dress

Not so Quickie Update

In the last few weeks, we’ve had the following wedding progress:

* booked our airfare — yes, this ranks as the absolute highest since it was such a chore! But alas, we have non stop flights to/from Vegas from the 8th to the 13th for $390.99 including the flights, taxes, fees, airline club fees, AND insurance. I may be taking a risk by booking on Spirit Air, but there’s a few reasons why I am OK with it. Namely being in touch with their head of customer service via twitter and email the last few weeks, and also Cat’s sister is working for them. Both make me feel good about the decision. Also you can’t beat that price for 2 people ON a holiday weekend with a stick! Now the problem is finding a hotel room for the 8th since our reservation in the suite is for the 9th-13th. Also, this puts us $200 under our travel budget!

* guest list — I finally typed the names from all the labels and the slips of paper mom gave me into Excel. I was somewhat shocked to find out that it added up to 189 warm bodies including children. The reception will be open to all families, totally casual and just plain fun. Honestly, as much as my head is saying no, I think it’d be completely fun to have a bounce house! The whole shindig is in my parents back yard and guests will have roughly 4-5 acres to roam and play on during the party.

* designed and had printed 2 more stamps for wedding/ post-wedding use — the first is a super fabu address stamp that went through tons of changes before being agreed upon. The other is a stamp for the back of the RSVP envelopes. The envelope stamp says “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” Love Robert Frost! These 2 and the original one I had printed were done by the crazy talented BlossomStamps.

* purchased clear labels and downloaded loads of new fonts — yes, I am both lazy and cheap and will be using labels for our invites. The font I finally decided upon is called “MA Sexy” which amuses me, but whatever. It is both easily read and super flourishy. LOVE!

* cupcake tower — during a shopping trip to Home Depot to get the pieces for the tower, dad pointed out that we can do as many projects for the Miami reception, but not Vegas. His idea is to use short pieces of PVC pipe since I was going to wrap whatever I bought with blue painter’s tape anyhow and he has tons of piping. I’m also going to use 2 of the leftover door knobs from our new cabinets since there are a bunch left over.

* cupcake wrappers — I bought 3 shades each of orange and blue 12×12 card stock from Michael’s. After cutting them all out, I’m planning on stamping and embossing the following logo onto each. Steve said he prefers mini cupcakes, so we’ll be getting 4 dozen of those from Retro Bakery. I asked and was told we get 2 flavors per dozen, which is great and all, but their flavors are aMAZing and picking 8 will be torture!

* crinoline — I haven’t ordered one yet as I’m sort of hoping to find one locally. The only problem is I can’t find a store locally that sells square dance outfits. I might just suck it up and order the one from Petticoat Junction. I want a pale blue one, but think getting white and dying it on my own might be a better option than hoping they sell the right color.

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In totally non-wedding related news:
* ECU finally recognized me as a graduate with 2 degrees (the MBA and the MIS certificate)
* I am officially a Florida drivers license holder, now to get Luna transferred as well
* I am the somewhat proud owner of an iPhone. Somewhat because the signal is horrendous, but that may be due to it being an old phone.

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May 18 TMW Post

Disclaimer: For all y’all not following my wedding planning antics over on TweetMyWedding Tuesdays, I’ll try to remember to post them all here.  Unfortunately I’ve been seriously lagging at that and so there’s going to be in flux… apologies!
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Tweet: This toasting goblet was my great grandparents & used at every wedding in my fam since 1963. Incl mine this Oct! http://twitpic.com/1nv4g4

(source: my iPhone)

I just love the history behind this glass. It is roughly 2′ tall and the stem design is simply gorgeous. This picture does it absolutely zero justice. Seeing as it is 47 years old (though it would have been 8 zillion times cooler if it was 42 years!), I will definitely not be taking it to Vegas with us. It will be used only as the party in January. I don’t want this much responsibility! =)

From my uncle: “This toasting glass was custom crafted by Steuben for Max & Stella Ettinger on their 50 the anniversary in 1963; note the spiral of hand blown air bubbles in the stem, perfectly geometric, hard to do with crystal. The chairman of Stueben was a friend of Max, who was also in the glass (light bulb) manufacturing business at the time. FYI, Max sold the company to Phillips of Holland in the 70’s.

Tweet: Ok ladies… Whatcha think? Can I pull this off with a dark blue ribbon? #weddingdress http://twitpic.com/1o0s2f

Tweet: Dress’ lace & the shoes! Now to match the ribbon. http://twitpic.com/1o1xt1

Tweet: For the dress… Will sew the blue to the orange. Ribbon: http://twitpic.com/1o33fw

Tweet: looking at this: http://bit.ly/bacHNa or these: http://bit.ly/cnSOJX (3rd “item” down) b/c sewing a petticoat looks daunting!

Tweet: There’s def a mix of oranges & blues in my wedding outfit… http://twitpic.com/1oewiu

(source: my iPhone)

Saturday was ridiculously wedding-productive for me. Namely, I bought my dress(!!), shoes, replacement ribbon belt, and wandered in Michael’s getting more ideas. In the above picture, the lace at the bottom is the dress, the knitting is my veil, and the rest is self-explanatory. I am really happy that the veil yarn almost totally matches the dress lace color!

I went to a mall, with the intention of hitting all the anchor stores and seeing what they had. Nordstrom, not anything of my taste in the dress section. Moved on to Macy’s, wandered around checking all the rack, honing in on everything white and blue I spotted and finally saw it. White, short, lace, full skirt, ribbon belt. I grabbed 2 sizes, wandered some more, then hit up the dressing room. A-dor-able!

I could envision it with a different color belt. The skirt is full enough to allow for numerous petticoats, depending on how full I want it. The straps are wide enough that I don’t need to worry about special undergarments… hello, Spanx! And the lace is simply gorgeous! I texted a handful of friends with a picture and posted it to twitter. The reaction was all positive and for a whopping $75 plus tax, the beauty was mine! Yes, she was on sale, but even the regular price of $99 was damn reasonable.

At the “suggestion” of a friend, I ended up hitting up all the shoe stores in the mall and found some super cute cobalt blue wedge sandals. Granted, by the time I bought them, I felt like my feet were going to fall off between the blisters – Chucks with no socks is evil! – and walking on the sprained ankle. The sales girl was wearing them in black, which is always a good sign of extreme shoe comfort, and told me she is pregnant, another good sign. They were mine. Another $45.

Bear in mind that the other dress sold for $279 plus shipping, so I am definitely under the budget I set for myself.

I am fairly certain that I will be wearing this petticoat, but in white, under the dress. It will make it flair out nicely and complete the look I have been envisioning.

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April 13 TMW Post

Disclaimer: For all y’all not following my wedding planning antics over on TweetMyWedding Tuesdays, I’ll try to remember to post them all here.  Unfortunately I’ve been seriously lagging at that and so there’s going to be in flux… apologies!
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Tweet: whoa, i’m getting married 6 months from today.

Tweet: http://twitpic.com/1f3x3v – So cute! Have to try on. #wedding

Tweet: Getting swatches that match my wedding veil (@ David’s bridal) http://4sq.com/bpFlKX

This past week has been utterly consumed with packing and moving and finishing up my grad school papers. Our move to Miami is about 85% complete with my darling fiancé already down there. He took our huge truck full of almost all our worldly possessions on Friday and has been spending the last few days hanging out with my parents, brothers and rest of my awesome family. He’s coming back on Tuesday on the train to clean and pack up the rest and drive down with me and our pets.

April 10 marked the 6 month countdown to my wedding day. Holy shnikes! 6 months. Seriously, wasn’t it just like 2.5 years? Well, technically this date wasn’t set when we got engaged 2.5 years ago. But we did set the date, in stone, about 14 months ago when we put down the deposit and started booking everything in Vegas.

Yesterday, for the first time in ages, I went out and messed with dress stuff. Namely, I took my veil to David’s Bridal and, with the help of an awesome sale woman, picked out matching swatches. Not only that, but we but agreed that Cornflower would make both the veil stand out and my bright blue eyes pop out. I have a few selections of dresses I want to try on after the move when I actually have time. I am fairly certain that no matter how much I want a truly unique dress; I will end up getting one from David’s. This is mostly due to the fact that I do have a credit card there with a huge limit. Right now, these are my top contenders, and possibly some of the separates. I definitely need to try them on, even though the second one is an online only style.

Both images courtesy of David’s Bridal

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April 6 TMW Post

Disclaimer: For all y’all not following my wedding planning antics over on TweetMyWedding Tuesdays, I’ll try to remember to post them all here.  Unfortunately I’ve been seriously lagging at that and so there’s going to be in flux… apologies!
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Tweet: quite a lot to do today. i have 5 days to wrap up everything & file/ organize the last 1.5 years worth of stuff for my successor.

There hasn’t been a whole lot of wedding planning going on this week due to the fact that we are moving to Miami next week and are crazy busy packing, packing, packing. Also, I have 2 major papers due this Friday; one in each of my 2 classes. Also, this coming Friday is my last day at the job I have loved like crazy for the last 19 months. They’ve been interviewing for my replacement over the phone and today one came in. She was nice, and got the thumbs up from me. Three more are interviewing this week.

Tweet: custom designer in miami, styles: http://bit.ly/9L5euH http://bit.ly/b5nEPK http://bit.ly/dws7Sd http://bit.ly/cTy8ur http://bit.ly/90AhLN

Tweet: i really want this dress: http://bit.ly/9L4GCY #wedding

One thing I did play around with was my dress. Since my original dress is gone and in the hands of her new mama, I started looking for a replacement dress. During a random Etsy search, I found a fantastic custom dress designer. Not only that, but she is in Miami! After many emails back and forth, it seems that she will custom make anything I am willing to pay for AND she’s planning her own wedding! The tweet with the 5 links are all hers that I initially loved. I’d been leaning towards a custom made, or custom fitting dress (like the second tweet) for a while now. And if I can make a new friend out of it, all the better.

187 days left! It’s nice to have something considerably far away since everything else is bunched up in the next few weeks.

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Dress and Shoes… CHECK!

Fantastic news… I bought my [replacement] dress this morning!

Steve has to spend 6-7 hours at a work orientation in Miami, so I was a nice fiancé and drove him up there. Good thing too since the most direct route was all torn up and I needed to use my old shortcuts around the city. Rather than drive the 45min back down to Homestead, I hung out in my old stompin’ grounds. I went to Dadeland mall, with the intention of hitting all the anchor stores and seeing what they had.

Nordstrom, not anything of my taste in the dress section. Moved on to Macy’s, wandered around checking all the rack, honing in on white and blue and finally saw it. White, short, lace, full skirt, ribbon belt. I grabbed 2 sizes, wandered some more, then hit up the dressing room. A-dor-able!

I could envision it with a different color belt. The skirt is full enough to allow for numerous petticoats, depending on how full I want it. The straps are wide enough that I don’t need to worry about special undergarments… hello, Spanx! And the lace is simply gorgeous! I texted a handful of friends with a picture and posted it to twitter. The reaction was all positive and for a whopping $75 plus tax, the beauty was mine! Yes, she was on sale, but even the regular price of $99 was damn reasonable.

At the “suggestion” of a friend, I ended up hitting up all the shoe stores in the mall and found some super cute cobalt blue wedge sandals. Granted, by the time I bought them, I felt like my feet were going to fall off between the blisters – Chucks with no socks is evil! – and walking on the sprained ankle. The sales girl was wearing them in black, which is always a good sign of extreme shoe comfort, and told me she is pregnant, another good sign. They were mine. Another $45.

Bear in mind that the other dress sold for $279 plus shipping, so I am definitely under the budget I set for myself.

Here’s a little sneak peek of the gorgeous lace and shoes:

I purchased 1.5″ wide orange ribbon and 5/8″ blue ribbon. My plan is to sew the blue to the orange and replace the black ribbon currently on the dress. The ribbon currently falls higher up that I like, so I’ll be cutting off the loops as well.

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March 16 TMW post

Check me out every Tuesday on TweetMyWedding!
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Tweet: @msrib our vegas budget is $1500, but flight & hotel is about $1100. methinks we need to rethink that budget. *sigh*

One of the biggest wedding-related things on my mind lately has been our budget. We picked Las Vegas to keep our budget low – as well as about a hundred other reasons. Being tight on funds, and unsure when Steve will find a job in Miami, our budget is even more precarious. That said, I have been trying to re-figure our Vegas budget. It’s basically come to my attention (due to crazy amounts of research) that a destination wedding can cost upwards of about $30,000.

Not ours!

We have the ceremony/ officiant, photographer/ videographer, limo, flowers, and I’m sure other things booked with Scenic Las Vegas Weddings for the grand total of $399. They came highly recommended by 2 different friends and have been amazing about responses via both email and their Facebook page.
Our hotel suite for 5 days/ 4 nights is roughly $600 at the Luxor. No, it’s not the classiest hotel on the strip, but it’s affordable and fun. We both love Egyptian things so it is perfect. Also, with their nearly weekly Twitter Tuesday specials, all our guests can stay in the same hotel if they choose.

Our airfare is the problem. Having never purchased 2 airline tickets anywhere, it’s baffling to me that they’re between $5-600. Sure, that’s 2 round trip tickets from Miami/ Ft Lauderdale to Vegas, but still.
Pretty much, as our budget stands, we’ve blown the entire thing on flights, hotel and wedding. This leaves no room for food, Grand Canyon day trip, souvenirs, food, food, food. Notice a small problem? We need to figure this out, and sort of soon.

How would you handle something like this? I’ve seen DW wedding budgets handled as adding what you’d spend on the honeymoon and what you’d spend on the wedding. Considering we’re having a reception sometime in 2011 in Miami, our budget is ridiculously low.

I think our “problem” is we’re both thinking of this as a one day event when the most amount of time, energy and money should be spent on our relationship and marriage. On the other hand, this is a vacation trip with a couple hours of wedding-related things shoved in there. Yes, we’re kinda weird that way. =)

Tweet: @msrib I am so happy that the gorgeous wedding dress i no longer love & adore will be sold today & go to a new home this week. thank you, @ebay

That’s right, it finally sold. For a whole lot less than I paid for it and after being posted on 5 wedding resale sites and on ebay 8-9 times since May. I will be getting a grossly lower price than I wanted, but at least it’s gone. I took a friends advice and dropped the price and voila! gone…

Tweet: @msrib i had the not-so-startling realization this morning that i only have 15 more working days at my wonderful job.

I am fortunate for having so much time until my wedding due to the fact that we are making a North Carolina to Florida move in just under a month. And I am graduating (read: loads of writing and studying and exams) with my MBA in about 6 weeks. I have no idea when I’ll be starting my new job, but there’s leeway on my start date.

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The Dress… she is GONE

She is currently in the hands of the very capable USPS folks. I even paid for insurance and spent more than she paid me for shipping. But I don’t care, cuz she’s gone baby gone!

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Vegas On My Mind…

The dress? She is G-O-N-E! Seriously. The 843rd time was the charm I suppose. It was lowering the price considerably and just continually reposting it on ebay that most likely worked. Within 2 hours of the auction ending, I already had the money in my Paypal account. It is amazing! And it only took 10 very freakin long months to sell…

Now onto other things…..

Steve keeps asking me what I will do with my free time after the wedding is over. Seriously, I can sit online for hours and look at cake boards, dresses, cupcakes, new projects to undertake, ketubah imagery, look up and customize favors, and the list goes on and on and on. I could occupy a very large chunk of my days playing with wedding things.

Want to see our suite and Vegas party reception? I am so excited and can’t wait to stay here! Sure, it’s not the highest end hotel, but I don’t care. We’re staying in a suite for 4 nights/ 5 days and enjoying ourselves the whole time.  Our wedding is actually going to be IN our suite, followed by a cupcake/ champagne reception.

Slide show and 360 video

Info page with the floorplan

She’s just a really pretty room and I’m super excited. 6.5 months to go.

Also, we’re moving to Miami in a little less than a month. 17 hours away by car. It’s been coming for a long time, but was finalized a few weeks ago. Well, about a week and a half ago when I gave my notice at work. It seriously hurts that I’m leaving such an amazing job and the best bosses I’ve ever had (sorry Jeffy) but I have to do it. Also, after giving my notice, I learned that I don’t take  praise all that well. I am the person that laughs it off or turns 6 shades of red. Who knew I was so.. humble?

We’re leaving to move into my parents place, well, the cottage on their property. It’s a 2/2 complete with kitchen, family room, dining room, and everything. It’s really cool. Right now my family (yes Cathy, you’re my family too!) is renovating and painting it for us. It will be difficult at first moving back to the place I swore I wouldn’t return, but it will definitely help when we have children. My parents are about 150 yards away, brothers, aunts, uncles, everyone are super close.

As crappy as I feel about leaving my job, this means I will be able to have a bridal shower. And start planning our Miami reception. And plan for zee bambinos. Ahhh bambinos!

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