So Much Fun Not Being the Bride

Our couple-friends finally got engaged over the holidays, which is great, because we all knew it was going to happen, we were just waiting for him to propose. This weekend J asked me to go with her to Nicole Miller to check out wedding dresses. It is soooo much more fun to help someone else look for wedding dresses than to find your own. She found some pretty dresses, but I don't know that she found the one. I offered to go with her to David's Bridal, since she knows the style, she just hasn't found the exact one that she wants.

I'm currently on my own dress hunt - M and I have 5 weddings (that we know of, so far) this year - and only one down. My obvious problem (aside from getting time off for the cross-country treks) is that I need at least one dress (they're not all the same group of people, so I could get away with one for the summer ones). I tried an Ann Taylor number (green and yellow), but the waist was a touch too high. Then I thought I saw the perfect dress at j.crew over the weekend, a cute tie-front metallic linen dress. The dress looked crisp and sharp, and I could change it up with jewelry/shoes. I went back tonight to try it on, but all of the ones on the rack looked, well, disgruntled. The poor things were wrinkled and scrunched up, which translates into a fabulous entrance, then looking crumpled as soon as I stood up after the ceremony.

Wedding Pictures

As I was thinking about what I could do today, I thought that I would look through the wedding pictures and start putting a list together for the album, which reminded me that I haven't really posted any pictures on this, which is (was) supposed to be a wedding blog. So here we go (all pictures by Wei Han at Evoke Photography in Houston):


This is a view of the chapel (at Prince of Peace), which photographed so well, and just looked amazing in person. I am so glad we had the ceremony in the chapel and not the main church.


Here is a picture of me with one of the bridesmaids (I made sure to use one that would love her picture). As you can see, even though I used an inexpensive florist, my bouquet looked awesome. I was so surprised when I saw it, not what I imagined at all, but exactly what I wanted.


Next up, we have the cake, which I only got two bites of (downside to leaving the next day).


Here are the place cards that I toiled over before the wedding, which I think turned out well. If you would like me to make some for you, let me know. As I'm not employed yet, I have plenty of time on my hands.

Finally, one of my favorite pictures of the two of us.

Dress Obsessed?

Once thing that I am most frustrated about at this point is that I left my dress in Houston at my parent's house. I really want to try it on to make sure it fits, but I can't, so now I occasionally have freak-out moments where I think the dress won't fit. This is compunded by the fact that this week a friend of ours is staying in our apartment, we're packing, and I had an upset stomach this weekend so I won't be able to get to the gym at all this week (Wine Wednesday at Spec's clearly trumps going to the gym). In reality, this stressful week of packing will probably "allow" me to lose weight, so I should be fine. I guess I'll find out Saturday when I get to my parent's house exactly how many cheeseburgers I'll be allowed to eat. :)

Why They Need a MOB Handbook. . .

Today I took my dress to the seamstress. I felt so relieved to drop it off because:



1) it is heavy

2) it takes up a lot of room in the closet

3) when I tried it on, it zipped up perfectly!

Why - you might ask - are you even worried about number 3? I'll tell you. A couple of months ago, I went home to Houston and took the dress there to stay for a while (see number 2). I also wanted to show my dad what it looked like, in an effort to stop him from tearing up, and then me from tearing up, on the big day.

I tried on the dress, which fit, with just a little sucking in, when I picked it up at Belle Saison. My mom totally freaked out when she was zipping it up. "It's not going to zip!" - so I sucked in and it zipped, barely. Honestly, it was a little tight.

But, it was no reason to freak out, because, as I told her, I had just finished midterms, and in typical girl fashion, had baked and half eaten a batch of monster cookie bars. Which means that I was not at my "most svelte." When I told her this, she was not convinced and said something about the fact that my weight shouldn't fluctuate that much (keep in mind that the dress DID zipper, just a teensy bit tight - and I'm not lying about "teensy").

After I successfully zippered the dress myself today, I decided to call my mom and tell her not to worry. "I'm not worried about your dress. My dress fits, so that's all I can worry about." I realize that this may seem innocuous on first read, but read it as if worrying about whether or not the bride's dress fits was "anti" on your mind at all hours of the day. Yargh.

The Dress is Here!

Earlier this week, Belle Saison called and told me that my dress was in! I called my mom, who, despite the delivery date estimate, was surprised that it was already in.

Yesterday, I stopped by the shop after a meeting up at school and picked up my dress. I didn't think it would take too long, but I spent almost an hour there. "My" salesperson Kim was busy when I got there, but another woman sent me back to the dressing rooms, where my dress was set up. While I waited for Kim to come to the back, I looked at the dress to make sure that every thing looked ok. I saw a couple of threads that had come loose, but I didn't know if they had come from the beading or not, so I didn't want to pull on them.

Kim came in to the room and I tried on my dress. I had to try on a couple of different petticoats so that we could get the skirt to fall right, then different shoe heights until we got the skirt off the floor. There are satin bands at the bottom with embroidery, so altering the dress for length could have been difficult. I was very proud of myself, because I managed to decide on and order a veil and the hairpins, without anyone else's help. I'm usually much more indecisive than that.

Too Much Time to Plan

This post is not meant to sound braggy, but I can see how it mght from the title. The title is not meant to imply that we are done with the planning and are just going to sit around watching TV for the five months until the big day. We don't have too many things to do really: cake, the men's attire, and the invitations are the big things left to go (plus a hundred some-odd little to-do's).

One of my best friends gave me some advice, which lately, I have really appreciated. She told me that once I had picked out my dress, I shouldn't pick up another bridal magazine, because it would only make me second guess myself. I didn't think that it would be that much of a problem. I feel like there is so much time until the wedding, and it's been months since I made some of these decisions, so the "vision" of the wedding is getting a little fuzzy around the edges. Which means that I have wondered if I can really trust the florist with the centerpieces or not (which I can). I just need to stop thinking about everything, which means that I want to get the rest of the decisions made, so I only have to worry about the little things.

More Bridesmaid Extravaganza

One of the reasons that I wanted to look at dresses at the bridal store was purely selfish - I wanted to try on veils and get the girls' opinions. This also meant that I got to put on my dress again! I think this dress thing is becoming an obsession which, if you knew me, you might not expect. I'm going to be the girl who wants to put on her dress and wear it around the house, but I guess that's better than the girl who actually wears the dress around the week before the wedding.

My saleslady helped me put on my dress again, though I fear she was hoping that we would leave so that she could go to lunch. We pulled a few veils, and my sister found the perfect one, which even comes in a color that matches the "cafe" trim on the dress. Finally, we left the store around one, with the "narrowed down" list of nine dresses.

Then we went to lunch. . .

Betting on Losing Weight

My fiancé found another interesting article in the New York Sun while he was toiling away at the salt mines. Apparently two Yale professors decided that a great incentive to lose weight would be commit themselves financially to the task. One of the professors tested the method on himself. He made a bet with a friend of his that if he didn’t lose 1 pound per week, he would pay his friend $1000. The two professors have founded a website based on the plan (www.stikk.com – based on the “carrot and the stick”). They hope to eventually roll out the plan to help companies incentivize their workforces to lose weight, be healthier, or be on time for work. The payments for failing to meet goals will be paid out to charities, though not of the participants choosing.

Maybe it’s because I’m marrying a lawyer, but, ladies, I smell a class-action lawsuit on the horizon. Women have been doing this for decades! Think of all the brides you know who purchased their rather expensive wedding dresses just a size (or more) too small to motivate themselves to lose weight before the big day. Think about how much more effective the wedding dress was than buying a pair of jeans a size too small. I think these professors need to stop patting themselves on the back, and realize that they’ve only taken an existing weight-loss strategy and modified to the point that men and corporate America can understand it. Ladies, we should all be disappointed in ourselves for not exploiting this opportunity sooner.

Find the article at: http://www.nysun.com/article/66874?page_no=1&access=250268

Ordering the Dress (or The Hunt, Concluded)

My mom has been mad at me because I’ve waited so long since I showed her the dress to order it. Unfortunately, the week after I showed her the dress, I had my two weeks of midterms start. That weekend, she told me not to even think about the wedding until after midterms. Done. Tuesday I get a call asking me, “Have you ordered your dress yet?” Seriously.

So, this week I made plans to order my dress. Since my mom is in Houston (and paying for my dress), and Belle Saison is in Austin, I called the store to see if she would still be able to pay for it, or if I would have to put the down payment on my credit card and then she would reimburse me. Luckily, they have a website where you can put in payments, so I was all set.

I wanted to make sure that I had plenty of time to order it, so I went on Friday, when we don’t have classes scheduled. Excitement was bubbling out of me during the Thursday night dinner-with-the-girls. I told one of my friends that I was setting aside the whole day for ordering the dress: the morning to prepare, before lunch to actually order it, and the rest of the day to be excited about it.

The problem is, ordering the dress is very anti-climactic. I walked in to the store and saw my sales consultant Kim. It would have been nice if she had remembered me, but I had only been in once, and that was a month ago. Once she pulled my file and asked me which dress I had decided on, she did remember me coming in to the store, so that was nice. She asked me if I wanted to try on the dress again.

Me (excitedly): Yes! I mean, is that OK?
Kim: Of course you can.

She pulled all the “foundation garments” that I needed for my dress and I tried it on and went and stood in front of the mirror again. Sigh. We also tried it with a couple of veils and tiaras, but then it was time for me to put on my real clothes and get measured. One thing that was exciting is that my measurements exactly matched a size on the size chart, so I probably won’t have to have much done to the dress, as far as alterations. The whole experience was over with in about twenty minutes, and then I went home and ate lunch. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I wish there had been something more.

Other trials and tribulations in the hunt for “the dress”
http://catholicweddinggirl.blogspot.com/search/label/Wedding%20Dress

Dress Approval (or the Hunt, Take IV)

As I described in this post ( http://catholicweddinggirl.blogspot.com/search/label/Wedding%20Dress ), I had finally found a dress that I thought was the one, which left only one obstacle: the dress had to pass Mom’s inspection (insert ominous sound here). As she was in Houston, I obviously didn’t want to make her come all the way to Austin to see me try on the dress, so it had to wait until I got to Houston. Luckily, my fiancé and I went in to town a week later, so I was able to show my sisters and mom what my dress looked like.

We went back to the store we had first visited, but while I was still in Austin I called to make sure that the store did carry the dress that I wanted. I wasn’t especially looking forward to hunting through the racks for a style of dress (there were probably over a hundred on each row of racking). Luckily, when we got to the store, we had a salesperson assigned to us (I think we were lucky because we went early, and this is a store that won’t take appointments, so the store wasn’t busy yet). This saleswoman was probably someone’s daughter; she looked about 19 or 20, but the woman behind the desk proclaimed her an expert.

The salesperson had an idea of where the dress was located, but apparently, no idea what it looked like. I described it to her, but ultimately I was the one that found it. I went to the dressing room, where my sister helped me put the dress on, while I mistakenly left my mother outside with the store’s “expert.” When I came out to show her the dress, I got an expected response (from my mother): “That’s nothing like the other dresses you tried on.” I kept the groaning in my head and replied, “Well, I know, but I really like this dress.”

Then she said that she thought the train was too long, to which the “expert” saleswoman replied that the train came in three different lengths: royal, cathedral, and chapel. It did not. I had been to the website, but I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t see a purpose in telling the woman that she was wrong, after all, we weren’t going to purchase the dress at that store (the three lengths was actually referencing the three different “hem-to-hollow” lengths).

My mother then decided that I had no idea how they would decide which size to order, and then explained it to me, even though I had just ordered a bridesmaid’s dress with the same process (for those of you not familiar with the process, they take your measurements, then order the largest size that accommodates your measurements. My mom, for some reason (J), became upset when I cut her off and finished her explanation for her. I understand to a certain degree, when my younger sister got married, she was quite a bit younger, and didn’t know what she was looking at most of the time, or what questions to ask.

The Wedding Dress Hunt, Take III

I had been having some issues with finding a dress, but I knew that I needed to broaden my horizons as to what I was looking at, no beading had turned into some beading and further into “enough beading to be seen in photographs.” A week or two after the last dress outing I emailed the girls to see if they would accompany me to another bridal salon. This time, we would go to Belle Saison.

The staff was fabulous! I had called earlier that week to see if I needed an appointment, and the woman who answered the phone replied that I didn’t. I called with a new list of dresses that I might want to try, and the store had most of them, but for several of the ones that the store did not carry, the salesperson told me that she had specific dresses by other designers that looked extremely similar to the dress I was speaking to her about.

I arrived at the store in the afternoon, and there was an empty dressing room waiting for me. A saleswoman greeted me, remembered that I had called, and showed me the layout of the store, which was by style of dress. She asked us to simply pull the dresses I liked, then put them on the end of the row and she would put them in the room for us. When we had pulled them, we went to the dressing room, I was instructed to put on the strapless bra and slip and then ask her to come back in so that she could dress me. “Oh, no, I can’t have a stranger dressing me!” is the thought that went through my head, but it was actually a lot faster. She literally threw the dress on over my head.

Even better, she knew what I was thinking almost before I did. She reassured me that I would try on many pretty dresses, but that I would find “the one.” We pulled almost a dozen different dresses that I tried on, but the second one struck a chord. She advised me to try on the rest of the dresses, just to see. I wanted to, as well, as I had come to try on a certain one, which was nearly solid beads on the bodice, with a plainer skirt. The dress was a little bling-bling, gorgeous dress, but definitely a party dress. I later told my fiancé that if we were having a “platinum wedding,” and I were going to have two dresses, that would be my reception dress.

Finding a Dress, Part II

I wasn’t in panic mode yet, but I knew that since I hadn’t found “the” dress the first time I went looking that it may take me several trips to find it. In typical business school fashion, I sent out an Outlook appointment request to my girlfriends in school to see if they wanted to come, and a couple had prior commitments, but a few could make it. I had looked online at Watters to find a bridal shop in Austin, and it worked out that The Bridesmaids Store looked like a good choice (especially since I also had to order a bridesmaid’s dress for a friend’s wedding). Having learnt my lesson from the last time, I called ahead to see if they had the styles I was interested in trying on, and they had several of them, so I thought I would give it a shot.
The setup was very nice, the store had hundreds (thousands?) of bridesmaids dresses in the front, and to see the bridal gowns you went to the back of the store, where they had a salon-style dressing room, with a living room outside of it for guests to wait while you were trying on. Another plus is that we were allowed to look through the dresses (even though there weren’t nearly as many bridal gowns as bridesmaid dresses). I gave my friends a general idea of what I was looking for, but I also told them I’d try on dresses “outside the box.”
My experience was much the same as the last shop, the store associates drifted in and out of the bridal section, asking if we needed anything, which is good, because I don’t think I could stand someone dressing me. Like the last time, I found several dresses that I liked, and my friends found their favorite one, but I didn’t find “the one.” I did try to “create” “the one,” I pulled a sash off of one dress and wrapped it around another, at which point my friends intervened, because I had crossed the line into desperation. Another day with no dress in sight: time to schedule another dress excursion.

Finding the One (Dress)

Even though I know it's a little early to start looking for a dress, I'm terrified that I won't be able to find "the one," and I didn't want to get so wrapped up in school that I shouldn't go dress shopping because I had too much else to do.

We went to Houston, where the wedding will be held and where my parents live, and I invited one of my sisters (the one in town, I didn't exclude the other one) and my mom to come shopping with me. I decided to try looking at this one dress shop near my parent's house, which is not the nicest dress shop, but does carry TONS of different styles. One of my good friends found her wedding dress there, and I absolutely loved it.

I went in hoping to try on several Watters dresses that I had seen online, and the shop was an authorized Watters store, but only had one or two dresses that I wanted to try on. Apparently, you only have to carry a few styles to be an authorized dealer, so it's good to call first. Anyway, this is the sort of shop where you can go through the racks yourself, look at the dresses in their plastic bags, and pull them into your dressing room yourself. So we did.

I filled my mom and sister in on what I thought I wanted, something on the simpler side, with textured fabric, maybe taffeta, dupioni silk, and ruching, or folding of the fabric across the bodice, sleeveless or strapless, but no halters. My sister was a champ, she found some really great dresses for me to try on, while my mom found a lot that she liked but were nothing like I had described. I found two that I liked; one we called the "southern belle" dress, which had thin strips of horizontal fabric layers all the way down the dress, and the other had a bodice with some fabric layering and light beading, but it still wasn't "the one." I ducked outside the dressing room and found a dress in the right size, which was taffeta with thin straps and a sweetheart neckline out of ruched fabric and beading that was concentrated on the bodice, but sprayed onto the top of the skirt. We called that dress the "boob-tacular dress."

All of the dresses were nice, the boob-tacular one was the best, but I really couldn't picture wearing it in church. I'd have to find it in another search. I'm glad I started early, it's not as easy as I thought it would be.