Many ideas for the wedding

This weekend all of my bridesmaids bought purple dresses.

That was exciting. And no, I'm not having my bridesmaids wear black tights. Unless they just want to. I also have several ideas for flowers and table arrangements. I love the purple and green orchids. I'm thinking just to tone down the color with a little bit more white in the arrangements. And I love the two cakes! I love the green orchids on the second cake, but I might do a purple ribbon instead. I like the idea of the apple and the orchid....I'm not so sure about those peas though...Oh yeah, and I tried on two cute dresses this weekend. I'm getting very excited!!!!!!!

Another dress shopping weekend!

I'm revisiting a store I went to last weekend to try on dresses tomorrow. I'm taking John with me. I don't really care about "bad luck" of him seeing me in my dress, besides, it's not really my dress since they only carry dress samples at bridal boutiques. Plus these dresses are probably more expensive than my mom will let me have.

The dress I really want costs around $3000-$5000 and I would have to have it custom made in Chicago: http://www.alicepadrul.com/2007collection.php#_self click on "Lily". If someone wants to tell me how to paste pictures in here, please oblige me.

So my first expedition dress shopping was two Saturdays ago. John and I found this boutique called "Mockingbird Bridal." I tried to get in the door and was immediately confronted with the sight of a girl trying on a strapless satin ball gown. So I sidestepped her into a little room off the to right holding dress sample. Every last one of them was a strapless satin ball gown. I elbowed my way past the girl to find the next rack of strapless satin ball gowns and was practically pushed into the rack by three girls gushing over a strapless satin ball gown. I fought my way through the crowds of mothers and daughters and bridesmaids-to-be to get in line for the dressing room with the one lace dress with straps I could find where another bride was trying on a strapless satin ball gown. Four dress assistants walked past me without so much as asking if I needed assistance. By now, I'm totally nauseated by the spectacle and I tell John we might as well save ourselves and get out of there. The moral of the story is the following: don't go dress shopping on a Saturday and don't go without an appointment.

So then I went to Terry Costa Formals on the following Friday. I told the lady I was doing and informal outdoor wedding, and that I was leary of strapless satin ball gowns. She said "that's gonna be a problem...." So she put me in a bunch of things that were totally opposite to what I asked for. She said there were some choices like I asked for, but the samples were about a size 6 or 8, so my size 12 body was not going to fit into them. Most of the dresses I did try on had to be clamped onto my body so I could see how they would look zipped up since none of them would zip over my enormous blubbery back. In the interest of saving the zippers in the sample dresses, she began putting them on over my head. She tried to put a mermaid silouette dress on me and the "fishtail" portion of the dress wouldn't go past my giant hips, so I had the bust of the dress around my ears. I was slightly embarrassed. Please email me if you want to see the pictures of the hideous experience.

The next day, John was picking up some shirts from a place in a fancy shopping center in Highland Park. A cute wedding dress boutique called "Warren Barron" was next door. No one was in there, so though I knew I couldn't afford anything in that store, I went in. The ladies were nice and even let me touch the dresses. The owner of the store asked what my budget was and recommended a similar store with less high end stuff "Our dresses start around $5000" she told me.

It was a nasty day with the hurricane coming in, so the lady at the other store, Blush Couture, told me to come right in. So I did and I got to try on about eight dresses, all of which I loved a lot more than anything at Terry Costa. And they didn't even carry ball gowns. And the lady told me my figure was too cute to hide in a shapeless dress anyway. Did I mention I love this store? And when she was printing out my appraisal she let me eat these delicious things called "cruffles" which are cakes covered in chocolate like truffles. I cannot describe how delicious these things were....I ate two.

So the three dresses from the Bellissima collection I tried on were these:

Emilia...which looks pretty damn close to the Alice Padrul I love...and check out the ruffles on the back!!! http://www.bellissimabridal.com/couture/emilia.html

Tessa...which I normally would hate on the rack, but my curves looked so smokin in this dress...I looked like Marilyn Monroe!!! http://www.bellissimabridal.com/couture/tessa.html

And Silvana..really my favorite dress in concept, but the others may have looked better on my body...John will have to weigh in for sure: http://www.bellissimabridal.com/couture/silvana.html

So I'm pretty excited to have John see them because they are all beautiful dresses. Anyway, they're around $2000-$2300, and my mom has informed me that the most I should pay is $500. Which doesn't make sense to me because they tell you your dress should be about 10% of your total budget. Am I having a $5000 wedding? I hope not....

Anyway, I'm going to Charleston for my mom's 61st birthday next weekend. So I'm going to sit down with my parents and outline a budget and then we're going to do family dress shopping together next Monday. So I will keep my faithful reader updated on how that goes!!

Very exciting development: reception music

As I've mentioned, I had many of the details for John's and my wedding far before we got engaged. Here is the story of our first dance song:

My sister bought me a karaoke toy for Christmas last year because I love karaoke. On the "greatest hits" SD card, there were included several 80s music videos. John became a quick fan of "Safety Dance" and "We Belong" (Pat Benetar). I liked Night Ranger's "Sister Christian." The next one on the list was "Always" by Atlantic Starr. Neither of us knew what it was, but when we clicked on it, we both looked at each other and belted out the lyrics of the love-song duet. It's still one of our favorite songs. One day, I said to him, we should have this as our first song at our wedding. He enthusiastically agreed.

Here's the song, if you need a memory jog:
http://www.yourweddingplace.com/wedding-songs/first-dance-lyrics/lyrics%20always%20atlantic%20starr.htm

Anyway, John is also very keen on having a jazzy/swing type band play at our reception. So I have this brilliant idea. I'm planning to have one of my friends who is now a choir director sing at the ceremony. So I put it past her to get a male vocalist to sing this song with her at the reception, possibly a capella since most of the song is singing anyway. She said she'd love to, so I'm very excited to hear her performance because this song often brings tears to my eyes even though it's totally cheesy (and obviously to dance for the first time with my husband, too).

Dealing with my mother

Before I even got engaged I knew exactly what I wanted to do for my wedding day. I had it all planned out. I even knew who the wedding party was going to be and asked them the night I got engaged.

I informed my parents that I was hoping to do something simple and relatively small, in my childhood home's backyard. My dad was thrilled. He thought it was great because much of the decoration cost for the wedding would actually go toward permanent beautification of his property.

However, my mother went psycho. She first explained that you had to consider rain for an October wedding. I pointed out that there was no month in which rain was a total impossibility. She said we'd need a $25,000 tent and we'd have to lay astroturf in case of rain. Astroturf??? Are you kidding me???

Then there are the horses in my neighbors front yard. What was I planning to do to block the view of the horses? Where are people going to use the bathroom? Where are people going to park? Where is the wedding party going to walk in from? How can I cater a reception that is at the same location as the ceremony? Am I planning to replant the entire yard with fall flowers? She was totally ballistic. I almost started to cry.

My mother has been warming up to the idea of having it at her house over the last few weeks, but of course everyone is siding with her that it would be better to have the wedding at some third party venue. She tried to get me to do Reflections in Lexington. Their ceiling looks like the ceiling at my office and the pond is green. Then she wanted me to do Riverbanks. I love the gardens and the terrace, but I've been unimpressed by what I've heard about their catering and their indoor space is a little awkward. She's trying to get me to look at this old building with a garden that supposedly looks like a New England chapel. It sounds nice, but she doesn't think they have a liquor license, which is pretty much going to be an impossibility for me.

We got on the topic of beer the other day. She said, well, you should have Miller Light and Michelob Ultra so everyone will be happy. Um, what is she thinking? I said, if we're only doing two beers we'll have to do a light and a regular because not everyone drinks light. I tried to make the analogy of going to a party and all they have is diet coke and diet dr. pepper. She said, what do you mean...your dad drinks Ultra and Anthony drinks Miller light. Did my mom forget that my future husband might want a beer at his wedding? One that perhaps is not light? So I suggested we do kegs instead and get three: one each with Anthony and Dad's beer, and a Shiner keg. Well, unbeknownest to me, kegs are totally without class. Because it's much classier to hold a beer bottle in a wedding dress. I guess it doesn't matter though since my mom thinks I should spend between $200 and $500 for a wedding dress.

UGH!!! I'M NEVER GOING TO GET WHAT I WANT!!!

Engaged: Three weeks

I am blogging about all the fun and exciting details of planning my wedding. Interestingly, a lot has already happened in just over 21 days of engaged bliss. In this post, I will detail my engagement story and the reactions of close friends and relatives. I've already begun planning and trying on wedding dresses, but those will definitely need their own posts.

John and I started planning to get engaged in January. We went ring shopping a couple of times and set a budget and a savings plan. John, of course, never stuck to the plan, and I changed my mind a thousand times since shopping about what I wanted. Late this summer, I was more ready than ever to "seal the deal" and I found a ring that was 20% under our original budget. We ordered it by mail and it arrived at our apartment office on Friday, August 22nd. I was so anxious about the ring and I promised John I wouldn't open the box until he got home. And he was working until 8pm and it was only 4pm. I calmed my nerves by drinking an entire bottle of merlot--not my finest moment. Finally, he got home and proposed as soon as he opened the box. It was a beautiful ring, exactly what I wanted. We made last-minute reservations at our favorite upscale restaurant. The food was delicious, we got to toast champagne, and we discussed what we would put in our vows if we wrote them ourselves. Then we both passed out as soon as we got home.

My mom and dad were very happy for me, though I wouldn't say they were rejoicing. My cousin and most of my friends were a little shocked, but extremely happy for me and excited--I had already done so much planning that I asked everyone that night to be in my bridal party. My grandma Thelma was shocked and told me she thought I was kidding when I told my family back in April that John and I were ring shopping. My grandma Autry told me that it was good I was waiting a full year to get married in case I changed my mind--she's not the sensitive type. My sister knew it was coming and had already started planning my wedding for me.

I called my sister and cousin's wedding planner (my voice teacher) the day after I got engaged. She was ready to take action and get me on the right track for starting to plan the festivities. I was so excited I couldn't sleep the whole weekend because I was waking up thinking of the guest list, colors, location for the ceremony and reception, food, flowers, makeup, dresses, cakes, favors, parties, etiquette, etc.

Since then, I've tried to keep the wedding-talk to a minimum, but it's very difficult. I watch every episode of Bridezillas and Whose Wedding is it Anyway?, but not platinum weddings because it gets me down. I spend about two-six hours a day on brides.com, weddingchannel.com, and theknot.com. I'm really trying not to put John off with my new obsessions, and fortunately he's pretty into certain aspects of the planning.

So this is what my life has become in less than a month. Join me.