Adventures In Dress Shopping
July 17th, 2007 @ 12:03 pm by Mrs. Radish
After I decided not to have my dress custom made, as I had originally planned, I dove into dress shopping head first. I started shopping in January, and I never would have thought that I was “cutting it close,” but apparently I was, or at least that is what most bridal boutiques told me. I still had about 7 months until the big day, but I learned that most dresses require that you order them at least 6 months in advance to get them in time. I guess it takes almost as long to make a wedding dress as it does a human baby. Who knew?
Of course, I had absolutely no idea what kind of a dress I wanted, as I am not regularly in the habit of wearing ball gowns. So while I was in Syracuse visiting my family this January, I went to a bridal salon there called A New York Bride and tried on just about every style of dress that they had.
Here are some of the highlights and lowlights (and don’t worry Mr. Radish if you are reading this… none of these pictures are THE dress):
This Paloma Blanca dress was my favorite for about 5 minutes. I loved it when I first tried it on and it’s made from a beautiful duchess satin. Later on I decided it wasn’t really the look I was going for, though, and it was over $2,500. I didn’t like it enough for that price.
An Afternoon Affair
July 13th, 2007 @ 4:36 pm by Mrs. Radish
Earlier this year, we ran into our first major stumbling block with our wedding planning. The reception venue that we chose only does one wedding a time, which is a good thing, but you have to pick from either 1-5 pm or 7-11 time slots. We selected the evening option, without really thinking much about it, and then carried on with the rest of our planning. Then we decided to have a Catholic ceremony and started looking for a church that would was available on the same date and that would marry an out-of-town couple. We finally found our church, but since Catholic churches have mass on Saturdays (usually around 4 or 5 pm) the latest that we could schedule our ceremony was 2:30 pm. We aren’t having a full nuptial mass, since I am not Catholic, so the wedding would be over by about 3:15.
Romantic Coiffures
July 12th, 2007 @ 1:49 pm by Mrs. Radish
I want the overall look of my hair and my bridesmaids hair to be kind of loose and romantic. I don’t want anything too sleek or modern looking, since that won’t really fit in with the look/feel of everything else we’re doing.
For my hair specifically, I think I will wear it partly up/partly down. My hair is really thick, long, and naturally curly so there is no point in trying to do an updo. It would just take forever and it would probably fall out.
Anyway, here are some nice hairstyles that I’ve come across:
An Excuse To Buy Another Dress
July 11th, 2007 @ 6:52 pm by Mrs. Radish
I just love Anthropologie dresses but since I’m normally a pretty casual dresser, I could never justify spending that much money on a dress… until now! I need to have something to wear for the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, right? It was on sale, at least. Honestly, it probably wasn’t really necessary to buy a new dress (don’t tell Mr. Radish!) but I couldn’t help myself. I have to go to a friend’s wedding in September, so I guess I could wear it again for that.
A Radish By Another Name…
July 11th, 2007 @ 9:29 am by Mrs. Radish
I have no plans to take Mr. Radish’s last name after the wedding. You may be thinking that I have some great philosophical reasons for doing this… but, really, the main thing is just that I like my name and I intend to keep it. It’s as simple as that. I suppose I could hyphenate, change my middle name to my last name, or we could make up a new last name for both of us, but I don’t like any of those options as much. Luckily, Mr. Radish isn’t offended by my rejection of his moniker, but just in case he really wanted to have matching names, I did offer to let him take mine instead. He gracefully declined the offer. I guess prefers to keep his own, too. 
Anyway, here is a short list of why I like my name:
- It has the letter “X” in it
- It is very short
- It is easy to rhyme with things and has led to many great nicknames
- I like my signature
- It sounds good with my first name
- I don’t feel like changing my e-mail address
- I have a lot of checks and address labels that I don’t want to throw out and I don’t want to have to order new ones
- I don’t like the way that people pronounce Mr. Radish’s name (it’s a French name, but no one ever says it right)
Perhaps more importantly, though, it’s not fair that women are expected to take their husband’s name when nothing like this is expected of men. It’s kind of a double standard, wouldn’t you say?
Some Don’t Like It Hot
July 9th, 2007 @ 11:02 am by Mrs. Radish
I found these hand fans for about $4.99/dozen (that’s about 40 cents per fan) from the Oriental Trading Company. I think I’m going to buy about 8 dozen to hand out with the programs at the ceremony since it’s probably going to be so hot, and we’ll have a lot of elderly guests.
They also have them in plain white for the same price. Should I get some of the plain fans for any of the gentlemen who have too much testosterone to fan themselves with birds and flowers? Dudes get hot too.
Is this a good idea? Or am I just going overboard? It would only cost about $50. Someone please tell me if I am being excessive.
Tales of the Procrastinating Radish and the Custom Dress That Never Was
July 6th, 2007 @ 10:32 am by Mrs. Radish
Originally, I planned to have a friend of mine who is a fashion designer/seamstress make my wedding dress. It seemed like a great idea at the time, but as the wedding date drew closer, I realized that I had put zero thought into what kind of dress I wanted and I had no idea where to start.
When I went home to visit my family this past Christmas, everyone kept asking me if I had picked out a dress yet. Then it suddenly dawned on me that I only had about 8 months to go, and that my friend might not even have time to make the dress as she is a very busy lady. She offered to make the dress as a gift to me so I also wanted to make sure I gave her plenty of time so it wasn’t as much of a burden. Even though 8 months seemed like forever to me, I was already a little behind the mark. I hadn’t even looked at many bridal magazines at that point… I was such a slacker.
After the holidays, I talked to my designer friend and she said that I should go and start trying on dresses so that I could get an idea of what types of dress styles looked good on me. I felt like a total jerk because she had been trying to get me going on doing this, since she first offered to make the dress right after I got engaged, but in my procrastinating fashion, I somehow managed to keep putting it off.
Let Them Eat Cake…
July 5th, 2007 @ 11:04 am by Mrs. Radish
A friend of my mother’s is an excellent baker so she is going to make our wedding cakes for us (we are having 1 regular cake and 1 vegan cake). They are going to be made with organic ingredients and I’m sure they will be very delicious. We haven’t actually met with the baker yet to do a tasting, so I’m not sure what flavor we will have. I usually like some kind of fruit filling like raspberry or cherry and I personally prefer yellow or chocolate cake to white cake.
Anyway, I bought this cake topper from A.C. Moore’s. It was only $35!
Here Comes The Bride…
July 4th, 2007 @ 11:24 am by Mrs. Radish
I found this idea from knottie Pixelvixen and I think I’m gonna do it. The banners are about $40 from HereComesYourBride.com. I think it’s so adorable! More importantly, however, I have 2 flowergirls and 2 ringbearers who are all nieces and nephews of my husband-to-be. But I also want to include my baby brother and my nephhew (who are both 10 years old) in the ceremony, so I will have them walk the banner down the aisle right before I make my grand entrance.
Green Is the New White
July 3rd, 2007 @ 4:35 pm by Mrs. Radish
One of the first things that Mr. Radish and I decided after our engagement is that we would do our very best to have an environmentally sustainable wedding. Weddings are such a big business now. With wedding industry pulling in a whopping over $125-billion per year, and with the average American wedding costing nearly $30,000, we figure that this is a great opportunity for us to “put our money where our mouth is.”
We strive to live a low-impact life on a regular basis, so doesn’t it make sense that we should do this with our wedding, too? It’s probably even more important, in some ways, because it’s probably the only time we will ever be spending this kind of money at one time on consumer good/services.
We really want to see as much of our money as possible go towards environmentally and socially conscious products. This has proved somewhat more difficult than we first thought, at least within the confines of our below-average budget, but we are sticking to it and trying to do as much as we can.
Mrs. Radish, Chicago/Syracuse
Age and Occupation: 27, Executive Assistant/Journalism Student/Musician
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 28, Anthropologist/Musician
Engagement Date: December 20, 2005
Wedding Date: August 18, 2007
Blogging Since: June 26, 2007
Venue: The Wellington House in Fayetteville, NY
About Me: Mr. Radish and I are both from upstate New York, so we are planning a wedding in Syracuse from about 700 miles away. When I’m not obsessing about our wedding I play the cello in my band (which Mr. Radish is in too), read as much as I can, sleep even more, travel whenever possible, and try to find time to have fun with my friends. I’m also working on finishing up my journalism degree with a concentration in environmental reporting and I’m the VP of my campus Amnesty International chapter… so I’m a pretty busy bee.
