Reception Dress Search: Pt. 2

After ordering and trying on 2 short dresses that ultimately just didn't work for what I am looking for, I decided to try on some bridesmaid dresses. Every time I go grocery shopping I see this small bridal shop and always mean to stop in. Well, I finally did last week. It's...small to say the least. But the woman I worked with was very helpful, so that was nice.

I am a bad bride and only have a style number for one of the dresses. If you REALLY must know the style number of a certain dress, I'd be happy to track it down for you. Please note, all of these dresses were at least 3-4 sizes too big for me. Also, sorry about the crappy lighting. Now as Heidi would say, let's start the show!

Wow...why am I making that face?

Here it is on the model. It's Alexia Designs, number 2604.

This was my favorite out of all the dresses I tried on. On the model the sash is tied in the front around the brooch. I like that.

Now on to the not-so-favorites.

Um...no. Maybe it's because this was a size 10 and I'm a size 2/4, but it just did not work. I'm holding it tight in the back, in case you can't tell. Still...no.

Hahahahahaha ohhhh I bet some of you needed a good laugh today. Yeah...this one's not gonna work.

I tried on another dress that I didn't even bother taking pictures of.

All in all, I'd say this trip was a bust. I didn't expect to find my reception dress, but I didn't expect to have such terrible results, either. Stay tuned for the next edition of "The Great Reception Dress Search of 09."

Reception Dress Search: Pt. 1

Back in June my dress came in. I loved her then and I love her now. Here is a reminder of my girl. What I didn't love? The tightness factor. Thus began my search for a short reception dress.

Miss Mary Jane on Weddingbee helped me in my search immensely (although I doubt she knows it.) This post helped not only her in her search for a short, white dress, but me as well. As my "short dresses" bookmarks grew I became increasingly discouraged. So. Many. Dresses. Plus, most were in my price range, so it's not like I could eliminate too many based on that.

Finally I decided I needed to take a break. There was no point in spending hours looking at short white dresses because they all started to look the same. So after a nearly 1-month sabbatical, I opened up all of my short dress bookmarks and began weeding out the ones I didn't love. Of course I *liked* all of them, but if I was going to buy another dress, I wanted to LOVE it.

Armed with my credit card and a good understanding of various return policies, I purchased 2 dresses. They arrived a few days later which was nice because I do not want to stress over this any longer than I have to. So without further ado, here are the dresses.

The first is from David's Bridal. Normally I would shudder at the idea of buying anything from there. I've heard too many horror stories, both from brides on the internet and girls I personally know. But they have an online dress collection that includes a good number of short dresses at extremely reasonable prices. This dress was only $139, well within my budget. Here it is on the model:

And here it is on me:


Huh...not really feeling it. It doesn't look half bad in this picture, but in real life it just doesn't work. Originally I liked it because the bubble hem mimicked the hem on my "big dress." But in the end it just wasn't right. It was tight under my boobs, something I knew would make me uncomfortable all night. No thanks!

The other dress is from Nordstrom. I love Nordstrom so much. We have one in Northeast Ohio but their formal dress selection is CRAP, so I just order dresses online and return them to the store if I don't like them. This dress was about $150, also well within budget. Here it is on the model:

And here it is on me:


Better but...I don't know. I thought I loved it when I first tried it on, and in this picture it looks pretty good, but I just don't think it's fancy enough. Our wedding is pretty formal and I think my reception dress should be more formal than this. If I were having an informal outside wedding, or a courthouse wedding, or maybe a beach wedding this dress would be perfect. But for the soiree we're throwing, it's just not right.

Stay tuned for Part 2 (which, much to my dismay, is not the conclusion.)

Bling bling

I'm just going to put this out there: I'm not into pearls. I know they're "traditionally bridal" and "classic" and all of those other wonderful words, but I just can't get into them. At least not on my wedding day. They're a little too "cute" and I'm just a little too "sassy" for that.

On the other hand, I LOVE rhinestone jewelry. You get all the sparkle and bling of diamonds, but without the hefty price tag. For my wedding day look, I envision a fabulous pair of rhinestone earrings paired with an equally fabulous rhinestone bracelet. With all of that going on, I'm going to leave my neck bare. I've been searching for the perfect rhinestone bracelet (which I don't even wanna TALK about...grr), but recently my mom bought me a pair of rhinestone earrings from an area antique store. When she first sent me a picture, I was kind of underwhelmed. But last night I finally was able to see them in person and OH MAH GAH I love them.

The picture does not do them any justice. They are so freaking sparkly. They're clip-on, but my mom is going to replace the clips with posts. I wasn't able to try them on with my dress, but I know they will look awesome. Now I just have to find a damn bracelet.

Are you walking the pearl path, or going down the rhinestone route? (See what I did there with the alliteration? My communications degree is getting some use!)

Random rambling

The blog has been kinda silent lately, hasn't it? Sorry about that, dear readers. It seems I'm having a bit of writers block. I've been reading the "Bees Life" series over on Weddingbee, and it makes me want to be a better blogger. I really don't know if I'll apply to be a Bee, but it's nice reading the stories of these women who I admire so much. I'm learning a lot from them.

My job, while incredibly boring and mundane, keeps me busy most of the day. Plus, it involves zero typing, so writing there always makes me nervous. When I get home, I want to spend time with BRG and feel guilty writing blogs or browsing WB. I know he would encourage my writing, and we don't necessarily have deep conversations...ever, but I still feel bad ignoring him. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it) my temp job ends at the end of September. This should give me some more free time to focus on the wedding and blogging (until my next job starts...whenever that might be.)

I have a lot of posts swimming around in my head. There is one in particular about my dad that I'm working up the nerve to write. Just gotta sit down and do it. It will be a doozey. Ugh.

I think the fact is I'm not really doing anything wedding-related right now. I don't really know what to do, I guess. We're just under 9 months out, we have the *big* stuff (photographer/dj/venue/dress/etc), and we're sort of in a lull. BRG brought up the other day that he's kind of having a mini internal freakout. He wants to see a list so he can check things off and know that we're on schedule. I'll get him one from The Knot or Brides.com so he can calm down a bit. I think he's having a hard time seeing that we still have a lot of time to get things done.

Oh! Our 2nd engagement session is next week!! This time it's with our amaaaazing wedding photographers, Linczak Photography. I am SO excited, but kind of nervous. I really want these to turn out better than the last time we did this. I'm still figuring out what I'm going to wear. Actually, I have to figure out what BRG is going to wear, too. Better get on that.

Well, this was all over the place, wasn't it? What do you write about when you're in a lull? I'm not nervous about revealing relationship stuff...maybe I should write about us more? Hmm...

My Flower Girls Are Cuter Than Your Flower Girls

OK, I have no idea if that is true. It probably isn't, but I adore my flower girls. They are the granddaughters of my mom's best friend. Flower Girl V is 5 (soon to be 6) and Flower Girl A is 3. Here is a picture from just last night of BRG and our beautiful girls.

A is the blond, V is the brunette. Believe it or not, they are sisters who look nothing alike! They have the best personalities, though, and are two of the smartest and wittiest young girls I've ever met. I know they will make amazing flower girls. Although I'm a bit nervous that A will have some trouble getting down the aisle. She can be a bit...stubborn.

Their Nana, Jenna (also my mom's BFF) is making their dresses! She is a wonderful sewer and we are SO happy to have her make these dresses. We're all together on vacation in the Outer Banks right now, so it was a perfect time to talk with everyone about these dresses. I made a Power Point filled with dress ideas, as well as pictures of my dress and BM dress ideas. Yes, I'm very OCD.

After going through all of the pictures, we came to the conclusion that this dress is the favorite.

(Source)

It is a Watters dress that I found via Brides.com. The sash will be black, and the bottom pleats will be white like the rest of the dress. I just think this is so cute! It's definitely a party dress and they should be able to move freely in it. I'm also thinking about getting them headbands like this:

(Source for all headbands)

I know that headbands can hurt, but we won't be asking them to wear them for long. Our ceremony should only last 30 minutes, and we'll try to get their pictures out of the way before the ceremony.

The one thing I'm stumped about are shoes. All of the pictures that I bookmarked show shoe-less flower girls! Clearly, they won't be going barefoot, so I need to figure that out. Our ceremony is inside at the end of May. It's Cleveland, so this could mean 80 degree weather or 40 degree weather. I would love for them to wear some kind of black patent leather Mary Jane, similar to these:

(Source)

But then do they wear tights? Socks? Nothing? I'm kind of at a loss. So I ask you, dear readers. What did your flower girls wear on their feet?

Bridal Squeal

I've discovered that I make a sound, sometimes audibly, sometimes just in my head, whenever something exciting and wedding-related happens. It goes a little something like this:

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!"

I call it the "Bridal Squeal." I just can't help myself! Last week I received 2 potential reception dresses in the mail (soon to be blogged about.) When my apartment manager called to tell me they were at her office, I was at work so my Squeal had to be concealed. But in my head, I was doing back flips!

A few weeks ago we went to get my ring fixed (a stone fell out, ugh) and I tried on the matching band. It was so perfect I just had to squeal!

I'm sure it's annoying to anyone within earshot, but I'll be damned if I stop it. Brides get the right to annoyingly proclaim excitement, right?

How do you show wedding-related excitement? Do you have a more subtle approach than me?