Dresses for the Ladies

I've put it off for a while now and without my fantastic MOH there still wouldn't be any new news regarding dress shopping or selection. It just hasn't been one of my priorities thus far. However, throughout the process I knew a couple of things:

1. I would select the color of the dress
2. I would select a range of dress designs that I liked within a specific line (i.e. Dessy, David's, Lela Rose)
3. The girls would have free reign within those two restrictions to select the gown that they wanna rock on my big day

Based on #1 here's the color that we're gong for:

Pantone Merlot

From #2 here are some of the dress options that we're considering:

Top Row: All Alfred Angelo via Dessy.com; Bottom Row: Lela Rose and Cynthia Rowley via Dessy.com

Before I got deep into wedding planning bliss, I received some advice from a wedding planner friend...whatever you do, do NOT take all your bridesmaids with you dress shopping, you will only leave with a headache and possibly be very annoyed with your ladies. With this advice, me and a 2 of my girls, one being the MOH, went dress shopping on Saturday in Old Town Alexandria to a Le Star Bridal to scope out some of our faves. Did I mention that this was the first time I stepped foot into a bridal salon (besides David's) and I didn't even tempt myself into looking for anything for myself...it took a little will power because there were some lovely dresses on display as we walked in, but i digress...

I think overall it was a successful trip despite a couple things that annoyed me about the shop (but that's another story). We used this shopping trip to narrow down our options and we left knowing that we had found all of our dress options. Shopping success!

I'll reveal the finalists in a later post.

How was your experience dress shopping with your bridesmaids?

We've Hit the 6 Month Mark!

Let me start by saying...wow, where does the time go! I feel like it was just yesterday when we settled on a wedding date. But we've been planning this wedding full-on since August 2010, which has given us a lot of time to get things booked and scheduled. And now that most of the big ticket vendors have been locked in, it's time to get to the small stuff...the details.

But before I start in on the next chapter of our wedding planning frenzy, here's a peek into what we've accomplished most recently:

• Booked our caterer, mmm!
• Ordered our Save the Dates
• Booked our DJ
• Officially booked our photog (we had locked him in, informally, but now we've have our contract in and signed)
• Picked our honeymoon destination
• Set a date for our wedding shower
• Scheduled our first bridesmaid dress fitting

I love writing this stuff out because the small (and big) accomplishments really seem to get lost in the shuffle sometimes. But every now and again, this reminds me that we're definitely making progress.

The Road to My Dream Dress

As some of you already know I found my dress at the Running of the Brides event here in DC last summer, if you didn't you can read about here. I like my dress but when I bought it I knew there were some things that I would like to change about it, namely the neckline and tweak the shape a bit. To me they're minor things but I have an alterations appointment tonight and I guess she'll let me know what's minor and what's major including costs.

I'm sure you want to see what my dress currently looks like, well...

Feeling a Little Guilty

Source

I've been going back and forth on whether to post this or not but here it goes...

I know there's someone out there who has felt guilty about a wedding related purchase. Well for me, I'm feeling guilty about hiring a full-service wedding planning team. I started out planning the wedding solo (with Mr.B in tow of course), gathering vendor options, inspiration galore and creating my gameplan and timeline. Then we met with a wedding planning duo for the purposes of just DOC services. They sounded too good to be true and we ended hiring them full-time, we couldn't pass up this deal and great opportunity, plus it would help ease some of my planning related stress.

And in the couple months since, I've had great design discussions and they have gotten us great vendors to choose from. Not to mention they've helped us bring to life some of the wonderful details I've dreamed of early on. Yet, from time to time I find myself feeling a little bad for choosing to go with a planner. I guess I'm feeling sort of like a DIY wedding failure. Browsing various blogs and seeing how other women have courageously planned and put together fabulous weddings on similarly tight budgets without the help of a planner and sometimes not even a DOC makes me think that I took the easy way out. At the beginning going at it alone, I felt a sense a pride in that I was doing everything myself. But now not so much. And especially with such a tight budget sometimes I feel like other brides at times in that I could have definitely used that money towards something else.

And don't get me wrong, I feel like our planning team has done a fabulous job and they have been worth their investment thus far. I guess there's just some internal struggles going on here that I'll have o work on reconciling.

Have you felt guilty about a major wedding related purchase?

E-pics are Here...Go Terps!

If you weren't aware, UMD plays Duke tonight, hence the title of this post. But back to the real reason you're here...the e-pics! I received the cd with all our photo selections last Friday from my cousin who did an awesome job. And here are our top choices for your viewing pleasure!

 *Some lovey dovey photos ahead :)

If you missed any of the posts leading up to the big reveal check 'em out here:

• Brr! It's Cold Outside
• How to Survive a Winter E-Pic Session

Let's Eat...Success!

Leading up to my tasting I have been so nervous and even had a crazy nightmare. Well, I'm here to report the tasting was uber successful!

Ok...one part of the dream was slightly correct, the caterer's office was located in some random industrial park type location, but other than that, everything else about the dream was totally fictional and looking back on it just plain crazy! I was a little disappointed when we scheduled the tasting appointment because I knew that Mr. B wouldn't be able to attend as he is still away in Philly. But thankfully I had some wonderful people there with me to discuss the food and provide additional suggestions and opinions. I brought along my father, my youngest bridesmaid and my FMIL. I'm so grateful for their attendance. Afterward we had a good idea of some of the tweaks and substitutions that we could make to ensure that the menu is well received by a majority of the guests.

Without further ado, here's the food:
*Sorry guys, I was too busy eating and enjoying the food thus the picture quality suffered a bit.

Hor D'ouevres (clockwise from top left) - Beef Empanadas, Shrimp and Grits, Bourbon BBQ Chicken Skewers

Entree Choice #1 - Buttermilk Fried Chicken w/ White Gravy and Garlic Mashed Potatoes and Steamed Veggies in a Tarragon Butter

Entree Choice #2 - Pan Seared Salmon with Lemon Butter Sauce w/Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Quick Review:

• Hor D'ouevres - LOVED 'EM ALL! I wouldn't change a thing...ok maybe a little more cheese in the grits but who doesn't like a little more cheese. Otherwise, they were all so tasty and right on point, finger lickin good, lol.
  
  
• Entree #1 - This was also fantastic, I think the only thing we will change will be the vegetable selection. I like the veggie choice that we selected, but after speaking with my other fellow tasters, we concluded that the majority of guests probably wouldn't eat that particular veggie selection. So we have identified one possible substitution.
  
  
• Entree #2 - The salmon was cooked perfectly and had the best crispy crust on the top. And the lemon butter sauce was a perfect complement. We just need to find another option for a second starch so that people won't be stuck with just mashed potatoes.

My First Wedding Dream...I Mean Nightmare

It's actually not the first but it's the most realistic and tangible one yet. As I've mentioned before, I have my first tasting today with our number one catering choice. I've been so nervous lately about how this is going to turn out. And last night just reinforced those nervous feelings.

The dream starts out as I'm driving to the caterers office and once I get there I realize were in some really crappy strip mall type of place with the cheesy fluorescent 7-eleven style light-up words. I gasp and wonder OMG what have I gotten myself into. I bring the rest of my tasting team in and we get started. The setting was horrific, were sitting in a cafeteria style room with the tables and benches from 3rd grade. And when they finally bring the food out, it's lukewarm and it looks and tastes like cafeteria food...bland, no type of presentation whatsoever and just plain nasty! I leave really pissed off because it was huge waste of time and now were back to square one in the search for a caterer.

I'm confident that my experience today will be nothing like the one from my dream but I can't help but think of how my thoughts have manifested into this grand dreamland scenario.

Tasting update coming tomorrow!