60 Days Left!!

I called our venue today to check when the final amount of payment was due and he said:

"Sixty days before your wedding date...Oh, I guess that's today."

Holy Crap.

While I have gotten all of the major stuff booked, there is still a LOT left.  Instead of shrinking, my to-do list has been growing.  List items have been reproducing like bunnies.  Though at this point, I think that I may prefer the 50 bunnies instead...They're so soft...

My mom and I have done a lot of DIY shit for this wedding including: 

• my dress and veil (not done yet) 
• the bridesmaids' gifts, headpieces and sashes
• all the favors
• the flower girl basket & ring bearer pillow 
• the invitations! (all of them)

And yet, suicidally, we still have plans to make more stuff including tags for the favors, place cards for those getting a reserved seat, and a few centerpiece items. Also, I decided that I hated all of the flower girl dresses I saw online.  They were either too froofy, or poofy, or stripperish or white.  If you check out my Pinterest board you will see how many styles I thought about. In the end, my mom committed to making that too (as well as a dress for her doll).  This is the style I picked but in a plum color with a green sash and flower.

And also, we have to make more bubble solution.  See, we thought we were being all thrifty by buying them for 70% off but it seems that 2/3 of the tubes are dried out and sticky and the other 1/3 are not 100% full.  But, that's not a big deal b/c the cost of the bubbles has always been the tubes anyway seeing how bubble solution is, like, soap and water.  Here's a page full o' 3-ingredient recipes.  I would call this page Bubbleopolis.   In addition to that, we have to do this to all the bubbles: 

I don't know why this picture is sideways.  The one I uploaded was straight, I tell ya! (that's what she said.)

 and the list goes on...

I would like to talk more about my thoughts and the progress of my wedding, but honestly all I can say is that it's exhausting and expensive and overwhelming.  The Knot isn't really helping with planning things...what I need is someone like Tony Stark's Jarvis (that's going to paint me as a huge nerd).  As you can see from my 1 post a month, blogging about your wedding planning is actually kind of impossible to do DURING the wedding planning.  It's not that I don't have anything to talk about but that I just don't have time to blog and when I do have time (like now) I have so much to write about that nothing really flows easily.  And also, posts take a long time to write and probably no one cares enough to get through them.

So in the interest in brevity I'll just say "holy crap I'm stressed out!" And hope that I post more than once a month.

P.S. Don't watch What Boys Like.  Terrible, vulgar, man-humor involving bloody road kill, nipple piercings, unrealistic skin stretching, raunchy strippers, death by sex and accidental bestiality. 

♥

6 1/2 months to the wedding and I haven't tried on a single dress

You're probably reading the subject line and thinking "No way! I had my dress picked out a year before the wedding." or something along those lines. And even if you didn't have your dress picked out by now, you had gone into bridal shops and tried stuff on. "How does she live?" You must be asking yourself, "Isn't the thought of not having a dress just killing her?"

The "New Orleans" $995.00

But really, I do have a dress...well...sort of. I have a pile of silk and polyester for lining, a zipper and some buttons at my parents' house.  It all started b/c I was a fatass and incredibly lazy (not to mention too excited to wait) and internet browsing/shopping is way easier. You don't have to worry about hours or locations or driving time or bad weather. I ♥ the Internet.

The first few weeks of being engaged I did what any sane bride would do...I googled "vintage wedding dresses" and came up with this gem from Dolly Couture (It's under a cut so that Math doesn't accidentally see it) almost right away.  But wow...$995.00! So I wrote that one off and looked for cheaper dresses in the $100-300 range because (if you've read my last post) I was not willing to become one of the bride casualties to the expensive wedding dress industry.

Unfortunately, I could not get the other dress out of my head nor could I find cheaper versions that quite had the same elegant simplicity of the "first" dress. In the end I convinced my mom that she could make the dress since it was so simple with no beading or crazy folds. And now I'm patiently waiting for her to finish it and yes, it is kind of killing me. I tried on the prototype which I guess kind of counts but mom says that is not at all what the finished dress would look or feel like. So I wait.....impatiently...while all my other current bride friends are going to try on dresses at tiny boutiques and David's Bridal alike.

Yes, I am a little jealous that I won't have gotten a "real" wedding dress fitting experience where all my bridesmaids hover around me and tell me how good or bad I look in a certain dress. I will never have the experience of trying on a dress 4 sizes too big and awkwardly holding it closed while I try to imagine how it would hang on my particular frame. But, you know, that's OK. It's just more time I'd have to spend coordinating with the BrMs and shopping and re-shopping etc.

And the benefit of making a dress is that it is SOOO much cheaper than even a David's Bridal Special, though some online sites could rival the price. And another benefit is that it will be so unique and me. No one else will have the same dress ever (unlike if I bought it from Dolly Couture where you can see how many people had bought the dress before you).  I am confident that I made the right choice.

Even though it does feel weird to not have tried on a single wedding dress.

And this post would not be complete without pictures so here are a couple other dresses from Dolly Couture that I like (though not quite as much).

The "Summerville": $565.00

Budget much? How the wedding industry has brides by the proverbial balls.

$205.99

Wedding planning would be a lot more fun if I had an unlimited amount of money (or I guess, in this case, if my parents had an unlimited amount of money). Yeah, I'm not ashamed to admit it, my parents are paying for most of the wedding stuff. I mean, it's great since if it were up to Math and me, we would have to wait a couple years to save up the money. Math has been working to pay off his (now "our" hehe) 2nd mortgage and I bought a car about two weeks before he proposed. (Bad timing on his part? LOL).

 A friend's wedding on the awesome balcony of the Colorado History Museum
(now the renamed and totally rebuilt, "History Colorado Center").

People have been asking me if I am going to put our budget on my blog. Some people think that I shouldn't but others (usually other brides-to-be) have been asking.  I figure that I might as well, I mean, I know money can be a point of comparison and contention between people but I personally think that everyone should be more open about it in general. For instance, I have a friend who did her wedding for around $10,000 and I have to say that she is one of the people I admire the most for this. Her ceremony was lovely, her reception a TON of fun, food tasty, dress beautiful etc. etc. And she did it without paying too much.

Hehe...Love this pic. 

I would like to be her. Unfortunately, I'm not.  While I'm cost-cutting at every turn there are a few major differences between her wedding and mine that increased my budget to...um...$15,000.

First of all, my guest list is much bigger and I just can't cut people. There have been a lot of people in the various stages of my life that have helped shape me into the person that I am today and I would like to have them share in this special joy. And feeding those people is going to cost money, unfortunately, you can't skimp too much on the caterer.  Unless you got Qdoba, and as tasty as that is...it's not really wedding food.

The Rockin' dance floor!

Second, I made the mistake of picking bridesmaid gifts that are more expensive (think $10-20 difference per each) and more rare per unit than I'd thought. Probably because they're vintage items....But I can't change it now since I've already bought some of them. Unfortunately, that's all the info I can give since I don't want my BrMs to know what it is. And I actually think all of them read this. Well...maybe.

Third, I'm just not quite as savvy as my $10,000 friend and DEFINITELY not as creative/crafty/DIY-y. I really should've just hired her as a wedding planner because she has given me so many great ideas that take me way longer to implement than she did because it involves me learning how to actually be artsy/talented.

One of the big budget decisions I've been waffling back and forth on is getting a florist or not since that will cost more money but also that person will have more knowledge of bouquets and bouttoniers etc. Though $10,000 friend made her own everything and as I was the one who caught the bouquet, I can tell you that that thing was SOLID like a ROCK! It took me around 10 minutes to unbind it all. =)

But, I mean, there are a lot of things I have done to keep the price down from making my own Save the Dates to hiring my mom (for the price of grattitude and kisses) to make my dress. Which brings me to the title of this post...I was reading this article on Boulder weddings and found this gem of a quote from the owner of Boulder Bridal (the same bridal shop that pretty much told my mom that my idea for a dress was completely undoable in every aspect):

"(some) Brides' dress budgets have dropped so low that (I ) often don't have a dress to fit their needs. And yet, it doesn't take much to convince them to spend more on a dress. Once the bride puts into perspective a $2,000 dress when the rest of their wedding costs 10 times that amount, they're willing to give a 'little more' to look and feel good (scare quotes added by me)."

TWO-THOUSAND-DOLLARS for a dress you will wear ONCE for about 4-5 hours. (I've been thinking about buying a Coach purse for ~$300 and am having a hard time justfying that. It is at least something that I will be able to use forever [lifetime warranty] in 85-90% of situations.  I'm sorry, but I really don't think my wedding dress should cost more than a Coach purse.)

The wedding industry has a tight grip on starry-eyed brides-to-be.  This is the shit they are selling...that: 

"OMG! $2000 is a GREAT deal for a dress!"

And:

"But don't you want to look beautiful on your wedding day?"

A $2,000 dress is, 8-15% of the "average" wedding budget (and also 2/3 the price of my first car that lasted for 9 years). That's the price for being beautiful?

Of course I do, but in the words of my fiance, my parents and countless friends and coworkers, I have looked "beautiful" in $20-$80 dresses. So, maybe I could add a little room for more fabric and a specialized style. How about $300? Now that's a GREAT deal for a dress. Here are some examples of ~$300 or less dresses (and yes, they're probably from China, but I'm sure so are David's Bridal's and countless others. And if not the whole dress, then I'm sure at least some piece of it.) All of these are from Milanoo.com. 

$183.99

$175.99

Wedding Fashion - an industry in itself.

Well, I haven't posted in a while...I'd like to use the excuse that not a lot of wedding stuff has happened in the last month but actually the opposite is true. A TON of wedding stuff has happened but I have not had the time (or energy) to post about it. Though in all fairness some stuff was, and is still, not quite decided upon.

First things first...Do you remember in my last post how I said I'd found my wedding shoes?

Well I was wrong. While these shoes are gorgeous they have two drawbacks:

1). The back slips off if I walk too much (like from 1 side of my living room to the other). This *might* be fixable with ball of the foot pads to push my foot back a little but that's a gamble. And...

2). They're not these shoes:

These shoes may make their debut at Christmas. Stay Tuned.

The photo that I grabbed off of Nordstrom's website doesn't do them justice. They are purple Enzo Angiolini "Thaddea", 5'' (with a 1'' platform) peep-toes which are surprisingly comfortable and made of real leather. *Droooooool* Unfortunately, they were neither free nor cheap, but were actually exactly the budgeted price I had for wedding shoes - $110. Now, if you count the green reception shoes and the flip flops, that makes my total wedding shoe expenditure about $165. But hey, unlike a lot of other things about the wedding, the shoes are an investment for life. Most men and a lot of women still probably won't understand this, but those of you that do...you know. ;-) 

And y'all had thought I'd already found the perfect shoes....

My phone didn't capture the purple very well so I messed with the colors to make it look more vintage-y. 

Next, I'm happy to say that I have chosen bridesmaid dresses!  Some of the bridesmaids and I decided somewhat last minute to go to David's Bridal one day. I ended up choosing two styles because one of the styles was being discontinued and on sale for like $35.00 (Style B). Unfortunately, not everyone can wear that style because of certain future plans and living distance. So the second style (style A) is normal priced $90 (though the website says $99) or so but will still be able to be bought. The discontinued one is now only available in "honeydew" sizes 2, 4 and 20s - And now it's only $29.00.  But who wants to wear "honeydew" anyway?!

Unfortunately, both dresses didn't carry the purple that I wanted:

Style A in "Plum"

We briefly discussed using this purple for the girls on my side (7 of them, 1 out of town & one needing above style) and a green for the girls on Math's side (2 of them, both out of town). But I actually didn't like any of the green options that either style came in. Also I thought it would be a pretty unflattering color on anyone.

Style A in "Clover"

So I decided on black for both styles. Since the fabric is the same, the dresses will match nicely, though the above style will need to be shortened for sure. Another upside about black is that everyone will definitely be able to wear them again! Also since each dress is probably going to need to be altered since both styles are so fitted, that means that each girl will have a really sexy custom black dress. *ow ow* To add some color, my mom and I (and possibly one of my awesome bridesmaids) are going to make taffeta sashes in Plum and Chartreuse.

Style B. This color, "Pistachio", is the only color advertised on the site. Yuck.

Lastly, I went to a bridal show a few weeks ago and started talking to Al's Formal Wear people about Tuxedos.  I managed to get $50 off each tuxedo rental for a $10 deposit. That's 50x9 = $450 total off! Now we're not paying for the guys' rentals, just like we're not paying for the girls' dresses but still that's a significant savings for each dude. Plus, we get the groom's free with 5 rentals! That part definitely does save us money!

Al's has a cool tuxedo creator here: http://www.alsformalwear.com/byt-page.asp where I made these two lovely styles:

One word: TAILS!!! And Oxfords or whatever they're called...how awesome is that? I'm thinking...matching pocket squares? We're going to set up an appointment on Sunday to get Math measured and look more. Excited!!

Phew, fashion is fun but exhausting.