Wedding Dress Woes: Part III

First of all, sorry for the awful name on this post. Anyone got any ideas for a better one? My brain isn't working right now. Second, this is a long post with a lot of numbers, but I threw in some pictures of prtty dresses to even it out.

When we left off with my dress search, I had found a dress that I loved, but it was just out of my reach. It was too expensive, and I had only been to two other dress shops at the time. Was it really the dress for me? I wasn't sure.

Anyways, I went to a consignment bridal shop called Brides To Be while I was in Connecticut this past time. I went with the image of the Washington Dress in my head. I tried on a few dresses here and there, but nothing was really calling out to me.

(Can you believe I was actually considering the one with the silver bands? I might have temporarily lost my mind in the name of staying within the budget.)

This one was just awful.

This one was actually pretty nice, it just wasn't it.

My mom had a picture of the Washington Dress on her phone, so she showed it to the woman who was working there. (She wasn't really a consultant, she was the worker in the store at the time, but she was very helpful.) She went into their stock that was not on the floor and pulled a dress for me. It looked a lot like the Washington Dress. I was so happy! I was positive that the Washington Dress had been sold already, since it was half price, so I didn't really hold a hope of being able to purchase that exact dress. Finding one that looked so similar was so exciting!

Happy!

Of course, there had to be a catch. The dress was $800. Which makes it exactly $105 more than the Washington Dress. The store was running a promotion that if you bought by the end of the year, they would give you 15% off. So if I bought it within the next week and a half, I would pay $680. And again, I find myself in the same situation as previously. Is this really the dress for me? I was not really sure. Am I sure that I can go that far out of my budget to get the dress? I had put away $100 for alterations, and there were some definite alterations that needed to be done. It needed to be taken out, cups put in, hem, etc. I don't know where the money for all of that would come from.

So I left feeling kinda crappy. I called the salon in Washington to see if, by some chance, they still had the dress. They did, which was good. But it hadn't come down in price at all. She said that she was willing to take off 10%, which would put the price at $625, still slightly cheaper than the $680 for the dress in Connecticut. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do. I knew I had an appointment the day after Christmas, though I wasn't really expecting to find anything there. I just wanted to put this decision out of my mind, so I decided to wait until after my second appointment at the other salon.

What would you do? Would you buy the dress on a whim because there was a time crunch? Especially if it was out of your budget?

Pretty Paper: Handmade Invites

These were made by a bride who is a graphic designer (I get so jealous of those people who have skills that help them with wedding details) and they look ah-mazing. I would definitely use these as my own and I wish that I could create something like this for myself. I found them on a blog called The Budget Savvy Bride. I love this blog, and they give a lot of good tips. Anyways, without further ado, here are the beauties.

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I love how it looks so handmade and very DIY without it looking like a two year old crafted it. I feel that some of my DIYs tend to look like a two year old got ahold of some markers and scissors and went to town. I also like how it looks like she crammed all the info onto the invite, but still organized. If you are interested in the way that she did this, check out the source link.

And because a stack of papers always makes me feel good, here is her stack of envelopes.

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Something to make you smile on a Monday. Enjoy your day!

Introducing the 'Maids

I was so excited to ask all of these beautiful women to stand by me on my wedding day. I figured that I would give them the proper introduction that they deserve. They are all wonderful people that I love very much.

First up is my maid of honor, 'Maid P.

I have known P since I switched to school in Orange, CT in third grade. She was one of my first friends at my new school and has been there ever since. She is a med student at Tufts University right now, and I have been so honored and so surprised how enthusiastically she accepted her role as maid of honor, considering everything else that she has going on.

Next is 'Maid M.

M is essentially my sister in law. She has a wonderful son, my nephew, and is an artist. She has been a huge help towards my wedding ... already, which is way more than I was expecting from anyone. She has gone above and beyond what I consider the call of duty in her short two weeks of being in the wedding party. I am so eager to share this experience (and many more) with her.

Next is the amazing 'Maid Em. (This may get confusing having Em and M, but since I am talking to all of you through text, it shouldn't be a problem.)

Em is my cousin. She is a sophomore in high school and lives in Glenwood, Maryland. She plays volleyball and violin. She was very eager to be a bridesmaid, in fact it was her first question after I told her that I got engaged. I am so happy to have her as a part of my wedding. Since we don't live very close, the only thing we have done together wedding-wise is dress shopping, and it was super fun! (More to come on that!)

And last, but most certainly not least, 'Maid El.

El is my cousin, sister to Em. No they are not twins. They are sisters though. El is a freshman in high school and lives in Glenwood, Maryland. She also plays volleyball and violin, and also used to play soccer, not sure if she still does. She is very lovable and I am so happy to have her with me on my wedding day. I also have only gone dress shopping with her, but hopefully will be doing more with her in the future.

I hope that you enjoyed meeting my 'maids and am looking forward to referencing them in future updates and having you actually know who I am talking about!! I am so lucky to have all of these girls by my side. They are all amazing in their own way and I look forward to sharing this experience with them. Hopefully, sometime soon I will be introducing the groomsmen also, but we will see!

My First DIY

... for the wedding! I considered a lot of different things: gifts, making cards, buying cards. Nothing really struck me, but I knew the minute that I saw these babies that they would be perfect. I was so excited to do these little boxes to ask my friends and family to stand up with me at my wedding. I got the idea from Project Wedding. I think I googled "will you be my bridesmaid ideas" or something like that.

The idea is that when you open the box an accordion of paper would fall and ask them to be my bridesmaid.

I went to Michaels to get all the supplies that I needed, which I do not have a picture of, unfortunately. But here are the things that I used:

• Glue Dots
• Jewelry boxes
• Cardstock
• Ribbon
• Marker/pen
• Any decorations that you would like to include (I had pearl tape and glittered designs)

First I cut all of the strips of paper out. It helps to have a paper cutter, but what would have really helped me would be one of those paper cutter attachments that doesn't completely penetrate the paper, but just makes a line that is easy to fold.

I wasn't too careful about the way that I folded it, I just made sure that all the squares were roughly the same size and that they would fit inside the box.

Then I wrote my message. It was the same for everyone, except for the adjectives that I used to describe them. I made a little chart so that I knew what I would say for who.

Once I wrote all of the message, I attached the little trinkets that I picked. I tried to have them correlate to the words that I used to describe them.

Then I just stuck a little Glue Dot inside the box and stick the paper to the top of the box so that the paper would fall when they opened the box.

I decided to leave the boxes the color that they were and not paint them like the tutorial that I followed did. The kraft brown was going to be a big part of my wedding, anyway. I finished it off with a little lace and a yellow ribbon. I made a small tag out of leftover blue cardstock and a silver stamp with their initials.

Everyone really liked them and I was so happy with the way that I asked. It was very me and personal for each person, which is exactly what I wanted. Yay!

*all pictures are personal

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone is enjoying their first week of 2012. I know that I have had a wonderful vacation, spending time with my entire family (there were a lot of people!), and enjoying life. I had fun doing most of the usual stuff: baking, wrapping, listening to Christmas tunes, playing with my amazing and adorable nephew, hanging with family, etc. I am now back in Seattle and missing the east, but glad to spend some one-on-one time with Josh.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...
Oh so many! It was wonderful having everyone around for the holidays!

Oh my gosh. I love this kid. Well, both of these kids, really. :)

My grandfather and my nephew. The two UCONN men.

I am hoping that I will not be taking another hiatus that is as long. My new years resolution is to keep up with my blog! A few people had asked me when I would be updating recently, and I am starting today and will (hopefully) be doing regular posts.

Excited about our new tongs.

Sick Ashley, excited about our tupperware.

There is a lot to report on, so I hope that you are ready!

'Cause we are!!

Nerdy and Crafty

I haven't been here for a while, and it seemed as though I might have forgotten about this blog. Well, I have been feeling guilty that I have't had time to blog. I really enjoy it, and it is always fun when I get new readers, or someone says that they really enjoy it, but my life has been so busy lately that I haven't really had time for anything wedding related. Wedding Meetings have officially gone in the toilet (hopefully to be started up again after the busy season), and I haven't gotten any further in my venue search. (Ideas anyone?) But today I came across something that I just had to share.

I found the perfect way to explain Josh and I. I was on Pintrest (yeah, so what?) and found this.

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I don't know if I could have described us any better myself. So I had to come back and share it. Keep checking back for these random updates, and hopefully, come January, I will be back to blogging regularly. Thanks so much for still checking!

Searching for a Alternate Location

[This is the third time that I am trying to write this post, but I always end up ranting, so hopefully I get it right this time.]

As much as I would LOVE and it is so important to me to have my wedding in a familial backyard, I am not sure that it will work 100%. First of all, there is no rain plan. If it is sprinkling, it wouldn't be a big deal, but if it is raining raining, it would be a very big deal. Second of all, if it is at my mother's house, we would for sure need a shuttle, which is not in our budget, but my mom insists that there will be about 30 cars for 100 people, which I just don't agree with. Third of all, my step father thinks that our septic system wouldn't be able to handle the toilet flushing, so we would need a portable bathroom, which is not in our budget at all. There is very little wiggle room with everything that everyone thinks that we are going to need. It gets overwhelming.

Josh is also very sick of not knowing where the wedding will be. I am too. I have set a goal to know where our wedding will be by the time that I come back to Seattle on December 28th. That means that I will have to look at and decide on a place in two weeks. Josh won't be able to do the initial search with me (he will only be in town for 3 days), so that sucks. I wish he could be with me, but we knew that this would be a problem when we decided to have the wedding in Connecticut.

With that said, I have been scouring the internet for a venue in southern CT where you can have the wedding and ceremony outside, but can also move it inside if need be. There needs to be trees and things like that. It needs to have the "feel" of a backyard wedding. Apparently, these don't exist in southern CT. Apparently, I grew up in the section of CT where there are only wedding factories or wannabe wedding factories. Just when I started to write this I came across the same website for the third time. I am looking at all the same material over and over again!

There was one place that I found, but it is just over our budget, which isn't really great, but it's doable. It's in Norwalk, which isn't too far away and they have lodging there, since it is an inn. It's called The Silvermine Tavern Bed and Breakfast. I am not sure if they do an outside reception and ceremony, I didn't really look at the website too closely, but it looks really cute.

How cute would these chairs be for pictures?

Ah fall. I would love a fall wedding.

I am so sorry that this sounds like a rant (and in a way it is), but I just need some help. I am wondering if anyone has any ideas about where we might be able to have an outdoor wedding at a reasonable price around Orange, CT. I have thought about a state park, but do they usually provide electricity? And will it still feel like my wedding rather than a cool (and expensive) get together?