waited too late.

In lighter news, BC and I are finalists to win an engagement photography session with a photographer on FB! She isn't near us, but she travels, and luckily, so do we! So we'll have to figure out how that works! We'll do anything for free stuff. SO--to my blog world friends, I need help!!! If you want to help vote, it is SO simple, just let me know, and I'll e-mail you the instructions on how to. THANK YOU in advance! :)