Weddingbee Blog

Last weekend, a gang of us jumped in our cars and drove down to Seattle for a Stagette Party Extravaganza for our friend K who is getting married in Vegas next week. (Sidenote: is it just me or does it seem like most people call these ‘bachelorette’ parties? Maybe it’s a Canadian thing, eh?)

Now, I know this is going to sound ridiculous but I swear it’s true: I have only attended one other stagette party in my life. Crazy, right? What’s more, it was ten years ago! I don’t remember much except that I was the one charged with renting a Chippendales video from the, ahem, sexy video store. (It’s sort of hard to forget a thing like that.)

Needless to say, I really didn’t know what to expect this past weekend.

Luckily, the other gals had a few tricks up their sleeves which I thought were great so I thought I’d share them with you.

Cute Stagette Idea #1: Use window markers to get everyone to join in
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So I did something mildly crazy the other day. At least, I think it was crazy. I keep changing my mind on it. So I need your help.

Let’s start at the beginning: Getting married makes you do really weird things.

Awhile ago, I saw something I thought was pretty cool at the time, and vowed I’d try it. I might have forgotten about it if it weren’t for the fact that our wedding was fast approaching, and that it just so happens to be the perfect kind of thing to do before you go somewhere where you’ll be in the ocean or by the pool for oh, fourteen days straight.

And no, I’m not talking bikinis here.

More like makeup. Or lack thereof, rather. Because who wears makeup by the pool?

Well, blondies do, that’s who. Blondies like me, who, when they’re not wearing mascara, look like they have absolutely NO eyelashes at all.

Unless, of course… they fake it.

 
Source
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I read an absolutely delightful essay the other day in the newspaper, all about a charming 84-year-old grandma’s thoughts on her grandson’s non-traditional wedding. If you have a couple minutes, I highly recommend it.

In brief, this wedding, which took place a few months ago on Prince Edward Island, incorporated many of the more funky trends I’ve heard about lately. There were movie-poster-style save the dates, ‘bridesmen’ instead of maids, a wedding party decked out in matching (green!) sneakers, eclectic music choices and readings from darling children’s storybooks.

The grandma not only took it all in stride, but seemed to be genuinely tickled by the unexpected twists. I wanted to give her a great big hug at the end of the article. That’s how much I loved it.

Inevitably, after reading, I got to thinking about my own grandma, or rather, ‘Babcia’ as I call her.

Babcia (pronounced ‘bap-cha’; it means ‘granny’ in Polish) is my mama’s mama and she’s 86. (Sadly, I never got to meet my other Babcia in person.) She lives in a little rural town in Eastern Poland called Janów, near Białystok.

Isn’t she so adorable you just wanna SQUEEZE her?

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Around the 90 day mark, I put the call out asking all you lovely ladies and gents if it was possible to get buff in 90 days. Well, it’s time for an update.

I couldn’t believe how many amazing ideas everyone had, thank you so much to everyone who commented.

It is now 51 days until we leave for Punta Cana, and I wish I could tell you that I did it ALL: got a personal trainer, did hot yoga, joined a pilates class, got a gym membership, found an online support group, did the One Hundred Push Ups program, swam laps and did a dozen different fitness videos.

But I can’t. ‘Cause that would be lying. (Not to mention crazy.)

Needless to say, I was a bit overwhelmed with all the options out there and didn’t really know where to start. Then, my (wonderful) boss went on a 12 day detox and lo and behold, I had a brainwave - what better way to kick off our pre-wedding healthy-living lifestyle than by doing the same?
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I’m sure almost everyone has done it at least once.

Some girls do it more than once. Some might not want to admit it, but they’ve done it too.

C’mon girl, you know what it is. You’ve been there, too.

That’s right, folks. The dreaded SECOND-GUESSING OF THE DRESS.

Here’s how it works: Glassy-eyed, smiling and loving the world, you’ve happily smacked down your non-refundable deposit for what is obviously the most amazing, most gorgeous, most PERFECT dress in the world. With wings on your feet, you float out of the store and can’t possibly imagine how you will live through the next four to six months as you wait for your wedding dress to arrive.

You’re still in full-on bridal mode though, so while you wait, you can’t resist the magnetic pull of all the magazines, online shops, and real-world bridal stores out there. So you poke your nose into one… and then another… and another. And you leave each one feeling smug and satisfied—your dress is still the most perfect dress for you, and you’re happy.

Then one day…

…DUM-DUM-DUM…

IT happens.

(This is another Not For Mr. Breezy’s Eyes Production, hint hint, nudge nudge.)
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Yes, yes. It’s terrible, I know.

Even though I finally found my bridesmaid dresses, I still can’t help it - my eagle eyes have been trained, and they still zero in on perfect purple dresses everywhere I go!

This past weekend, I was wandering around Robson Street and ducked into the store where I found my BM dresses, RW & CO.

And wouldn’t you know it? They are out of the ones I bought, but now they have OTHERS in stock… and they are an absolutely delicious shade of plum.

Of course, I just had to try it on and take some photos for y’all.

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I Do Bridal here in Vancouver (well, actually White Rock) had their amazing annual sample sale this past weekend:

As soon as I heard about it, I emailed my friend K who is getting married October 6th in Vegas.  Although it was only three weeks ’til her wedding, she still hadn’t found the perfect pair of shoes to go with her amazing dress. Finding the perfect shoes is tough, yo!
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It’s finally starting to feel real.

Well, okay, it also started to feel real when we sent out the invites… and when I bought my dress… and when I found my wedding day shoes. But those things were all “ohmygosh-we’re-really-getting-married”-real.

This time it’s “ohmygosh-we’re-really-going-to-Punta-Cana-to-get-married” -real. Last Friday was the deadline for all our guests to pay the rest of their hotel and flight balances. I was a bit nervous all last week, since, if people were going to bail out of coming to our wedding, that’s when it would have happened. The $200 deposit per person was due back in May, but the balance wasn’t due until last week. That was a long time, and who was to know what could have happened in four months (People could have gotten pregnant, that’s what… at least, with our friends.)!

Recently, reader Laura commented on my post about the invitations we made, asking what the ‘travel info’ card that we included with our invitations looked like. I can’t believe I forgot to show you. Here it is:
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You know that gorgeous song, ‘At Last’, by Etta James? The one that just makes your heart melt each time you hear it, even if it’s the umpteenth time? Yeah, that’s the one.

A lot of people use it as one of their wedding songs—to serenade them at the rehearsal dinner, to walk down the aisle to, or dance their first dance to. But me? I could NOT get that song out of my head the other day…

… the day I finally bought my bridesmaids’ dresses, that is!

Yep. After much pavement pounding, stressing out, extensive online shopping and a trip south of the border, I came full circle and found my bridesmaid dresses—at last—at a store right here in my hometown.

Argh!!!

I guess everything happens for a reason though.
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In my last post, I showed you about 30 purple bridesmaid-worthy dresses that I had come across in my online searches.

Sadly, although several were very lovely, almost all of them were out of our $100-but-if-we-find-one-for-$150-I’ll-ask-for-forgiveness-later budget range, and none of them sparked a twinkle in my eye.

So, bridesmaid Pepperpot (who just so happens to be my awesome cousin) and my brother’s wife, A. (who totally would have been a bridesmaid if she wasn’t going to be looking after my darling one-year-old niece) flew to Vancouver, and together, we three musketeers headed south for a road trip to Seattle.

Wait, did I say road trip? I meant shopping trip!

And at the top of our list: bridesmaid dresses.
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Previously in the Purple BM Dress Series:

Purple Dresses: The Quest Begins
The One Where the Bride Takes a Chill Pill

After months of scouring the city on foot, I had finally found Nirvana—a lovely purple bridesmaid dress for my girls—only to have it pooh-poohed.

It was at that point that I realized I had only one place left to turn.

Oh sure, I had dabbled in it before, sending Miss P, Pepperpot, and Lil’ SIL a couple of links to random dresses I found by accident, but at that time I was just trying to get a feel for what they might have liked.

At the time, I wasn’t serious about it. While I’ve done plenty of online window shopping, I’ve never ever actually bought clothes online before.

I don’t know if you American gals know how good you’ve got it.
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In my last post, I was telling you about how Mr. Breezy and I had decided to take care of our girls’ bridesmaid dresses, and how I had taken it upon myself to find said dresses.

After more than three months of scouring the city’s stores, I came upon what I thought was the perfect purple bridesmaid dress at Jacob.

After I sent my girls the pictures, I got a reply from Miss P. She said she was in, so I went back and scooped up one for each girl, juuuuuuust to make sure that Jacob didn’t go out of stock or something.

Well, that turned out to be entirely unnecessary. Because when I went back a month later to return all the dresses, they still had oodles and oodles of them in each size.

I guess you could say I was overcautious.

Not to mention over-optimistic, over-exhausted, and over- OMIGOSH-ONLY-SIX-MONTHS-LEFT-WHAT-ARE-WE-GONNA-DOOOOO???

Yeah. Six months. Not six weeks. Months.

It was time for this bride to take a chill pill.
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When I called to ask my lovely maiden sidekicks to stand at my side on our wedding day, I didn’t take them out for a ‘will you be my bridesmaid’ dinner, or make them thoughtful gifts or even send them a card. It was before my days of obsessive wedding magazine/blog reading had begun, and I didn’t even know people did that.

But I did do one thing.

I told them that having them fly down to the Caribbean for our special day meant so much to me that I wanted to make the rest of the whole bridesmaid adventure as easy and stress-free as possible.

So I thought back on my own bridesmaid experiences (and two flower girl experiences), and tried to think of the most painful part of them.

Was it curling ribbon ’till the wee hours of the morning for favors? Stringing lights throughout the hall and angling all the chairs just so the night before? Trying to stuff a crinoline explosion into a bathroom stall and make sure she didn’t pee-pee on her wedding shoes?

Nope.
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I’ve already found my wedding day BFFs which, with their strappy loveliness, are well suited for the Caribbean climate boogeying that I’m looking forward to at our destination wedding.

But, Mademoiselle Plath, I just had to tell you that, under different circumstances, I think you and I could have been good friends.

Plath by Natalie Portman, available at Té Casan

Oh yes… Very, very good friends.

Even after buying your wedding shoes, do you find yourself continuing the search?

Growing up, I remember my parents dragging my family to the Sears portrait studio every couple of years to ensure our most awkward stages of childhood were captured on film for the everlasting delight of all who saw them (Can you say pouffy bangs and pink glasses? Um, yeah, that was me).

So it seems funny to me now that, despite having been together for 5 years, Mr. Breezy and I have never taken professional photographs together.

That was, until a very serendipitous day when we got in touch with James Day, photographer extraordinaire (no pun intended; well ok, maybe a little intended).

And here is where I insert a very meaningful wedding lesson—nay, a life lesson. Ready for it?
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