- Blog
- Bios
- Boards
- Classifieds
- DIY
- Gallery
- Vendor Reviews
- Shop Weddingbee
Weddingbee Blog
Obviously when people think of “wedding” and “dress” they think of the elegant white dress the bride wears when she walks down the aisle. What you don’t always think of are all the “other” dresses the bride wears to the various events that generally accompany a wedding.
Besides the dress I bought for engagement photos, I’ve purchased two “wedding related” dresses. At the start of the planning process I promised myself that I was NOT going to spend tons of money on items like these, and I think I did a pretty good job. I did spend a little more money than I usually might, but I didn’t go completely crazy. I think I a reasonable amount of money for some events that will only happen once (in honor of Mr.O and me anyway).
I bought this dress on sale at an awesome little boutique in town called Cole Couture. At the time my mom and I were toying with the idea of a getaway dress, and this one caught my eye. As soon as I got it on I knew it’d be the perfect bridal shower dress. On sale it was around $45.
 |
| Please excuse my no makeup face andcrazy hair! / Personal Photo |
Here’s the deal: since our venue is located in a cute little residential neighborhood, there is a noise ordinance in effect all nights, weekends included. Thus, our reception needs to be over by 9:30PM.
Foxy and I both decided that this was much too early to end the evening. This wedding will be over two years in the making—we want to enjoy the day and the night as much as humanly possible! Wouldn’t you?! Enter: the after party.
Apparently this is a very common thing at the Vandiver. 99% of newlyweds and their guests head the whole three blocks over to “downtown” Havre de Grace after their reception to continue partying the night away with participating friends and family. Having visited the two main bars in the area several times, we’ve decided on a place to go that we will have our DJ announce shortly before the reception is over. We’ll also have our DOC call the bar and warn them a wedding fiesta is coming their way. I’m incredibly stoked about it all.
The only issue this presents is that of my wedding dress. I asked Foxy if he thought I should just wear it out to the bar, which he didn’t think was a very good idea. I don’t think he realized it at the time, but he basically told me to get another dress. Boom. 
Read more…
I know I told you just a few days ago that Momma Hawk purchased the gold Adrianna Papell Metallic Crepe Sheath Dress and Bolero from Nordstrom. (Here it is again in case y’all forgot how it looked.)
But then we made a stop off at Nordstrom Rack. (Real quick. Just to see their selection. Famous last words, right?) One swoop around the clearance section, and Momma Hawk and I both had an armful of dresses. (Sigh.) We are awfully glad we stopped, though, because after trying them all on, we had added two additional (very affordable) dresses to the mix.
Tell it to me straight, hive. Do you find yourself spending more money on certain things and then justifying it as being “for the wedding?” Even if the objects you are buying are only tangentially related to the wedding?
Man, I have to answer yes to both of those questions. I just got back from Nordstrom Rack. Again. I know, I know. The store is way too close to where I am going once a week now for wedding dress alterations. I ended up finding another dress to be part of my “other wedding dresses” collection. I am justifying this purchase in my head for three reasons:
1. I will wear it to our rehearsal dinner, thus making the original rehearsal dinner dress into a honeymoon dress. And, seriously, can you have too many honeymoon dresses? (Rational Brain pops up to say, “Yes. Seriously. You can. You are getting preeeetty close to that point.” Wedding Brain quickly shuts her down, though, by humming along with “Somebody’s Getting Married” from Muppets Take Manhattan.)
Read more…
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.”
When we returned back to the Sacramento area, we visited the Nordstrom in Roseville to continue our MOB dress search, and although the location didn’t have the bridal suite, the selection of dresses was much more impressive!
The first dress was Adrianna Papell’s Flutter Sleeve Dress. We liked the shape of the dress, but Momma Hawk was not a fan of the flutter sleeve.
Second off was the Patra Pleated Satin Sheath. This dress was definitely a step up from the previous dress but not as special as some of the others we’d seen.
Read more…
While with the family in Northern California we, much to Mr. Hawk’s chagrin, did a lot of shopping. I mean, A.LOT. of shopping. One of the main to-do’s on the agenda was finding the perfect dress for Momma Hawk. I would describe Momma Hawk as sophisticated with a classic, clean style. Many of the dresses we had seen at bridal shops seemed somewhat frumpy and definitely didn’t suit her. We were determined to find something outside of the bridal shops.
While in San Francisco, we made a stop off at the Nordstrom at Union Square. This location offers a bridal suite and I was hopeful they’d have plenty of MOB dresses.
The first dress she tried was Adrianna Papell’s Metallic Crepe Sheath Dress with matching bolero:
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Right after getting engaged I was on cloud nine. I spent the first month of our engagement skipping around singing, “I’m getting maaaaaaarried!!!!!”, staring at my shiny new ring, and watching about a hundred reruns of Say Yes to the Dress.
Image via TLC / C’mon, Randy, you know you want to help me find my perfect dress!!
To be honest, I didn’t know the first thing about planning a wedding. I have not been to many weddings in my lifetime (which is surprising considering my huge family), and I pretty much thought that planning a wedding consisted of buying a pretty dress, saying “I do,” and dancing the night away with friends and family.
No, not for me. Yet. ::foreshadowing::
Back around the time my mom bought her dress for the wedding, my future mother-in-law began emailing me about whether or not it was time “to start to think about fretting” about her own dress. Always one to fret and one to never think it’s too early to plan or decide on things, I told her to take her time, but by all means, start the search!
Going in, I let her know my only “requirements” for any of the mother dresses (mom, FMIL, step mom) are that they aren’t black, red, or brown. It’s all much too bold (red) or dreary (black/brown) for the vibe of our wedding, and just wouldn’t “go.” Other than that, I really just want everyone to be comfortable.
Well, FMIL ran into the same problem my mom did—all the “mother of…” dresses are just much too matronly and not her style in the least.
Read more…
You just heard about Eagle’s “to black tie or not to black tie” dilemma. For us, black tie wasn’t ever something that was truly “debated.” It had been lingering in the back of our heads for a while, but, with a nighttime wedding (ceremony at 6:30pm, cocktails at 7:30pm), we knew that the overall vibe of the event would be on the formal end of the spectrum.
 |
| Many of my inspiration photos involved candles |
Black tie was one of those “we’ll figure it out later” things.
When the venue changed, we had to rethink a lot of the details of the reception. After all, we were going from a unique, completely open space with lots of light to a more traditional ballroom.
Today I want to talk a little about those other wedding dresses. You know, the ones you wear to the shower, to the bachelorette party, to the rehearsal dinner, to the dinner that first night on your honeymoon. I love to wear dresses, so I had a great time shopping for ones for these occasions. In fact, I might have had more fun on these shopping trips than I did when looking for my actual wedding dress!
The first dress I found was for the rehearsal dinner. I wanted to wear something “bride-like,” but not necessarily bridal, if you get my incredibly fuzzy distinction. I ended up finding a silk-blend dress from Banana Republic in a shade of ivory. It was on sale, so I bought it in September for $38 and change. I am pairing it with a J.Crew cardigan, which I also got on sale. I may use it again with my wedding dress (after our Vegas reception, during our Milwaukee party). I’m also wearing my grandmother’s graduated pearl necklace. On my feet are my Kate Spade Ollie flats.
The prolific “black tie” weddings that we all see in movies like Wedding Crashers and Sex and the City 2, and on websites like WedLuxe have made me believe that black-tie weddings are pretty standard.
Sex and the City 2 / Image via IMDB
Then, I grew up and started going to actual real-life weddings. I’ve never been to a black-tie wedding. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a wedding where the groom even wore a tuxedo. Now that I think of it, I’ve never been to a wedding where someone wasn’t wearing jeans. Yes: jeans at a wedding. In some places like NYC, black-tie weddings are the standard, and no one would bat an eye at someone placing those words on their reception card. Here: cowboys would read “black tie” and think, “Oh, I can wear my black jeans, black hat, and my black bolo tie.” Not exactly what I was thinking.
My mom loves shopping, but she loves shopping for me and not for herself. Every once in awhile she’ll find a cute top or a new pair of PJs, but that’s usually for every ten things she finds that is intended for me. When it came to what she would wear for the wedding, as expected, she was pretty casual about her expectations. Until one day I sensed in her voice that she was slightly worried, and then she told me that she had my aunt searching the Internet for her because she “just couldn’t find anything.” My aunt sent her links to some Nordstrom dresses, I search David’s Bridal, but nothing was standing out. I decided that Internet shopping was not going to work.
Knowing how much my mom dislikes trying on clothes and spending money on said clothes, I knew it was going to have to be a sneak-attack.
Read more…
I consider my mom to be a stylish lady. Her hair always looks great (seriously, everywhere we go she gets compliments, it’s turned into a ridiculous joke), her makeup is always nicely done, and she is always wearing cute clothes.
So the search for the Mother of the Bride dress should be super easy, right? Wrong.
The search for my dress was much easier than the search for her dress. Seriously, and it has nothing to do with my mom being overly picky or anything. It is the simple matter of the options for MOB dresses are not great. They are either matronly looking or kind of hoochie mama.
Read more…
I detailed my experience shopping with my mom for her dress here. We bickered, laughed, and gave each other headaches. And in the end we left empty handed. Well, this time it’s time to talk about the other mama: my future mother-in-law. While out with her sister, she found a dress she liked at David’s Bridal. I got an excited phone call about it and told her if she liked it to just go ahead and buy it. She said the color was a nice burgundy, the dress was knee length, had a jacket and was perfect. In my head I was thinking “Yay! One less thing I have to make a decision on!” But she would not buy it without showing it to me first. So we made plans to go see the dress together the next day. I figured we’d see it, I’d give my stamp of approval and she would buy it. Simple right? Well, the next morning she called me and said she was worried that the color was too dark of purple. She said it was almost black, actually. Wait, wasn’t the dress supposed to be burgundy? And didn’t she love it less than 12 hours ago?
Turns out that both of my mamas are indecisive. And my MIL in particular doesn’t see colors too well. Yup, she’s legally color blind.
Read more…
One of the things that can really suck about living 350 miles from home is that I don’t see my Foxy Mama nearly as much as I would like. It’s one of those weird life things where you just want to get away when you’re 17 and off to college, then you’re dying to be closer 10 years later when you’re a bit more mature and realize how super awesome your mom really is.
Mine totally is 
It gets even harder when you’re planning a wedding and can’t have your mom there for most of it.
I definitely missed her being there when I first went wedding-dress shopping, but was so incredibly thrilled that I ended up finding “the one” when I was finally able to go with her last November; thinking back, I’m not sure I would have been 100% certain of the dress had she not been there. She was the one who even pulled it off the rack!
| Visit our sister sites | eHarmony Online Dating |
eHarmony Advice Dating Advice |
Project Wedding Wedding Songs |
JustMommies Pregnancy Calendar |
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 | 30 | 31 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
