I'm Obsessed with Tessa Kim

After tackling the major last minute to-do of the bridesmaid dress decision, today we're gonna talk veils. Not just any veils Tessa Kim veils. They're beautiful, soft and just great. I put off the thought of having a veil for a while because I just didn't want to put in the time to think about my wedding day look. But as I've started to think more about my hair, figured out my shoes, and purchased some jewelry, there's one obvious thing missing...a veil.

I see many birdcage veils that I think look really cool and beautiful like these:

Sara Gabriel "Wendy"

Sara Gabriel "Marilyn"

But for some reason I can't really envision myself in any of them. I don't think I'd be able to pull off anything like that. Then one day while browsing weddingbee, I saw a lovely veil, this one to be exact.

Tessa Kim - Mini Tulle Birdcage Veil

Then I dug a little deeper and found this one...

Tessa Kim - 18 inch tulle veil

But I still don't think those are quite right for me. The first one has what I like to describe as an elegant edginess. And I did like the second one, but the more I looked at it, it keeps reminding me of a tulle helmet.

I kept browsing through her site and I kept stumbling upon one lovely creation after another. And I must add that they are all very affordable, most under $100. That's another reason I love her and her designs.But then I started thinking, do I want to buy a veil and only wear it once and probably for a maximum of 2 hours the entire day. Or maybe find a pretty hair flower that I can wear all day. Decisions. Decisions. Decisions.

I'm still thinking about what I'll do. But here are my top two veil contenders from Tessa Kim:

Tessa Kim - 11 in tulle birdcage veil

Tessa Kim - Elbow length tulle veil

There's an obvious commonality between them all....tulle. I love it because it provides the softness that I think I'm looking for. And it doesn't have a bunch of sparkle which I like and they're simple.

Like many other things, I have a choice to make. And now I'm on the hunt for hair flowers....first stop Tessa Kim!

It's Final. Combo #1 it is

I'm so grateful to everyone who voted and gave me their unbiased opinions either here on the blog or on the weddingbee boards. Yes, I posted the question there too just because you can't be too sure. Right?? But everyone confirmed my initial thought to have every one of my girls wear a different dress. And it was an overwhelming YES! to the Ultra Mix and Match. So it's final we're going with combo #1.

The official results were:

• 70% Combo 1 - Ultra Mix and Match
• 17% Combo 2 - Semi Traditional 
• 9% Combo 3 -Modern Semi-Matchy
• 4% Combo 4 - Traditional Semi-Matchy

This is such a relief and now we're into the final stretch to get them all ordered and in our hands in time for alterations. Why did I do this to myself and my girls. This could've easily ended up being a major wedding FAIL! Crisis averted...I think. Or will soon find out. I'll keep you posted.

Again, thank you all so much.

Poll: Bridesmaid Dresses...Help Please!

I posted a while back about my bridesmaid dress options and the choices have stayed somewhat the same. It's getting extremely close to the date when my girls need to place their orders for their dresses and I'm clearly the holdup here. Last week I ordered fabric swatches for the colors and fabrics that I'm considering and there was a clear winner, so I can check that important task off my list. But now I need to choose the dresses so that each person can order them.....and here's the problem, I love the look of every girl wearing a different dress, but I also like the look of the classic bridal party wearing the same dress. And I'm torn...

Here are the four dress combinations that I'm considering ranging from the ultra mix-and-match to the semi-matchy-matchy. Tell me your favorite combination in the poll below.

Combo #1 - Ultra Mix and Match

Alfred Sung, Color - Italian Plum (Style No. from L to R): D470, D439, D438, D462

Combo #2 - Semi Traditional

 Combo #3 - Modern Semi-Matchy

Combo #4 - Traditional Semi-Matchy  

Hopefully this all hasn't become a blur for you like it has for me. Thanks for the help and I'm looking forward to seeing the results.

And the Winner Is...

I posted recently about my shoe situation but I'm happy to announce that I have finally picked a shoe. Here were my original 4 options:

Clockwise from top left - Enzo Angiolini Cristle, Merryann, Sully, Mezzo

Then I went to the mall with my mom and we found all but one, Mezzo. But I wasn't dissappointed because it wasn't one of my super faves anyway. I did end up trying on all three pairs and Sully was the odd shoe out. Even though I thought I wanted a platform, I definitely didn't feel too stable in these babies. They looked lovely on but I almost tripped a couple times just prancing through Nordstrom. So those were a definite no go. I've had a long standing shopping rule which is to never buy something from the first store I stop in (don't ask me why or how I came up with this but I think it has to do with the fact that I'm always holding out for a better deal) so I put the shoes on hold while we continued our search.

And I'm so happy we continued. We ventured to Macy's where we became super excited because the glittery Enzo Merryann that you see in the right above with the gold heel, well we found a pair that had a silver heel (sorry I don't have a pic)...I didn't know these existed! My eyeballs almost popped out of my head when I saw those, it was one of those hallelujah moments. Nevertheless, I bought two pairs of shoes and now I had a choice to make between these two:

Enzo Angiolini Cristle and Merryann

So I proceeded to try them on with my dress and stare blankly at a mirror for a couple minutes in each pair, then with one on each foot. But I still couldn't make a decision. Finally, it was the day of my fitting and I needed to take the pair of shoes with me that I'd be wearing so she could hem the dress properly. So it was down to the wire. I tried on the dress one more time and let my mom be the judge. She chose this pair:

Enzo Angiolini Cristle

Since both pairs are the same height I could've taken either pair and ended up alright, in terms of alterations. But I ended taking the pair that my mom selected and when I showed Mrs. F the shoes her reaction said it all. I had found my shoes...finally! 

Now I just need to take the other pair back before I change my mind again.

Flower Power

I'm heading out to a flower market this coming Saturday to check out some flowers and determine if my measly budget will even allow for a stem or two. Anyway, in the early days of planning I thought I would DIY my wedding flowers, like. every. last. one...bouquets, centerpieces, corsages, the whole shebang. But I don't have much of  a green thumb, I just had a pot of tulips that Mr. B bought me that are now dead and rotting. So I'm rethinking that idea. But that doesn't mean that I can't search for the beautiful flowers that I would like to have....and here they are...

I'm a bad blogger and forgot where I got most of these pics from and some of the names of the flowers too...sorry.


Top: Garden  Roses, Peonies, looks like more garden roses, Carnations
Middle: Dahlias, Baby's Breath, Hydrangea + Dahlias, Could it be more garden roses
Bottom: Unknown, Hydrangea, Ranunculus, Unknown mix, No clue

If you know the names of any of the unknown flowers please let me know.

The Road to My Dream Dress Starts Here

Source

I have my official first dress fitting tomorrow with my alterations lady . Let's call her Mrs. F. For now let's recap... back in mid February I had my first meeting with Mrs. F. During this meeting I tried on my dress gave her these pictures and we discussed how she works, her experience and what the general cost would be. She's a wonderful woman from London, I think, and she's super nice and open to all my ideas and she was also very realistic. She explained to me the different changes that I was interested in making to the dress in terms of how labor intensive those specific changes could be. Of course, more labor = more $$$. I wasn't expecting the estimate of the cost of the alterations to be as high as it was, but I don't want just anyone touching my dress and I have faith in Mrs. B, even though my mom was giving her the side-eye for a majority of the meeting.

But right after the dress meeting I realized that I wasn't in the physical condition that I wanted to be in for my next fitting let alone my wedding day. I'm going to attribute this situation to massive amounts of pizza eating while in the office. I'm talking it was pizza every week and sometimes twice a week. We were hooked. But I have to take some kind of accountability so I started to workout and we've since quit our random pizza binges. And for the past 4 weeks I've been going pretty hard in the workout department and I've lost about 2 lbs. I know I've probably lost more inches vs. actual weight and I'm fine with that because I'm feeling a little sleeker and I'm liking the results of my efforts.

At this time, I'm feeling pretty good about my appointment tomorrow. I know I still have work to do, but I don't feel like I'll be going there tomorrow in pitiful shape and in 2 months when I go to see Mrs. F again she'll have to take the dress in a lot more because I've done a major body overhaul.

I'll be back Monday to let everyone know how this went.

Did anything unexpected happen at your first dress fitting?

They're Done!

On Saturday I went to the post office with my mom to mail out our save the dates. I didn't do anything too fancy with the packaging the actual photocard, I didn't feel the need to spend any extra money on this aspect. I'll definitely be putting more effort into the invitations though.

As you saw in my semi-reveal, we decided to go with a photo save the date. And I really liked the way they turned out. We also received plain white envelopes but I felt like I needed a little something to dress them up a bit. Plus I don't think my handwriting is that great to be able to address all the envelopes in a legible manner. So we went with wrap around labels. Our planners created the design and I added the addresses to each using powepoint. I printed them out on full sheet labels and then proceeded to spend about 30 minutes cutting each one out. Suffice it to say that I could have really benefited from a paper cutter (my next wedding related purchase). Here they are before being cut out:

And here's the finished product. I didn't think I would care that much about the look of postage, but for some reason as soon as I stepped in line to buy the stamps I was hopeful that they had something that would coordinate well with the wrap around labels. And that woman at the post office made my day when she pulled out the perfect stamp, it even has the word love on it. I never thought I would care about this small detail but sometimes bride brain takes over and this was one of those moments.

The stack ready to be mailed out

Front

Back

The cost breakdown:

• 100 Photo postcards from Vistaprint - $12 (I only paid for shipping and didn't use all the postcards)
• Avery Full Sheet Labels - $12
• Postage - $22

The final cost for my save the dates are $46.00. I think that was pretty good for my first semi-diy project.