MIA

I can't believe it's Friday and this is my first post of the week! I have lots to catch you all up on - my fabulous Pennsylvania shower being on of them. But first things first. On Monday I received a very important package:

SHE'S HERE! I waited to open the box until the future mister left the house for a softball game. And I had my mom on video chat so she was able to share the moment with me. The dress is about a size too big in the torso area, but I was expecting that. They also forgot to ship the veil with my dress, but that's all taken care of and will be arriving on Tuesday. Now I just have to schedule my fitting appointments! Until then, though, I have her hanging in our guest bedroom/my office/craft room. I know that the future mister wouldn't dare go in there, but it still makes me nervous.

Did anyone else have to worry about hiding their dress from their fiance?

THE call

Happy Friday! This week has certainly ended on a high note. Yesterday afternoon I received THE CALL. The most anticipated phone call for almost every bride. The call we anxiously await for months (or for me - a year and four months!). THE DRESS IS IN!

I purchased my dress at Kleinfeld's back in October 2009 during a trip to NYC with my mom. At that time, we decided that I would come home and have the alterations done at Kleinfeld's, which would guarantee that my mom could be there. Right after Christmas, though, the thought of having to somehow fit in and schedule another trip up North with all of the other stuff going on made me a sweaty, heart racing, anxious mess. So the dress will be shipped to me and I'll have the alterations done at the seamstress shop that Anne Barge recommended, which is in Atlanta. At least, that's the current plan.

Now I just have to (patiently??) wait for the delivery on the 21st!!

Hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

hair and makeup - take 2

Sorry for the long hiatus! It's been a busy week at work and slightly busy on the wedding front as well. Anywho....two weekends ago I had a second hair and makeup trial with someone new (see the first one here). Overall, I think it went great. This MUA/stylist was much more personable and really put me at ease. Unlike the last person, once she was finished we evaluated and tweaked the look until I was happy with the outcome. Let's take a look-see at the results, shall we?






The eye makeup basically looks the same as it did the last time, she just used pinks and mauves instead of browns and golds. I love, love, love the long lashes. The hair was much closer to what I wanted in the back, but the front looked a bit flat and sad. I much prefer the look of the front from my first trial. Plenty of body at the crown and more hair sweeping across my forehead.


Now here's where it gets frustrating. I received a follow up email from this person early last week and I responded with my thoughts, questions and concerns almost immediately and also to let her know that I would like to sign a contract and place a down payment. This week came and I still had not heard anything. So I sent another email on Monday. As of this morning, still nothing. I really hope nothing serious has happened, but I don't want to wait around twiddling my thumbs until I hear something back. I'm quite upset at the thought of going through this entire process yet again. Especially since the trial had gone so well! Luckily I had an appointment for a cut and color last night and when I was talking to my stylist about it she told me that she does wedding hair and makeup. So I went ahead and set up an appointment for a trial with her (but it's not for another two weeks). Keep your fingers crossed that the third time really is the charm!

Have you had any experience with unresponsive vendors? How did you handle it?

*UPDATE* I finally just received an email back with a copy of the contract and an explanation for the delayed response. Now I have to make a decision whether to book her or not. I really want to because I love what she did and we got along great, but future unresponsiveness would probably make me very anxious. Perhaps I should bring this to her attention and see what she says? Thoughts?

second thoughts

This past weekend I had a hair and makeup trial. After it was over, I thought things had gone pretty well - the makeup looked nice, my hair needed help, but the MUA said that if I booked her she would do another hair trial free of charge. My friend who went with me said I looked nice, as did the future mister when I got home. My mom agreed when I video chatted her and so did MOH Sam when I sent her a photo from my iPhone.

But now I'm having second thoughts. The hair definitely needs work, that's a given. I was going for something soft and romantic looking:

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But instead got a messy french twist looking thing.

(Can we say hot mess??)

The stylist tried, though. Apparently my hair wasn't cooperating (even though I went with dirty hair) - the curls weren't staying and after awhile it all became a static-y mess. Which is why I think she just haphazardly pinned it back and told me I need to grow it out longer. I hate long hair, by the way. My hair was much shorter at MOH Ash's wedding and I think her stylist did a great job.


Now makeup. I'm pretty good at doing my own. Case in point - my engagement photo makeup, which I ended up doing myself due to the Sephora semi-fail. So because of that, I sent the MUA these photos to show her how I like to wear my makeup.

(I threw this one in, too, for good measure)
(source)

Here are the after photos:

Like I said, the makeup looked nice, but there's just something bugging me about how I look in those photos. Maybe it's because they were taken in bad lighting with my crappy point-and-shoot. Because I do actually like the photos that I took with my iPhone:



Or maybe it's because, in person, I could tell that it was just sooo much makeup compared to what I wear on a daily basis. I've also thought that it could be because the makeup she used was warmer (i.e. golds, bronzes, yellow browns), when I usually wear cooler tones (mauves, pinks, grays) - blushing bride rather than golden goddess.

Whatever it is, something just isn't sitting right. Now I have a few different options. I can pay her the deposit to hold the date for me and just do another trial (both hair and makeup) before the wedding. She contacted me today to let me know that she has another inquiry on my date, so that decision would have to be made soon. Or I can make an appointment with another MUA/stylist and hope that trial goes better. I don't want to be left with no options and no one available if I just keep searching around. But I also don't want to jump into a contract that I feel uneasy about. What do you think I should do? Does anyone have some words of wisdom?

dresses are in

Right after Christmas I got a wonderful call from Bella Bridesmaid letting me know that our bridesmaid dresses were in and that they would soon be shipped out to all my girls. Woohoo! Everyone has them by now, so it's time to make some decisions about the rest of their ensemble.

First I narrowed down our shoe options to silver or raspberry and asked my lovely ladies for feedback and opinions. Although the raspberry would be an awesome pop! of color, it would probably look best if all the girls had the same exact shoe or same exact raspberry color. That seems like too much thinking, searching, stressing. So silver it is!

Jewelry?? Well, MOH Ash had the fabulous suggestion of maybe incorporating raspberry into the jewelry. That got my wheels turning and reminded me of this beautiful berry colored hair flower that my co-worker wore at her wedding in October - from ban.do. My mom and I had already discussed possibly making a fabric flower of some sort to either go on the girls' sashes or in their hair. Perfect solution. So...silver shoes, silver jewelry (if they want to incorporate the raspberry into the jewelry, great, but not necessary) and maybe some raspberry flowers. Done and done.

(dress, flowers, shoes 1, 2, 3)

How did you decide on your girls' shoes and accessories? Did you give them guidelines or leave it all up to them?

the final bm dress colors

I kind of left you all hanging with regard to the final bridesmaid dress decision. What colors did we choose? Well after much deliberation - yes, I fedex overnighted the swatches to my mom in Pennsylvania because I have a hard time making up my own mind without her input - we decided on these beautiful shades of blue:

Powder Blue, Tiffany Blue, Mist, Paradise and Pond
(this photo shows the colors more true to life than the ones shown below, fyi)

MOH Ashley - LulaKate Pearl (as shown) in Powder Blue

MOH Sam - LulaKate Angela (as shown) in Tiffany Blue

BM Emily - LulaKate Pam (with straight skirt) in Mist

BM Katie - LulaKate Gina (with straight skirt) in Paradise, which is the color of the dress she has on

BM Becca - LulaKate Pearl (with box pleat skirt) in Pond

I'm really excited about the choices we made and think the different shades flow nicely together. I can't wait to see what they all look like on the day of the wedding!

Do you ever have a hard time making decisions on your own? Is there one person's input that you rely on more than anyone else's?

bridesmaid shoe-spiration

As of Wednesday afternoon all of the bridesmaid dresses have been ordered! They will all be wearing LulaKate dresses in different shades of blue. I'll let you know what we ended up choosing for the final colors a little bit later. For now, though, let's talk shoes. I'm going to let my lovely ladies pick their own shoes (or wear ones they already have), but I'm having a hard time deciding which direction I want to take. The choices are endless, I guess, but I've narrowed it down into a few different color categories - silver, gold, pewter, nude/beige/ivory, or something fun like raspberry or fuchsia.

1. BCBG Mirna 2. Butter Claudia 3. Nina Papina 4. RSVP Sadie 5. Brigitte Bailey
6. Nine West Accolia 7. Badgley Mischka Randall 8. BCBGirls Ariel

1. Nina Culver 2. Naturalizer Prissy 3. Anne Klein Frolic 4. Anne Klein Kalei
5. Nina Forbes 6. Naturalizer Princeton 7. Me Too Sweet

1. Nina Electra 2. Romantic Soles Hailey 3. Isola Dolce
4. Etienne Aigner Vivica 5. Lovely People Karen

1. Nina Fulvia

What color do you think would go best with light blue/aqua/robin's egg blue dresses? Did you have your bridesmaids wear the same shoes or did they pick their own?

dressing my ladies - bridals by lori

After we left Bella Bridesmaid, we decided to stop for lunch at nearby Tin Lizzy's Cantina.

(source)

Because my bridesmaids are awesome, Emily offered to drive my car so that I could enjoy some lunchtime margaritas. It was a major buzzkill, though, when on our way to Lori's we got pulled over. None of us had any clue why - maybe speeding? Turns out, it was because we ran a stop sign at a 5-way intersection. Eek! I'm pretty sure the SUV in front of us did the same? But I can't say that I was paying very close attention. We, or I should say Emily, got a citation. Bummer. We brushed it off and eventually made it to Bridals by Lori.

After trying on a few dresses, we decided to focus on the flowy, silk chiffon ones by Amsale. Everyone loved this stunning one-shoulder dress.

Becca

Katie

Sam

Emily

MOH Sam also loved the halter above. The floral detailing is a nice touch since my dress has flowers on it. The upside - everyone loved these dresses. I even tried some on and they truly felt like pajamas. I also love the look of chiffon and think it meshes well with our vintage/rustic/garden wedding (more so than the stiffer looking silk shantung). The downside - there was only one color even remotely close to what I was looking for and it just didn't make my heart sing (sorry - corny, I know) like the LulaKate colors.

Amsale - Ocean

If ocean was just a little bit lighter/brighter I would most likely scrap my idea of having all the girls in different shades and go with the Amsale dresses. With that said, I guess I'm leaning more towards the LulaKate dresses. Any ideas/insight/suggestions would be much appreciated!

dressing my ladies - bella bridesmaid

This is going to be a long one...

Our first stop Saturday morning was at Bella Bridesmaid, a quaint little shop in the Buckhead area of Atlanta.


After trying on a few different styles, the maids were gravitating towards these two from Coren Moore - one boatneck and one sweetheart, both with lovely detailing.






We were excited that the dress picking was so easy, but little did we know that the fabric color palette that the consultant had laid out on the table (with at least 10 different shades of blue, that I loved) was not the one for Coren Moore. Instead we had only 4 shades of blue to choose from and they didn't flow together as nicely.

(source)

So we discussed a combination of their tiffany blue and lime.


Sometime during this discussion, the consultant came over and showed us some photographs of a wedding where half the bridesmaid dresses were tiffany with light green sashes and the other half were light green with tiffany sashes. To give you some reference, this is the photo I showed her as inspiration at the beginning of the appointment:

(from the newest edition of Southern Weddings Magazine)

Needless to say, the photo she showed me was pretty much the exact opposite of the above mismatched look I was going for. At that point, another consultant came in and took over our appointment. It was just at the right time, too, because I think my bridesmaids were picking up on the fact that I was disappointed and a bit overwhelmed/frustrated with the other consultant's lack of understanding. So they spoke up and we started over. This time, we focused on the dresses that coincided with the color palette I was initially drooling over. The following dresses are LulaKate or - as our (new) consultant put it - the build-a-bear of bridesmaid dresses. There are 14 different bodice choices and about 7 different skirt choices. My bridesmaids picked out the following styles:

MOH Sam chose Angela, a straight across strapless shown with box-pleat skirt. She liked this style as is.

BM Emily chose Pam, a cross-over/sweetheart with straps. It is shown with the box-pleat, but Emily likes it better with the straight skirt.

BM Katie chose Gina, a scoop neck front and back. She prefers the straight skirt as well, rather than the party skirt shown here.

BM Becca picked the sweetheart neckline, Pearl, with the box-pleat instead of the straight skirt shown.

All of the dresses would include the band as seen in the Angela and Pam photos or potentially a sash instead, similar to the Coren Moore dresses we liked in the beginning. And below are all of the shades of blueish green. I'm waiting on Bella Bridesmaid to send me some swatch samples since the colors look drastically different in person. Right now I'm leaning towards a combination of Pond, Tiffany Blue, Surf, Mist and either Waterfall or Paradise. As BM Becca explained to the consultant - I want my bridesmaids to look like 5 girls showed up to the wedding wearing dresses that just happened to go together.

Here we are, at the end of the appointment, happy with the decisions made and with plenty of options to discuss over lunch. All of the girls' measurements were taken and their preferred style combinations were written down. Now I'm just waiting for an email from our consultant and some fabric swatches. The designer for LulaKate will be at Bella on the 27th, so I might be able to go back and get sketches made and price quotes for all of the dresses we are considering.

Next up: our appointment at Bridals by Lori throws a wrench into the mix.