Bridal shoes, like everything else in the wedding industry, are ridiculously overpriced.  Take the same shoe in black, turn it white, throw the word “bridal” onto it, and it’s instantly at least double the price.  For me, I’ll need at least 2 pairs of shoes: 1 to wear with my Western style white dress and the other to wear with my cheongsam.  I’ve been drooling over a pair of Vera Wangs for a couple months now but couldn’t bring myself to paying as much as Vera Wangs cost…so I’ve just been looking out for deals on various websites.  Recently, I was introduced to eweddingshoes.com, which sells discounted bridal shoes for specific sizes…and lo and behold, I found the shoes I’ve been eyeing in my size, in ivory and in a lower heel (can we say “more comfortable?”).  I think I only thought about it for 24 hours before deciding to get them….and I’m so happy!

Categories: Dress
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I officially have a florist now—I’ve hired John Gardner of Aria Floral to be the floral designer as well as provider of various linens and rentals (a kind of one-stop shop).  He was one of the sponsors of the Fall Bridal show I went to this past weekend so I went by his booth and gave him a contract along with my deposit so I’m locked in now.  Yay!  I’m really excited about working with John–he’s gotten a lot of great reviews and I felt really comfortable with him from the start.

The Fall Bridal show was fun–not as big as I thought it would be but definitely filled with more interesting vendors to me than the one that was held in September.  There were a few cake vendors there so that got me and Matt starting to think about what we want to do with cake—we’re really leaning towards a big ‘ol sheet cake and a smaller version for the decorative cake cutting.  I was also excited to see the British Motor Coach folks there since we plan on renting one of their Rolls Royces or Bentleys as our getaway car.

Our engagement shoot is coming up this weekend which I’m excited about.  We’re currently leaning towards photos at the Arboretum and/or Gasworks Park.

Speaking of photos, ack, I need to get our “photobooth” pictures taken soon so I can assemble the Save-the-Dates!

Categories: Misc Planning
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Veils are expensive.  You wouldn’t think right?  It’s just a piece of tulle attached to a hair comb.  I knew since trying on my dress that I wanted a veil…and a long one at that.  A nice, ivory, cathedral length veil with a blusher and a little bit of edging.  I’ve been looking around for this sort of veil—know how much this costs at a bridal store?  One that I love = $475.  I mean, this is something I’m only wearing for the ceremony and photos.  Surprisingly, that’s not a bad price considering designer veils, such as the Vera Wangs, run in the thousands of dollars.  But this was something that I just couldn’t bring myself to spending that much money on.  The dress? Yes. The Veil? No.  So I was delighted to find a woman on the knot who had recently gotten married and was selling a bunch of things from her wedding, including an ivory cathedral length veil with pencil edging…for how much? $50.  Now, that’s my price.  The great thing–if I don’t like it, I’m sure I can easily resell it at that price.  Cathedral length veils, even at David’s Bridal, cost a couple hundred dollars.  But who knows–I’m heading to the Fall Bridal show today and may see something else I just love at a great price.  I finally convinced Matt to go to this with me and then I’ll meet up with the Seattle bridesmaids later.

Categories: Dress
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On Saturday, I organized for all 4 of the Seattle bridesmaids to go shopping at FIVE different stores.  Whew!  We checked out Nordstrom’s, Marcella’s La Boutique, Macy’s Victoria Bridal Couture, La Belle Elaine’s, and Moms Maids & More in total.  One highlight for me was going to Marcella’s and finding out that they had the sample of my gown already in the store so I was able to hang out in my gown as the girls tried on various dresses–what a treat!  It was also a luxury to be able to see how the dresses would look next to mine.  Throughout the day, the most common themes for what we liked were “soft, long, flowy, romantic, halter, gathering, hide-the-tummy, forgiving material”.  In the end, the front runner is this Jim Hjelm chiffon dress — likely the bridesmaids will be in the halter style and maid-of-honor in the v-neck strap style (very subtle difference).  The color I’m currently leaning towards is “spice” (the swatch right below)

   

And here’s a picture of the Phoebe and Jigna trying on these dresses:

 

It was a really productive day and I’m so excited!  I’m going to at least wait til next week’s Fall Bridal Spectacular to see if any of the fashion vendors there carry these lines–and if so, if there’s a bridal show discount.  Otherwise, I think this is the one!  One great thing about these dresses—the girls can totally wear these again after the wedding.  They could even hem it into a cocktail length: how cute!

One great thing about shopping for bridesmaid dresses—we could take photos!  The one exception was Macy’s…which was interesting because some of the other shops were higher end and were totally fine with photos.  In any case, we snuck photos in inside the dressing room!

Categories: Dress, Misc Planning
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Last night after work I went to the Paper Source in Bellevue and spent a good hour picking out materials to use for my Save-the-Dates (STDs–I know, these wedding acronyms can be ridiculous sometimes).  At first I was just going to get a DIY kit (Do It Yourself) and then a few extras a la carte—and then the lady reminded me that since I’m cutting up sheets anyway that I might as well get all the materials a la carte and then have more choices in colors and patterns.  The end result is below with a mockup of what the STD will look like in the end–as you can see, I bought several patterns to use for that top strip:

Even more exciting–I came home and showed the whole pattern to Matt and he approved!  I was worried he wouldn’t like the “blossom pink” paper but he thought it was great!  Now all that I have left is to get magnet paper, take pictures, print those out and ASSEMBLE!  My first DIY project!

Categories: Misc Planning
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Early on in this wedding planning process, I thought “I want video but I really don’t care that much about it”.  I had hoped to just pick a videographer and get it over with.  Instead, I met with 3 different videographers and have been sitting on making a decision for, oh, almost 2 months.  Today, I decided to simplify things and just pick the first videographer I met with who had the simplest package—Bogle Productions.  I know I’ll be happy with all 3 and Bogle has gotten rave reviews everywhere.  He doesn’t have things like a “love story” or a “day-of-edit” but I think it’s good to just get a straight up videographer who just shoots your day and that’s it. Fortunately, I contacted Cory Bogle today who had another potential bride taking my date…and by the end of the day, he emailed me back and said the date was open again! Yippee!  So I’m just going to go ahead and book him.  Whew.

Categories: Vendors
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Okay, so I’m 9 months away from the wedding and what am I thinking about?  The guestbook.  I haven’t even decided on my videographer and I’m already thinking about the neat ways to get mementos from the guests.  There’s, of course, the classic basic guestbook where guests just sign their name as if they’re checking into a hotel (a bit plain for my taste).  Next up is the obvious Chinese red silk cloth with our names embroidered alongside a dragon, phoenix and double happiness sign (a bit too Asian for me–plus, I find it hard to sign cloth).

What do I want? I want to do a COMBINATION of a polaroid guestbook with….(drumroll)…a Photobooth!  Yup, one of those classic photobooths.  I just think it’d be a fun way for guests to express themselves and have fun.  I’ll still have polaroids as I can’t imagine my 87-year old grandmother climbing into a booth.

Photobooth Services seems to be the only place that rents photobooths in Seattle.  I wish I was in California to use the Red Cheese PhotoBooth services.  Not only are they cool red booths with a choice of color or black/white but a copy of each photo is saved digitally to give out to the newlywed couple later.  How cool is that?  Then again, I do like how vintage and classic the basic black & white booths are from Photobooth Services.  I emailed them today and they have booths available!  Should I splurge?

Categories: Reception
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