Official Dress Reveal Part 2: Finally getting MY dress in AND the alterations process.

I was greeted by Desiree at Mon Amie Bridal.  I was anxious to try on the dress that was made for me!  ”The one”, of course, needed alterations – here you can see some bunching in the mid-section:

Needed alterations were DEFINITELY visible at the back:

I mentioned before that my sister suggested I try on a cathedral-style veil at the bridal salon and these pictures pretty much sealed the deal!

I took the dress home and a month or two later, I went back to Mon Amie for my first alterations appointment where I was then greeted by Jenny.  Oh Jenny – she is a Godsend to say the least.  She figured out how to remove the bunching in the front and big gap at the back without compromising the details that made me fall in love with the dress.

I wasn’t too picky about the bustle style so I just let Jenny do her thing.  French bustle:

Jenny served as sort of a fashion design consultant.  We loved and trusted her so much, my mom, sister, and I went to her house for alterations to their dresses and my reception dress.  Jenny recommended what bra and underwear we should use for the best cleavage.  She suggested accessories and hairstyles.  She even showed us how to walk down the aisle and pose for pictures!

I couldn’t imagine going anywhere else to go shopping and get alterations done for my dress.  It must have been fate for Mon Amie to pair me with shorties like myself.  Vicki, my bridal consultant, and Jenny, my tailor/fashion consultant/Godsend, were AMAZING to work with.  They are true examples of what customer service is all about!  THANK YOU Mon Amie!!!

FYI, I have Jenny’s contact information for anyone wanting their non-bridal gowns or dresses professionally altered to their body.  She is based in Orange County and specializes in formal wear and catering to us shorties out there!

Official Dress Reveal Part 1:  Going back to when I say yes to the dress where you actually see the dress!!  Without further ado:

I think what set this dress apart from other lace dresses are the beading and lace details.  I felt like it accented my best features and made me feel sexy and beautiful.

Lace details:

Lace train detail:

It’s a Pronovias Ideal from their 2006 (I think) collection.  Pronovias is based in Spain and known for amazing yet affordable dresses.  Next up, the fittings!

I’ve mentioned a little bit about my Maid-of-Honor’s dress and have yet to mention the bridesmaids dresses that were only finished a few days before the wedding.  A couples months after getting engaged, I asked my college friend Aimee if she can sketch some designs for my bridesmaids dresses.  I really LOVE Sarah Seven dresses but they are way more expensive than I could ever ask my bms to pay for (and more than I would want to pay myself).  I wanted all the girls’ dress designs to be different but made with the same material.  Aimee came up with 8 sketches and I had my bms pick which ones they liked best and make suggestions as how to modify it to their liking. I then met with my seamstress and showed her the modified sketches and went to LA’s Garment District to find the perfect gray chiffon material for the dresses.  The best images I could find of the final product was in my highlight video:

You may know the shoe story – the shoes looked gorgeous with the dresses and even more so with the bouquets.  You also may notice their fashionable necklaces.  This was part of their gift as a bridesmaid purchased from Petite Peanut Boutique:

They were also given teal shawls I purchased from Target and teal clutches from Poppy Punch:

Don’t my bridesmaids look amazing??  I may be a little bias in saying I have the most beautiful bridesmaids.  I didn’t cry at all on my wedding day, but I almost shed a tear at how happy I was that they all looked so beautiful.  Thank you Aimee for the designs and for all your support of Simply Chic and throughout my wedding planning!!!  Please check out Aimee’s awesome blog swellmayde!

Hope everyone had a fun and safe 4th of July weekend!  It’s been a few weeks now since I married the love of my life.  Not much has changed since the wedding, but I’m loving married life!  I have yet to blog about all my DIY/semi DIY projects, the bridesmaid and groomsmen outfits, wedding party gifts, recaps, etc.  I’ll blog about that in due time.  For now, I’ll share a little sneak peak by miCha Videography:  http://vimeo.com/25699619.  Enjoy!

Well folks, we’re less than five days away from the big day!  I’m taking a break from packing to… okay that’s a lie because I haven’t started yet…  I’m going to start packing right after I finish this post.  Anyway, after six years of dating and sixteen months of being engaged, I will marry the love of my life, my best friend, and soulmate.  Gag, I know, but I couldn’t be more thrilled and honored.

So, I’ll leave you with this picture – almost ready to head to the Bay Area!

Here we go to our next adventure!

The wedding is just over a week away and though I don’t want to reveal too many details until after the wedding, I figure I give in just a little!!  I incorporated U2, one of my favorite bands, and Disney’s “Up”, one of our favorite Disney movies, into my wedding in a few ways.

U2

For the Out-of-Town/Welcome bags, I asked our intern Norman to come up with a type-based design to “ad-lib” lyrics Bono would sing toward the end of live performances of my all-time favorite song “With or Without You” and this is what he came up with:

Photo by intern Norms

Bono is the co-founder of the ONE organization.  They sell these cool white bands on their website and I wanted to use them as favors for guests, as well as aid in a good cause.  Here’s my inspo (using a Livestrong band):

Photo by Katina Photography

And this is what I came up with:

Here’s a close-up of the white one band:

Here’s the framed description for our guests to read:

Disney’s “Up”

I’m not sure where I got the idea to have my ceremony musician play Giacchino’s “Married Life” from the movie, but it makes my heart melt every time I hear it!

I also wanted to use a mailbox like the one from the movie as our card box:

Photo by Disney Top Ten List Blog

But I didn’t want it to be too literal as it didn’t really go with the decor.  Instead, I bought a mailbox from Home Depot, spray-painted it using the same paint as the table number frames, and covered the flag with the floral pattern paper used throughout the stationery:

I also found these coloring books at the local 99-cent store:

Photo by Toy Store Inc

With a box of crayons also purchased at the 99-cent store, these are sure to keep the kiddos entertained!

Kinda random huh?  What random ideas have you come up with to personalize your wedding using your favorite band(s), movie(s), etc.??

I wanted to use picture frames to hold the table number cards.  I’ve seen the Ikea Tolsby frame in plenty of wedding pictures and is pretty cheap at $0.99.  I didn’t really want to keep it white because my linens are going to be ivory so I decided to spray paint them.  I also wanted to incorporate pictures of Otis, my and Justin’s pug.  I did what I do best in looking for inspiration and came up with these images as my inspo:

Source A & Source B

So we went to Ikea for the frames, Home Depot for the spray paint, and we started!

Easy peasy right??  Well, not so much.  Being the experts we were, we put so much spray-paint that most of the frames got stuck to the paper underneath.  A few days later, we had to sand down the heavy drippings and stuck pieces of paper as best as we could and re-spray all the frames.  BUT that wasn’t the only issue!  I designed the table number cards so they are double-mounted – a photo of Otis (printed at Costco for $0.13/each!) is mounted on the patterned paper, which is mounted on the teal blue “dragonfly” cardstock.  The total card being 4×6.  However, the visible size of the “picture” isn’t as indicated on the Ikea website, which gives frame and picture dimensions.  All you can see is the photo (which is the most important part) and a smidget of the patterned paper:

BUT WAIT!!  THERE’S MORE!!!  Did you notice something else in the image above.  Well, look below:

The spray paint made is really hard for a lot of the frames to properly attach to their base, hence not screwing all the way down!  Grrr…  We should have screwed them together before spray painting.  Justin and I decided that we put too much time and effort to purchase more frames and spray paint.  The perfectionist in me cringes, but then I look at the adorable photos of Otis and realize, it’s not going to ruin the overall look of the wedding (I hope).

So there you have it folks!  Planners like me go through trial and error and we still don’t quite get it perfect, but it’s okay!  We just have to realize what’s important.  In this case, the important things are that our guests see the actual table number and that we incorporate Otis into our wedding since he can’t be there.  The not too important are the bad spray paint job, the visible not-screwed-all-the-way-down bases, and not visible dragonfly card.  [Sigh]  Please someone agree with me.

So remember these from this post?

Yeeaahh… those didn’t quite work out!  I suppose it’s sort of a bad thing to blog about something that’s not set in stone.  At the time I blogged about it, the ladies were in the process of placing their orders.  Well, turns out that the online store didn’t have the sizes of many of the ladies and BM April ended up with a hot pink instead of teal pair!  Needless to say, we were off to Plan B.  Ok, I didn’t have a Plan B at the time.  I looked for teal shoes for a year and had yet to find a decent pair, so my sister and I decided to explore other color options.  Well, we decided on these:

Source

Still in color scheme?  Check!  BM bouquets will consist of light pink and cream flowers.

Fairly priced?  Check!  Not as cheap as the original teal pair, but it is true that you get what you pay for!

Comfortable?  Check!  MUCH MORE comfy than the original teal pair (again, you get what you pay for).

Reliable seller?  Double Check!  Gotta love Nordie’s!

I think most of the bridesmaids are happy about the change since the other pair wasn’t very comfortable.  Anyone else try looking for certain color shoes?  What was the end result – better or same luck as me?

Does anyone else believe that spending over $100 on a piece of tulle is sort of (as in totally) not worth it?!  Ok well, obviously it’s just not a piece of tulle – it’s a veil, but geez louise!  I refused to pay $200 that the bridal salon was offering.  I decided to try making my own veil.  I figure I’m just going to wear it for the ceremony and toss it aside anyway.  So with a few reads and YouTube tutorials in mind, I bought a pattern and comb at the local Joanne’s.  I didn’t do a great job at following directions to it’s entirety so I did some wingin’.  Although this is a fail for me (explanation later), I feel it’s still useful advice for those planning to DIY their veil.

I wanted a double-layer veil so I folded the tulle in half and cut it according to the pattern:

I covered the edge of the comb with leftover scrap tulle:

Then, I threaded and scrunched the folded part of the tulle to make the top part of the veil:

 I made the top part of the veil the same width as the comb and sewed the comb and tulle together (make sure you sew the comb on the direction you plan to put it on your hair):

And voila!

So why is this a fail?!  When my dress finally arrived, I tried it on at the salon and my sister thought it would look really good with a cathedral veil.  I gave the cathedral veil a shot and damn it, I loved the way it looked!  I then tried on my DIY veil with my dress and thought the length of it made me feel short(er), plus I now had the cathedral one in my mind.  I ended up purchasing a custom cathedral veil with a detachable blusher from A Busy Mother’s Etsy shop.  The price of both veils still came out to a fraction of what was selling at the salon so I was quite happy!  I’m also excited for photo ops like this (I plan to just toss aside the blusher and leave the veil on for photos):

Source

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Anyone try or plan on trying to DIY a wedding veil?  Anyone have DIY fails?  I’m dedicating this week’s blog posts to my fails so stay tuned!