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Soon after we were engaged I found the most perfect bracelet at Nordstrom. It is a crystal bracelet made by Nadri. Its understated simplicity is perfect to accent my dress. Unfortunately, this bracelet was also $100, which I did not feel I needed to spend 17 months before the wedding. Every time I was at Nordstrom I would try the bracelet on and fall in love all over again. Yet, I still wasn’t ready to fork out $100 on jewelry.
Then I was there for their semi-annual sale this past June. I noticed much of the Nadri jewelry line was on sale. I found my bracelet, and lo and behold, it was 40% off. I asked the saleslady if they will go on sale again at a later point. I figured if it would be on sale again later this year then I would just come back and get it then. She told me that Nadri does not go on sale very often and the next time it might would be next June. As in 2012…a month after our wedding.
Well golly gee, I guess I just had to buy that bracelet. Twist my arm, why don’t ya! I definitely got a sweet deal on a high quality piece of jewelry.
Just for you hive, I did a photo session this morning with my bracelet. I never knew until today how tiresome hand modeling can be. I hope hand models get paid well.
Congrats to our winners, miss.qwerty, irisheyes1974, kritonastick, Nadine, and lyzziebeth!
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This month Fodor’s is giving away five copies of their Essential India travel guide. It’s 500 pages with full-color photos of everything you need to know about traveling in India—perfect for planning an Indian honeymoon!
To enter the the contest to win a copy of Essential India, simply comment below, letting us know where you’d like to go in India before Wednesday, November 2 at 11:59 PST. Good luck!
We decided quite early on that we wanted to do a first look, so we wouldn’t have that odd gap between ceremony and reception. This was especially important for us because there was no travel time between the two events—everything was in one handy building. We knew we wanted to do the photos in the park near our house, as it has a great old library building, fun fountains, and neat old war memorials. We left it up to our photographers to decide where in the park would be the best place for us to be.
We think the groomsdudes look like the wedding mafia in this photo. Just imagine a violin case instead of a black shoebox! (photo by my mum)
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I am a sucker for deals. I love to browse websites like Gilt Groupe, Rue La La, Bluefly, and now The Aisle New York; I frequently Google coupons and coupon codes; I go out of my way to shop at Nordstrom Rack. (Latest Rack deals: a Trina Turk silk tank top for $5.97 and Citizen jeans for $29.99. Shut the front door.) So it’s no wonder that I approached shopping for a wedding dress in the same way. I wanted to get a highly fashionable dress for a low, low price.
There are three major ways of scoring a deal on a bridal gown. First, you can shop online for a used dress. This is a great way to get a designer gown for the fraction of the retail price. Mrs. Tartlet scored her beautiful Monet by Monique Lhuillier that way. Second, you can attend events like the Running of the Brides. I couldn’t find one of these events in my area that fit my shopping timeline; however, past blogger bees like Mrs. Latte, Mrs. Piglet, and Mrs. Starfish have great stories and advice to share about their experiences with them. Third, you can shop at places—either bridal salons or charity shops—that sell sample gowns. This is what I ended up doing.
My all-time favorite shopping deal: 67% off!
Again, on the whole, I had a great shopping experience. I ended up with the dress of my dreams. But there are some things that I wish I would have known about buying a sample dress before I actually did so. I want to share them with you in the hope of saving people some of the stress that I experienced.
Featured on Weddingbee
All-Inclusion Invitation Suites
“Make an elegant invitation statement without the fuss. Stylish invitation sets with matching envelopes, reception and response cards included.”
The Three Rings of Marriage…ladies and gentlemen, we have them all!
Only kidding, but the bands are here! The only suffering was waiting until they came in! Tough cookies, right?
Image via Candle Cottage
We went out on a personal big limb and ordered Mr. Raccoon’s ring online from The World Jewelry Center on Amazon. It was a last resort, but it ended up being a completely stress-free transaction in which we saved $423. Thank you, holiday sales! We had visited a few jewelry stores in town, and none had what he was looking for. Being simple kind of worked against us here. Alternative metals are the big thing right now! They’re affordable, strong, and have many style options. I actually really like them, but we couldn’t get over their inability to be resized. We know that we’ll be wearing these rings every day for the rest of forever, and the chances of our ring sizes changing are pretty good.
Cyntia and her husband cross the lawn on their wedding day
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Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
I’ve never loved my ruler so much.
That’s my handy Publisher work right there.
One of the issues regarding our save the dates (and invites, for that matter) is the actual size. When I go about designing things on the computer, I tend to disregard measurements and proportions and such; hence, I end up with a 7 x 7 design coming out of my printer when I meant for it to be 4 x 4, or vice versa (that zoom function is tricky). You get the idea.
My bridesmaids are located all over the country. Literally. From west to east, there is one in Arizona, one in Illinois, one in Tennessee, and one in New York! Luckily, since the dress I chose was a retail dress and not something that needed to be ordered, they were each able to get the dress in their respective location.
I really wanted to do my best to make it as easy as possible for them. So, I sent them a very long email with any and all information I thought they might possibly need. I looked up the addresses for the Kate Spade store nearest each of them (don’t I sound like a commercial right now?) if they wanted to try it on in person. I also sent links to a few websites where they could buy it online (Zappos, Bloomingdale’s, etc.) and included the return/exchange policies. I offered to get the dress for them and send it to them. I also attached the sizing chart for the dress and a reference picture. I really hope I came across as helpful as opposed to overbearing and that I made it more convenient as opposed to more overwhelming!
They each opted for option #1 and went to the store in their city to buy their dress. This ended up being very fun for me because, over the next week or so, I got some very fun emails and text messages of their shopping successes!
Now that I have found my dress, I have begun the search for the finishing touches on my wedding day look. While I am most likely getting my hair done professionally that day, I will most definitely be doing my own makeup. I do wear makeup on a daily basis, but it’s pretty light and not very complicated. A little mascara, a tad-bit of eyeliner, some lavender eye shadow, a splash of bronzer, and some lip-gloss is all that I need. It seriously takes me about five minutes and I’m out of the house.
Obviously I want something more for my wedding day. Some days I am dreaming of something soft and dreamy. Other days I am dreaming of something striking and dramatic. My dress could allow for either makeup style. So what should I do? Most people at this point would start the inspiration hunt online and find styles that jump out at them. Then once that is narrowed down, the logical next step is to go out and buy the makeup and try on the styles for yourself. Well, I don’t exactly have the funds to toss around and buy makeup that I may or may not use again. Bummer.
Then my friend had a brilliant idea.
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I have this thing where I like to be in control of stuff. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s the redhead domineering gene. (What you never heard of that gene before?) But, alas, I like to know what is going on. I like to do a lot of the decision-making on things I’m involved in. So, when it comes to wedding stuff, you can imagine just how antsy pantsy I can get if something falls out of my control. I swear it’s not me being a Bridezilla. I am just like this every single day of my life regardless of the bride role.
Even though Mr. Porcupine supported the decisions, I really did most of the research for all of our vendors. The vendors we picked were mutual agreements because Mr. Porcupine and I have similar tastes/opinions on things, but I was the one to pick the “top threes.” Mr. P is pretty good at the “if you love it, I love it” game, plus he didn’t really have the time to do a lot of the wedding research, so we didn’t have any issues in that department.
Now that the wedding is actually coming up and our long engagement is winding to a close, my own actual wedding events are coming up. Say whaaa? I get to have a bachelorette party and a bridal shower? I’ve been so accustomed to going to everyone else’s wedding events that I almost forgot that I get this stuff too. And, this stuff that I get, I have NO control over. Cue the itching…
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Have I mentioned how amazingly wonderfully generous and hysterical my bridesmaids are? Perhaps in my shower post I may have alluded to it. But they totally nailed it with this whole bachelorette weekend.
I had a few parameters: Nothing crazy like drinkin’ or clubbin’ (which none of us do anyway), no male strippers, beach-centric, and penile paraphernalia. Hey — when else in your life is it appropriate to walk down the street adorned in male genitalia? Never, so let’s get that stuff started up. Side story: When I revealed this choice, two bridesmaids were horrified, and my maid of honor was totally stoked. We were hanging with a friend who had gotten married this past spring, and she told me she thought maybe we should have switched bridesmaids. She was staunchly against that stuff, but her bridesmaids were decidedly not. In fact, they had hired a midget who makes his living dressed as a… well, you know. To walk around with them all night. She got wind of it and called him off but… maybe I’m juvenile, I just found that hilarious.
Back to the bachelorette weekend. MOH Ginger texted me a couple of days before the weekend was to begin and told me that she’d pick me up at 1 on Saturday and I should pack a bag that included a bathing suit, something comfortable, a dress I felt sexy in, and something to sleep in. This is my kinda party, clearly.
Surprisingly… everything is ready.
I have wrapped up every project I thought up, save for a printed guest album idea which I threw away around the one month mark. I have packed my delicate wedding apparel in my carry on, padded our cake topper for the flight, carefully boxed up 140 wedding programs, gathered my bridesmaids’ gifts and stuffed as many kilos of chocolate and cheese into my checked luggage as possible.
I am carrying a lot of weight with me on this flight. Literally and figuratively.
When we last left off, I was about to head off on my journey into the brave new world of Los Angeles wedding salons. I was a bit nervous at first about my solo status: were the bridal consultants going to take me seriously as a customer? Was I going to be able to sort through all of the different options on my own? Would I actually be the best judge of which style or silhouette was most flattering on me? Should I have worn cuter underwear?
Overall, my worries were completely unfounded; in fact, I had a great time! I found that shopping alone allowed me to focus on my immediate reaction to a dress. I only had to think about how I felt in the dress or what I felt about it. I never was overwhelmed with multiple opinions or confused by differing reactions—one of the very real risks of having a large and highly opinionated entourage. The consultants were helpful without being pushy. When I decided that I liked a dress, I simply snapped a quick photo of it on my camera phone (sometimes secretly) and sent it off to my mom, sister, and friends.
I went to three different stores over the course of a week. During this week, I found three dresses that I liked enough to photograph and send out for second opinions. At this point, you are probably itching for the dress photos, so here they are.
Dress #1:
I was browsing through the Weddingbee boards when I stumbled on this post. It was a simple “Thank You” to Pronovias for having their models smile in pictures. This is something that has been on my mind for a while… Especially while paging through wedding magazines, I have noticed that many of the models look downright sour! On top of that the ones that don’t look mad, often look downright ridiculous.
Now, I understand being “artsy” and “high fashion” but come on… these are dresses for WEDDINGS! These women should be HAPPY! Or, at the very least, not totally angst ridden. I should preface by saying that I have nothing against the designers or dresses pictured below.
Without further ado, a collection of the funniest/oddest/unhappiest beautiful ladies and what I imagine they are thinking:
“I have to get my hands untied so I can get to my wedding! The evil Count Weddingwrecker will be sorry once I get out of here!”
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| Image from Kleinfeld |
I know few of the rules that may or may not exist about making appropriate music selections for a Catholic wedding, but I figured I should have some ideas before meeting in person with the woman who will be playing at our ceremony. I’ve heard she is the music coordinator for the church and also teaches the school’s music classes. It’s a blessing when things just kind of fall into place like that.
A lot of thought went into these, but I haven’t gotten my hopes up in case they won’t work for one reason or another. Get comfy, there are a lot of YouTube videos coming your way!
Possible Processional - “O God Beyond All Praising”
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