Weddingbee Blog

Hi,

My sister and I got married a few months apart but had very different weddings. I got married in a hotel ballroom in New York while she got married in Asia. I planned my whole wedding while she had to rely on others for advice and planning. Recently, she confided in me that she was unhappy with our mother’s lack of interest and participation through her wedding process and on her wedding day. My experience was different because I had complete control of my wedding and I delegated tasks to everyone in the wedding party. My sister, however, felt like she needed guidance because she wasn’t familiar with wedding traditions in Asia and our mother simply did not step up to help her even after she asked.

A good friend of mine got married last year and I noticed that her mother stayed behind the scenes. What are the duties or what kind of expectations do brides have of their mothers? How involved were your mothers? I usually hear stories of brides complaining about their mothers or their in laws getting too involved and not the other way around.

A

This year for mother’s day, I decided to be a little “cheaper” than usual and make my mother-in-law a gift rather than purchase one (bc of the wedding and all ).

The other day when I was at her house, I was making 2 dahlia pens for my bridal shower - apparently, she’s never seen a “flower pen” before - so she was all excited and told me “what a cool idea” it was.

Soooo, that’s how I came up with the idea to make her a whole vase full of flower pens for her to enjoy. (I used peonies and tulips - which is appropriate in the Vietnamese culture because the translation of ‘peony’ literally means ‘mother’ - a little useless fyi of the day!)

Here is what I made:

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The ladies in my family are built weird, short and waistless. We have short torsos and carry most of our weight there, to add to the many reasons we loathe to shop for dresses and things like that. So, I guess you’d say we’re plus-sized, or just “not small”.

Now that my gown has been found, and my FMIL has her gown set, my mom is lagging. I know she’s been waiting until the “right time” to shop, but honey, it’s now. Who knows if she’ll need alterations or something? So, I’ve got to point her in the right direction. But where to find petite large sizes?

I went to Chadwicks, the place where I’ve heard a ton of MOB dresses have been found, and loved this dress: Beaded jacket dress $159.00, in gold.

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My mom has gone and done it…

She finally found a dress (it is incredible!) and has ordered it from NetBride. I know several of you have inquired as to the reliability of ordering from an online company and so far, we have been extremely happy with their service. I will keep you posted as the order progresses.

So, without any further ado…

The top color is champagne and the bottom is acorn. This picture makes it look much lighter than the dress really is. The dress is from Watters & Watters.

I can’t wait to see her in the dress! It is so pretty and motherly, without being frumpy. We had a really hard time finding the perfect dress for her, as they all seem like evening wear attire (which she did not want to look like she was going to the prom) or matronly and inelegant, so we were very happy when she tried this on and it looked beautiful!

Yesterday my future mother in law forwarded me a picture of the dress that she would love to wear for the wedding. Since she’s been a mother of the groom as well as a mother of the bride before, she wanted to wait for my mom to get her stuff, and then try to accent her dress, not overshadow.

According to these sites:(scroll down to the bottom), this is the tradition when it comes to the mothers of the groom. Mr. Kiwi’s mom is very traditional, and wants to do things according to the book (like the rehearsal dinner I posted about previously!) which I think is very nice.

Anyway, my FMIL ran this dress by me, and she wanted to make sure it was okay. Then she called this morning and said that if my mom is wearing a gold dress as we’ve planned, then she’ll wear beige, or a copper color. Because, and I quote, “She’s the star.” Well, actually, I’m the star, but whatever. Kidding.

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My mom is one of the best shoppers I know, but she’s always out looking for something for everyone BUT herself. I’ve been scouring Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale’s in LA to no avail, and she’s been vigilantly checking the web and magazines for anything she might like. A few outfits were shipped home, but nothing passed “the test” and we were still at ground zero.

So while I was home this week, we took a side trip up to San Jose on Monday to go shopping for her wedding outfit. Things seemed to come up empty, until we happened upon the ridiculously extensive special occasion section at Macy’s, and actually came away with 4 dresses that she really liked. We narrowed the selection down to two, swiped the Macy’s card and took them home to see if Dad could help narrow the selection process… or rather if she could make her final choice. Both looked great on her, and neither made her feel “matronly” … which was her main fear of most “Mother of the Bride” outfits that she found.

Here’s what she narrowed it down to:

1) Tadashi tiered dress, Navy

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One thing I’ve realized as I plan for our wedding is that the big day isn’t just for us, but for our parents, too. I have a very close and nurturing relationship with my parents, and I know that they are anticipating the wedding day with almost as much eagerness as I am. My mom doesn’t normally show a lot of emotion, but I know that she is super excited to be the mother of the bride on that day. I can tell, because she is so excited about what she is going to wear and finding accessories that will match! My mom searched around for a dress for a while before finding one that she really liked - and to my surprise, she found it online! Chadwicks.,/ has a nice selection of well-made gowns at affordable prices. One of my mom’s good friends surprised her by purchasing this gown for her, after my mom showed it to her online:

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We’ve got a winner in the dress category! For my mom, that is… she’s been on the prowl for something to wear to my wedding, so we spent the afternoon in the dressing rooms of Neiman Marcus, Lord & Taylor and Nordstroms. She had already gone through numerous outfit changes, all of which produced an “Ehhh… that’s just ok…” reaction from both of us. Taking her overall style into account, we figured she would end up getting a fairly traditional two piece mother-of-the-bride-ish type dress. Something like this:

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Today, I took my mom, sister, and aunt to start searching for the perfect MOB dress. The shopping gods must’ve been smiling down on us today because we found not one, but TWO great dresses.
The funny thing is, they’re absolutely nothing like what she’s ever worn before and nothing like what I had envisioned for her!

We found both dresses at Whatchamacallit Fashions:

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What do you think?

(also Saeyoung Vu Couture)

Too young? Too plain? I’ll definitely add a shawl for her…..

Opinions, anyone?

I don’t want her to look old because she’s not, so no long dresses paired with long sleeve blazer-type things.

What designers are the best for mother dresses?

Last Sunday, Mama Blueberry and I went back to Fashions at Large (the shop we got Katie’s bridesmaid dress at) to find the perfect MOB dress for her. Katie and I had seen several cute dresses when we were browsing the day before, and I really wanted my mom to try on a couple.

My mom tried on several gorgeous dresses, and eventually found one really amazing one. What excited her more than the dress, though, I think, was the longline bra and Spanx “Higher power” (who doesn’t love Spanx?). She bought the outfit (a long dress + shorter jacket) and longline bra, and I just ordered Spanx for me and her, from the Spanx website. She looks so amazing in her wedding-day outfit, and I’m really happy that she found something so great!

I forgot to get a picture of her in the dress, so here are a couple of my dad’s arm holding it up, back at home.

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Last night I was chatting with a girlfriend who said that her mother disliked most of her wedding-related choices. This made me pause and think… I guiltily realized that I’ve been leaving my mother out of much of my wedding planning. Well, we did choose the venue that she and my dad always wanted me to get married at. And since they are paying for a large chunk of the reception, they will be involved in the menu tastings, etc., later on down the road. It was also important for me to go dress shopping with her, and she was there the very first time I put on a wedding gown. But since then, Mr. E and I have basically taken it from there. I figured that since we are paying for everything else, most of the decisions are ours to make… right…?

Don’t get me wrong, I love my Mom very much, but mothers always have something to say about everything, haha. Therefore I am just worried that she will continually bah humbug my choices and decisions, which will lead to arguments and overall disgruntledness. This was already the case early on in the process when she complained about the size of our bridal party, and we argued about the size of their guestlist.

How normal is this? How involved are your parents, and more importantly, your mother? In what ways can I involve her which will have the least possibility of conflict?

Ack! I need help finding an appropriate mother-of-the-bride dress for my stepmother. She’s not old enough to be my mother (late 40’s) so I don’t want to dress her like she is. Any suggestions on where to shop? It’s a Friday evening, summer wedding that’s not black tie, and we’re taking photos outside before the ceremony.

Thanks - you guys are the best!

xo,

e

I know, I know, I’m supposed to be blogging about the bazillion things I promised to blog about, but when you’re so busy getting things done - you find you have little time to blog at all.

On top of our down-to-the-wire wedding planning, my parents moved out of their house. Tomorrow morning they will hand the keys to the new owners and my mom said when they locked the doors for the last time she felt a little pang of regret. Because I have been home all day working on this, that and the other, I didn’t drive over to say good bye to the house I grew up in. And for that, I feel a big ass pang of regret. Sigh, alas I have but my memories…

Despite having only slept 2 hours (mom, not me), we went dress shopping and my mom finally found a dress at none other than Lotus Bridal! Since their seamstress was there and had time open, my mom donned the gown and got fitted for alterations. After the dress got cut and pinned they drew up the bill and OMIGOD we both lost our breaths. Of course, I recovered first and reassured my mom that it was worth it and not to worry, but LORDY lord it costs a pretty SHINY penny. It was quite the splurge so have mercy and tell me it’s GORGEOUS. Haha, no but seriously, mama looked smokin~!

Jovani Style#: 213245285

Yesterday we went shopping for a gown for Mr. Spider’s mom. “We” consisted of me, Mr. Spider, his dad, his brother, his brother’s girlfriend and his mom’s friend. Like an army we went to Roosevelt Field Mall in Long Island. What started as an army quickly dwindled down to just Mr. Spider’s mom, her friend and I. We hit Bloomingdale’s, Nordstrom’s, Macy’s and Jessica McClintock. By the end of the day, I felt like I had run a marathon and my poor choice of shoes left me with two blisters.

Since I offered to pay for her dress, Mr. Spider’s mom kept looking at price tags before trying anything on. I kept telling her to ignore the price and just try on whatever she liked. She started with some reluctance, choosing only the understated dresses while I kept pushing her to try on the most elaborate gowns I could find. Eventually she got the hang of it, sashaying down out of the dressing rooms and standing on the little platforms in front of the 3-way mirrors with her hands on her hips.

When we got it down between 2 dresses, we called Mr. Spider and his dad back from whatever plasma TV they were drooling over to help with the final vote. I knew Mr. Spider’s mom had her favorite, and I knew she was hesistant because of the gown’s price tag ($265). So I threw my vote towards that gown, twirling her around, soliciting compliments from bystanders (”she looks amazing, doesn’t she?”) and giving Mr. Spider and his dad the evil eye to agree.

Finally she relented and admitted she loved the dress. Just before we went to pay I noticed the same dress hanging on the SALE rack. Turns out the dress was marked down by 40%. SCORE~! Everyone was happy but that’s not where the story ends.

I went home and looked up the dress on Nordstrom.com and it was on sale for 70% off~!!! So I called the store itself this morning, spoke to a manager and asked for a price adjustment. She pulled up my credit card info over the phone and issued me a $90 credit. The final price for this gown, $79.50. I’m going to buy Mr. Spider’s mom a shawl and fancy purse since we saved so much. When I told her, she was THRILLED haha.

I didn’t take any pictures of her in the dress so here it is on me. It’s a little big on me but fits her like a glove.

(I’m holding up the dress with one hand so I don’t flash yall. Note that I am standing on a small stool haha.)

(Mr. Spider told me to “lean into the corner”.)