Bridesmaid Dresses, Revisted

Dessy Twist Wrap Dress
Image via Dessy.com

Remember my previous post on bridesmaid dress post? The one where I played the part of the gracious bride who left the dress decisions up to the girls? Well, I kind of went back on that a teeny bit. OK, maybe more than a teeny bit, but I'm still being flexible!

I thought once I gave my ladies the freedom to go ahead and choose their own dresses the decision would be out of my hand. But BMs Coco and Gemini (made up names for sure) still wanted further instructions. "What kind of dresses? What fabric, what colors?" I soon realized that the cut and style of the dress was probably more important to the girls than the fabric or color. So much to my delight, I introduced the Dessy Twist Wrap Dress into the discussion. Oh, how I love this dress. It can be wrapped to form a multitude of styles from strapless to sleeves. Dessy has even added a helpful "How to Wear" section on their website which details how to make the different styles. Um, yes!

 Style Examples
Image via Bridesmaids.com

Since all of the ladies have different body types and heights, I thought this would be the best option for everyone. However, I wasn't too sure about the fabric: Jersey Matte. In my experience Jersey fabric has come across as cheap looking and not really appropriate for formal events. So I called up a few stores to see if they had the dress in stock. I had the hardest time tracking this elusive dress down. I literally called over ten stores and everyone said they didn't have it, but could order it for me at a price and I could sell it back if I didn't like it. I wasn't too keen on this idea so I started looking around for different options. But, as luck would have it I found a store that had the dress in stock, just around the corner from my office! Was this Fate? I'd like to think so! So BM Coco and I went to check it out. I was so happy that they even had it in our color! Here are the photos from her fabulous photo shoot:

All photos are personal unless noted otherwise

We had a ton of fun learning how to wrap the dress. I think with no knowledge going into it, we did a decent job. But we'll definitely need to look at a few videos before the big day. Coco's favorite style was the second one pictured above. The saleslady who helped us informed us that the dresses tend to run big. She was right, the dress BM Coco is wearing is a small and she still had plenty of room. We only tried a few of the styles before we both agreed that this was the dress. With the Twist Wrap dress everyone can still look unique, but look uniform with the same shade of red and fabric. So there you have it!

Did anyone else have a change of heart regarding bridesmaid dresses?

The One Where I See a Woman About Some Flowers

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If, like me, you're resolved to be a DIY bride chances are you get the same weird looks and questions that I do. Mainly frowns and "...but WHY?" I usually just laugh and say "I'd like to be involved in every aspect of my wedding.", or the more truthful "It will be WAY cheaper."

A few weeks ago I told Mother-in-Law Warbler that I was planning on going the DIY flower route via the LA Flower Mart in downtown. She got really excited and asked me about the kind of flowers I wanted to use and how her crafty sister could help out if I wanted. After getting my flower preferences she said, "OK, now we can call up a few florists to get some estimates."

Now it was my turn to frown. "Huh? No...we're getting our flowers from the flower mart...and arranging them ourselves."

She smiled politely and patted my hand. "Oh, I know. But a few phone calls won't hurt."

There's an old saying that goes something like, "Get used to being wrong, because your Mother-in-Law will always be right." You know what? It is so true!

At first I brushed it off and filed it away as part of the "unwanted wedding advice". But the truth is my DIY plans had major holes. The original plan was to buy the flowers the day before the wedding, assemble some helpers to arrange the centerpieces, bouquets and boutonnieres. And cart everything out to the wedding venue that same night before the rehearsal dinner.

Hole #1: Mr. Warbs and I live in Downtown Long Beach. Our wedding venue is in Malibu, an hour away when traffic is playing nice. The LA Flower Mart is in, well Downtown Los Angeles. For readers not familiar with the Southern California set up that's about 63 miles of driving. With boxes full of centerpieces, bouquets, dresses, shoes and other wedding paraphernalia. 

Hole #2: Once we carted all of the flowers out to Malibu, we would need to find a place to store them. If the hotel didn't have a special refrigerator or the venue didn't have any room, we would be in trouble for the night.

 Did I mention how HUGE the flower mart is? It stretches on for miles!

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Other than the obvious problems with location and transporting the flowers, I was also starting to realize that I actually had no desire to DO any of that work. Or put my bridal party through it. So a funny thing happened over the Independence Day weekend. I went to see a florist nearby our venue, The Exotic Green Garden. We had e-mailed back and forth before and she was willing to work within my measly budget. And she did. And I BOOKED her! Not only did she work for our budget, she also gave me the name of some local bakers for our grooms cake. Swoon. It was pretty much love at first sight. Tiana asked for examples of the feel I wanted for the wedding. I showed her photos like this:

Image via The Knot / Flowers by Kristin Rockhill of Details of I Do / Photo by John Arcara Photography

Image via Mrs. Jellyfish / Photo by Cliff Brunk Photography

And this:

Image via Mrs. Taco / Flowers by Amy Burke Designs / Photo by Ashley Forette and Gem Photo

Image via W - Wedding Flowers

She really loved this photo

Image via The Knot / Centerpieces by Annie's Garden, Corsicana, TX / Photo by Sara & Rocky Photography, Dallas TX

Image via Erin McFarland Photography

She immediately told me that with my budget it probably wouldn't be a good idea to model the tables after that last photo, because I would need two centerpieces per table. The first photo of the books was much more doable. Her suggestion to reuse the ceremony flowers for the centerpieces was right up my alley! She also advised me on where I should cut flowers and which flowers I could use to fill things out a bit. In no time she pulled up her past examples to show me what she could do. She pulled up these photos:

Image via The Exotic Green Garden

Image via The Exotic Green Garden

Image via The Exotic Green Garden

Please excuse those colors. Those are NOT our colors.

Image via The Exotic Green Garden

At the end of the meeting I felt like I was discussing the wedding with a friend instead of a friendly. Tiana really understood what I wanted and didn't try to oversell me. Doing it myself would have been fun, but just didn't seem worth it in my case. I'm so glad I listened to Mother-in-Law Warblers's advice and hired a professional. This is one time where I m happy to have been proven wrong!

I've Got STDs

Okay, my maturity level seems to be dropping lower with every wedding task I complete. Seeing as I'll never get to make fun of the unfortunate Save the Date acronym again, dammit I am going to have my fun while it lasts! While brainstorming about our invitation and STD suite, I came across this lovely bit of inspiration:

Image via The Our Wedding Day Blog / Invitation by Greenwich Letterpress

This takes my obsession with Penguin Books to a whole new (actually doable) level! The invitation is a homage to the old Penguin books that had similar covers for popular books. I'm normally not a cutesy person, but the penguin holding the champagne glass maxed out my cute tolerance. This image brought me to this one:

Awesome collection of Penguins books

(Source) 

Since I was already trying to find ways for our stationary reinforce our loose theme of books, I was determined to make this work. I think that the simple design works better as an STD rather than an invitation. Recently Penguin Publishers released a set of postcards of their most famous book covers.

Image via Penguin.com

One hundred covers in one box. Pretty cool.
Image via Penguin.com

While I think postcards are the perfect size (4X6) for our STDs, I'm afraid they might get ruined in the mail and end up looking pretty sorry when they get to our guests. MOH J5 offered up some alternate suggestions that I'm musing over. I have a tentative example to show you, but I'm not going to because I most likely will make some tweaks. Here's a sneak peak though!

Our Registry, or Please Buy Us Stuff

Well it's been a while since my last blog post. Oops! I promise I haven't been lazy, I've actually been busy with wedding errands, work and life. Silly things like that.

Image via Crate and Barrel

A few weeks ago, MOH Johnny5 and I went to an ultra swank registry event at Crate & Barrel. If you've ever been to one of these events, it can be a little overwhelming. They basically give you a short introduction, hand you a scanner and let you run amuck around the store. There's one thing about the scanner they don't tell you though. It makes you feel powerful. And giddy.

I was so excited that I forgot to take pictures! MOH J5 did manage to take this one with his cell phone.

Yes, we're immature. But you had to be there. It was hilarious.

(Personal Photo)

After we successfully canned our laughter, we focused on the registry and found some pretty cool items.

KitchenAid Artisan Red Stand Mixer

Image via Crate and Barrel

Super Cool Wok

Image via Crate and Barrel

Red waffle maker! Are you starting to notice a pattern?
Image via Crate and Barrel

I was a little disappointed with their selection of dinnerware. All of the patterns were simple, classic and looked the same. I wanted something with colorful designs. We also needed a few other things and decided that instead of registering at a plethora of different stores, we would just register with Amazon. With Amazon, we could expand our registry to include awesome dinnerware sets like these:

Lenox Aqua Fusion Accent Plates

Image via Amazon.com

Lenox Simply Fine Chirp Plates

Image via Amazon.com

And this awesome vacuum cleaner that I've seen everywhere lately:

Dyson DC35 Multi Floor Vacuum

Image via Amazon.com

I think our guests will have plenty of options with both registries. In the past when shopping a registry for a wedding the two problems I ran into the most were not seeing enough options and seeing gifts way out of my price range. With these registries I think we'll avoid both of those problems. We're also adding a honeymoon registry to round things out, but more details on that one later! What's on your registry?

Under Pressure

This past weekend Mr. Warbler and I took his parents on a Harbor Cruise around the Port of Long Beach. They're huge boat enthusiasts so we knew they'd have a good time. If you've never been on the cruise, it consists of a few landmarks, some sea lions but mostly container ships. For miles. At least that was my experience. I'm not complaining, but really how many times can you feign excitement when you see one of these?

What happened to the sea lions?

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After the cruise (and probably to stir me from my boredom) we went to The Cheesecake Factory for an early dinner. Yay! Mr. Warbs' parents had never been there before and were excited for the change of scenery. I wanted cheesecake. Once we were seated though, Mother-in-Law Warbler revealed her secret identity as The Riddler. The wedding grilling portion of the day had begun.

I adore my in-laws. They're amazing selfless people who have showed high levels of compassion and concern for me. To accommodate for my weariness around animals, they make sure to keep their pets away when I come visit. Even though I'm sure they must think I'm a bit uppity, they welcome me with open arms anyway.

MIL Warbler began with asking when I was going dress shopping, a question she asks every time I see her. This led to the type of dress I wanted, wedding colors, bridesmaid dress colors, rehearsal dinner and bridal shower plans. All of my answers were vague "Um...I'm not sure yet." and "We're going to tackle that later." Even though the wedding is 11 months out, I felt like a slacker for not having concrete answers. I know MIL Warbler was just trying to help, but I ended up feeling like this:

Image via Zazzle.com

I didn't expect to feel this level of anxiety so soon. I understand Mama Warbler's interest in knowing EVERY detail of the wedding. But really I just wanted to take her hand and say "Shhh, shhh in due time. I promise I'm managing my time wisely." And I am. With so many things on my plate though, the added pressure from inquisitive helpers is weighing down on me.

Is anyone else feeling THE pressure?

Bridesmaids Daze

I picked out the bridesmaid dresses! Ha, just kidding ladies!

Image via Thecinemasource.com

Lately I've been getting a bit ahead of myself. There's tons of stuff I need to take care of like registering, lighting, flowers and, um MY dress - but this week I've been stuck on bridesmaids dresses. And when I say stuck, just know that I mean obsessing.

Shortly after getting engaged my sister asked me (for the hundredth time) what my wedding colors were. She then scrunched up her nose and asked, "Red and gold?" I asked what's wrong with red and gold. She said, "Too bright." I was immediately on the defensive and grabbed the nearest laptop to prove her wrong. "No no no no no...see? These are the shades I want. That's not too bright, right!? Its more of a deep red and subtle gold. Subtle!"

After I'd gotten her approval (and my mother's) I put away the computer and relaxed. But my dear sister asked this one little question: "Can I pick out my own dress?"

To be honest, I was fine with the idea of my BMs picking their own dresses. In fact, I liked the idea that it would take some of the stress away from me. As long as they were the same color and fabric, I didn't mind if the girls wore different styles to compliment their figure.

I WAS fine with it until later that night when I fully came into my bridal fever. "Different dresses?! What if I don't like the dresses they pick? Can I ask them to choose a different one? Is that going back on my word?"

After that night I became dress crazy. The next day I broke my rule about dress shopping. You remember when I said I wouldn't step foot in a bridal salon until Summer? Well, I visited Alfredo Angelo to get a look at what kind of dresses they had to offer. I wish I hadn't because I didn't see any dresses that I liked which further discouraged me. And I caved and wandered over to the bridal gown section, but more on that later :)

Online I fell in love with these beauties:

Image via Morilee

.

Image via J. Crew

Image via Mrs. Jellyfish / Photo by Cliff Brunk Photography

I am seriously coveting the J. Crew dress and a few similar ones in the same shade. The problem is I'm trying really really hard to keep all of the dresses under $100 and all of those dresses are over the limit. Bummer. For a moment I was sad that I wouldn't be happy with the girls' dresses and pout about in later when looking at my wedding album. But then I saw pictures like these:

Image via Something Blue

This photo was taken at our venue!

Image via Style Me Pretty / Photo by Drew B Photography

And I thought I could be OK with different shades and different styles. My BMs are paying for their own dresses so they should be able to wear what they want to wear. It limits everybody stress across the board and eases my guilt over making them buy dresses. Phew! Letting all of that out feels good! I feel like going for a run. Or eating way too much Korean BBQ. Wonder which one I'll choose...

How do you feel about mismatched bridesmaid dresses?

In Which We Search for Musicians

In my last post, I expressed my dream of having a friend officiate my wedding and Everlong (acoustic of course being played as I walk down the aisle). Well the officiant is taken care of (woot!). Now we move on to the music!

First of all, Mr. Warbs and I are only having live musicians for the ceremony and cocktail hour. That's right. No band or DJ for our reception, we're going the DIY route.

No turntables for our wedding!
Image via Turntable DJ

Here are a few reasons why we're not having a DJ. Cost. Some of the quotes we got from local DJs were ridiculous. A lot of them started at a grand. As in a grand for the bare minimum. And if you've ever been to a party with a DJ the majority of them use iTunes or even their iPod. I figured why should we pay somebody upwards of a thousand dollars to do something we could do ourselves?

Hey, I have one of those!
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But we want live music for the ceremony. At first I wanted to have a string quartet. Classical, romantic and visually awesome. But cost wise, it didn't make sense for our budget.

Sorry quartet!

Image via Cliftonmusicanddance.org

Instead we opted to have a solo musician. It made sense cost wise and it would serve our small wedding. There were a few sounds we knew we didn't like.Violin was a nice, but not as nice when accompanied by another instrument like a guitar. We also knew we didn't want a harp.

Classy, but not for me

Image via Boston Wedding Harpist

In the end we decided to go with the guitar. Most of the ooey gooey songs I love are acoustic covers: Everlong, Heartbeats by Jose Gonzalez and Thirteen by Elliot Smith. So far I've found a few solo guitarists who seem to be reasonably priced. And more importantly, have good samples of their music.

So to recap, for the ceremony and cocktail hour we'll have live acoustic guitar playing. During the reception, we'll have our own hand crafted playlist to rock our guests' faces off. The playlist is currently under construction, but shows promise for an awesome time! iTunes reception, here we come!

Are you going the iTunes route?