Vintage Bride

I wouldn't say I'm having a vintage wedding, but there are definitely aspects of it that are inspired by vintage fashion, especially my dress. I love my dress, but I sort of wish I'd discovered this Portland based store before I'd purchased my dress. The Vintage Bride repurposes, altars and sells vintage wedding dresses from throughout the 2oth century. Now I certainly won't fit in [m]any actual vintage dresses, but they can take dresses with large trims and use them to make those teeny dresses more real girl sized! I thought it was pretty cool!

Vintage Alfred Angelo

Titanic Era Gown

Lady in Red... (not)

Yesterday we bought my wedding dress, or I should say my mother did (she insisted).

So much for my big plan, right? Well here's how it went.

I went to Sephora to get a make-up trial at 12:30. After some run around and a sort of rude and exasperated sales lady who didn't understand what I was asking for, I finally got hooked up with the manager, who had a lady do some gold/brown smokey eyes for me. She used Urban Decay Primer Potion in Sin, Urban Decay Half Baked, Twice Baked and Jinx (a blue) eyeshadows, and Smashbox Cream Liner in Midnight Brown, topped with Smashbox Bionic Mascara. I did buy the primer, it worked pretty amazingly as far as keeping my shadow on, not letting it crease, and giving a base so that the shadow didn't fade into my skin. As for the make up (pictured above) at first I thought it was too heavy, but it grew on me. I think she took the dark shadow up too high on my eyes, but over all I liked it.

We finished up there around 1:30 and headed over to David's Bridal. I was hoping I could kinda sneak in and do my own thing, I didn't want the hoopla that bridal consultants tend to give, and I didn't want the pressure to buy. When my cousin Sonja and I went to David's for her dress a few years ago the woman who worked with us/her was very pushy to her and made her really uncomfortable. Unfortunately, they wouldn't let me just 'do my own thing'. In fact apparently we're not even allowed to move the dresses our selves. They made us wait for an appointment, the soonest availability was an hour away. They also informed me that the dress that I had my heart on was discontinued, there were likely none of those dresses left in the state!

Clearly the only option was to go find somewhere to get a drink! I had my mom, and three of my four bridesmaids with me, one had to go run an errand, so she went to do that while the other two bridesmaids and my mom headed over to a El Torido Mexican restaurant just down the street, where my mother kindly purchased a kick ass margarita for me (and a round for my girls!). DAMN that Cadillac Margarita is good. I got mine in blackberry. Feeling much more cheerful we headed back over to David's Bridal for my consultation.

They hooked me up with my consultant, and in an effort to assure them that I was in charge, I pointed her towards half a dozen gowns I wanted to try on since the one I wanted wasn't available. As I tried on my dresses, I received several updates on the status of my favorite dress. Apparently, though it was discontinued, they could order it, in Ivory, in one size up from my size, at the sale price. I decided that should at the end of the afternoon, no other dresses jump out at me as possibilities, I would go ahead and order it (on my mother's instruction and insistence).

I tried on about 10 dresses in all I think, none of them fit as well, or made me feel as good as the dress I chose, and the two that DID look good would need some serious alterations to fit me (and my needs properly). They were also all more expensive. So in the end, we ordered that dress, and now I get to check a big check box off on my wedding list. The dress arrives in January!The dress in question, on me last December

Let's Face the Music and Dance

Two exciting things. First of all Meg over at A Practical wedding made a wonderful post about guidelines for DJing your own wedding. Definitely one to keep in mind as we start to put together the play list.

Second, I spoke with my friend Jonna who's not only a friend in the SCA, but also a professional costumer. She helped me to work through what I want for a wedding dress and what is the most feasible and cost efficient (since both Luke and I are unemployed).

Plan goes as follows.

1) Go back to David's bridal and try on that dress that I liked so much when I went last December.

2) Watch DB like a hawk and try and purchase this dress on sale!

3) If by the end of April this dress had not gone on sale cheap enough for me to buy, then she will help me to make it myself!

So I feel MUCH better about that whole thing. We need to start looking for a suit for Luke now so HE has something to wear!

Waiting.

With my own wedding, things have very much been on hold.

I'm waiting to get a meeting scheduled with our caterer to sign our contract.
I'm waiting to make a meeting with a seamstress friend in order to make decisions about what the hell I'm going to WEAR!
I'm waiting for Luke to be willing to decide what we will say in our invitation so I can send it off to Twin Ravens to get designed and printed.

In the mean time. Bad ideas for engagement photos.

yawn! Are we down to a year yet?

So. If I can't/don't make my own wedding dress, that's ok. I've been keeping my eye out for dresses that are $200 or less that I might like for my wedding. We'll see how that goes. I'm still gonna finish the mock up's I've started though.
This wrap-dress-thingy looks possible. In Vanilla, if the fabric's not too thin.

This guest book idea is TOTALLY cute to, having people fill out cards and then have them alphabetized. I like alphabetizing. I keep finding more and more things that I might want Twin Raven's Press to print.

I also really really really like this idea for Trivia Centerpieces. I don't think I'd do wedding trivia. More like trivia about the things Luke and I are into, but same idea. Or maybe Trivia about Luke and I! Or trivia about different guests!

I also realized that once we get the caterer booked, we've got the big stuff under control. Food. Location. Someone to do the marrying. The rest is just details.

While I live and breathe...

It's been more then a month since I last posted! I know a scandal!

...ok who am I kidding...

But, reality in the form of my student teaching had to take precedence for awhile, and we weren't really doing any wedding planning anyways... so I didn't have much to talk about. However, as things are winding down with school, I am looking at wedding stuff again, and moving back into planning mode!

The Grange is officially booked, so that's a bit of a relief. We're still waffling on caterers, mostly because we don't have the money to put down for one right now anyways. I'm still half hoping that one of my bridesmaid's aunts will be able to do it. We talked to her ages ago, but she wasn't willing to commit so far in advance.

I bought a second piece of fabric to make a second mock up of a totally different design, something more vintage. This is Simplicity 3823, which is the style I want, but I'm thinking there might be a better pattern then this. Or maybe I should just make my own. I really really really don't like sewing with modern patterns. This seems like it woudl be pretty easy, the skirt is a huge trapezoid, the top is basically triangles attached to a rectangle. Gather, wrap, sew, right?


Anyways, finally I've been reading wedding blogs again and have a few things to share!

This vintage Prauge wedding makes me terribly jealous that everything in my neck of the woods, except, well the woods, is so darned NEW. Classic, classy and terribly romantic.

And this totally adorable dress is quite inspiring. This is what I was going for with my first dress design, only I want straps, and no sweetheart neckline. Perhaps it's my construction that's not working. Or perhaps I should, ya know, finish the dress and then make up my mind.

Another type of paper flower to consider, though Zanne, my soon to be Mother in Law, and Becky, my soon to be Sister in Law, both loved the spiral rose design I stole from the lovely Adela over at Tenthousandonly.


And last but not least, THIS could totally be my wedding in another lifetime.

More progress on dress selection.

I've decided to make my own. I can sew, I can sew pretty darn well if I do say so myself. All the dresses I like are expensive. Like $400 or $500, which I know isn't expensive in the wedding dress world, but it's a lot when we have an $8000 wedding budget and plan to feed 300 or more people dinner, and honeymoon in Europe. Plus wedding dresses are almost always the dreaded POLYESTER, which not only means it doesn't feel as nice, but it means that I can't dye the dress after my wedding.

I was at Joann's purchasing last minute accouterments for my Tudor gown (inspired by this portrait of Elizabeth I, only green) and I noticed that McCall's patterns were on sale for $1.99. I paged through them and lo and behold, they had a pattern nearly identical to the dress I liked so well (the orange one from my this post).

Evening Elegance
The key differences are that I will have shoulder straps, and a more scoop shaped neckline, instead of the sweetheart. I was so stoked. I proceeded to buy clearance linen/cotton blend and the rest of the materials I needed and I will make a mock up, I can't wait! Look for pictures in a few months, I have other projects to finish first!