Said yes to the dress!

I found my wedding dress. :love:

I have been excited for my wedding next August, but I haven’t been this excited until now! I went with my bridesmaids and my mom to look for dresses last Saturday and I took a couple of recommendations from some friends on bridal shops to go to. They had either found their dresses there or someone they knew had.

I was a little bit nervous at first. Nervously excited. I guess anxious would be a better word. I was excited to try on wedding dresses but I was nervous that I might not find the one. The first bridal shop we went to was a lot of fun. They gave me colored note cards and when I saw a dress that I wanted to try, I would just slip the note card into the plastic sleeve of the dress and my attendant would come get it and put it in my dressing room.

From looking online, I had a designer in mind, Mori Lee. When I went to look at their selection though, I was pretty disappointed. But we found several that I liked and tried them on. I thought it might be awkward changing into and out of dresses with the attendant, but it was no big deal, just like if I were with a friend. (Not that I strip in front of my girl friends all the time… hahaha.)

There was one that I absolutely loved, and everyone else loved it, too. But it was way out of my budget. So we put it back. There were others that I liked, but I didn’t think they were it, and they were also fairly expensive, so we decided to move on. We thanked my attendant and said we’d keep those dresses in mind. We went to lunch and then had a little more time to kill so even though I didn’t have an appointment, we stopped by David’s Bridal. I was hoping that just maybe there would be something there I like since their dresses tend to be cheaper, but nothing really caught my eye.

The David’s Bridal visit consisted more of taking pictures than anything else. And maybe hiding in racks and scaring my friends.

So we headed to my next appointment at Clarice’s Bridal. We arrived early so we looked through some of their bridesmaid dresses but they really didn’t have a lot to look through. It was a really small shop, so all of the wedding dresses were actually on the second floor. When we finally went up, there was another group there that was taking up enough room for two parties. At first it was just mildly annoying since I wasn’t trying anything on yet.

We flipped through the dresses and picked out five or six to try and headed into the dressing room. When I walked back out with my first dress on, the other party hadn’t moved. There were only two benches, and four people could easily sit on one. Yet the four people were taking up both benches, and my bridesmaid’s and my mom were both just in a corner, standing. I was peeved. They didn’t make room for me, so I just walked through them to get to the other mirror to look at myself in the dress.

My attendant was very sweet. She was trying to pointedly get the other party’s attention to move without making it awkward by offering my mom a separate chair, but they didn’t get the hint. The same thing happened when I tried the second dress on. The bride was being obnoxious too. She was wearing a really form-fitted dress, running her hands up and down her body and repeating how gorgeous she looked. She kept saying, “I don’t want to take this dress off!” She was the stereotypical annoying bride. Her party kept complementing her and she would say, “I know.” Then they discussed for like twenty minutes how they were going to do her hair. I wanted to push her out a window.

Finally, the attendant asked them to make room so my party could sit. People can be so rude. Shortly after that, they left and we didn’t have any more problems.

And shortly after that, I found my dress. :)

I was initially pretty split between two dresses. One was a lot simpler, which was the look I thought that I wanted, while the other was more detailed. I didn’t end up getting a Mori Lee dress, though I did end up getting a Mori Lee belt/sash to replace the one on the dress. The one on the dress was fine, but I loved the more detailed one. I don’t want to give anything else :) away (Andrew, I know you are reading this!!) and I wish I could show you all pictures, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise.

All I can say is that August 8th of 2015 cannot get here soon enough!

Will you be my Bridesmaid?

I cannot imagine planning a wedding without my friends by my side, so almost the first thing I determined after me and Andrew got engaged was who I wanted to stand beside me on our wedding day. Andrew and I talked and agreed that 4 people on each side would be a good amount – not too much, not too little.

I also knew that I didn’t just want to send them a text and say, “hey wanna be my bridesmaid?!” I wanted to make it special. I got a few inspiring ideas from Pinterest and decided I would try and take my own little spin on it.

I went to Hobby Lobby (a craft store) and looked for some little boxes that I could work with. I found three cardboard boxes that were a perfect size, but I needed four. I found some wooden boxes that were a good size, but there were only two. I thought, well, I’ll make my maid of honor box a little special, since she is my maid of honor. So I bought three cardboard boxes and one wooden one.

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I found some paint that was as close to my wedding colors as I wanted (we decided on a mint blue with yellow!) and I put a coat of the acrylic paint on all of the boxes. The wooden box would probably have looked a little better with two, but I had just enough paint with one bottle to do them all with one coat, and I didn’t think it was necessary to buy more. Plus I didn’t think anyone would notice. ;)

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I wanted to make them feel customized and personal, so I bought some white paint, too, and painted their names on the lids of all the boxes. I am no artist, by any means, so I practiced on a paper plate to get it to what I deemed “decent.” One of my friend’s has such a long name: Jacqueline. I messed up on that one and just painted it over again with mint blue and tried again. On another one, the name was a little off-center so I painted it over again with the original blue and tried again. I think they turned out really good for my unsteady hand!

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I wanted to fill the boxes with all kinds of goodies while still asking them to be my bridesmaids. I started with ring pops – which are both sweet to eat and cute because of me being engaged. I then had some pictures printed that I mounted on cute card stock. I bought mini chocolates to fill them with, as long as each of my bridesmaid’s favorite candy. I had bought the candy before I bought the boxes though, and most of the candy was actually too big for the boxes (whoops!) so I just gave them to my friends afterwards and they still thought that was sweet.

I wanted the boxes to have a bit of glitter and a white wedding feel, but I hate how glitter gets everywhere and on everything. I found some white gift shred that I then placed in the boxes. It definitely made them feel a little more girly. :)

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To actually ask them if they would be my bridesmaid, I just took white paper and wrote in pink, “will you be my bridesmaid?” and for Becky’s, “will you be my Maid of Honor?” I mounted that on some yellow cardstock (which tied in with my wedding colors again) and glued them on the lid, so that when they opened the boxes, that would be what they saw.

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I wanted them to know when this whole shindig was going down as well, so I wrote our date that we picked – August 8th, 2015!!! – and mounted it on cardstock and placed it inside the box.

And, of course, when everything was inside and all together, I had to wrap it in adorable yellow ribbon!

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I am soooo pleased with how they turned out. I thought that they would be cute, but I absolutely love them. I would have loved if someone had done that for me and I think all my girls loved that I did it for them. Becky actually started to tear up a little bit when I asked her and everyone else thought they were so cute! I hope that it’s something (the box at least) that they will want to keep for a while. :)

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Overall, the project was pretty cheap. Price breakdowns and where I got what:

Cardboard/wooden boxes (found at Hobby Lobby): $3 each x 4 = $12
White and Mint blue acrylic paint (found at Walmart): $0.50 x 2 = $1
Gift Shred (Hobby Lobby): $2
Pictures (printed at Walgreens): $1.25
Cardstock (Hobby Lobby): $0.50 x 3 = $1.50
Chocolates (Target): $4 x 2 = $8
Ring Pops (Walmart): $0.50 x 4 = $2
Yellow Ribbon (Hobby Lobby): $3

Grand total: $30.75

Not too bad – only came out to about $8 for a box. If you have a lot of the supplies already, it brings the price down a bit. Overall really happy with how they all turned out and I am so excited for the rest of wedding planning! :)

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