anoisette

I really enjoyed the DIY Wedding Favors series over at Style Me Pretty. A lot of those ideas could also be used for other occasions or even little Christmas presents. Some of my favourites are the Custom Seed Packs, Spice Jar Favors, and Tea Tins. Currently I’m thinking our favors will be based on the Spice Jar Favors, just because I love how they pull double duty as place ard holders.

I was just playing around with the fantastic pattern maker at bgpatterns.com and was pretty impressed at how easy it is to make nice patterns I’d actually want to use! It would be the perfect place to make a quick background for say your wedding website. If only they let you download the patterns in a higher resolution so you could use them on your invites as well… Anyway, the site is super easy to use and you can pick from a very nice selection of patterns, pick the color, the size, the texture, and a whole lot of other stuff that makes it so easy to end up with something you like! Even if you don’t have an immediate need to make a pattern, it’s a lot of fun to play with.

Ok, it was totally a mistake to put off dress shopping no matter how much I was dreading it. I’m now starting to feel a wee bit stressed about actually finding one. The first thing bridal store staff tell me when I walk into the store is that since the wedding is in August we are Out Of Time and my only option is to buy a dress off the rack and have it altered. It is too late to order one. Wedding dresses take 6 months to make! Or something.

Anyway, here are a couple more I tried on (and liked):

This Venus dress is pretty cute, my friend found it and told me to try it on. It’s simple and I think it would suit our garden wedding nicely. I wish it had a little bit of a train though, just a little bit, because I kind want one. It’s the only time in my life I will ever be able to wear a dress with one!

And this one is Brookelyn by Maggie Sottero.

I’m really drawn to dresses with those ribbons at the hem it seems, and this was no exception. I tried it on in white/white and it was pretty nice. The skirt is really really really full though, and it has a big gorgeous train. That to me made it seem a bit over the top for a small garden wedding. It’s a gorgeous dress, but too formal for me.

I’m going to Calgary for a few days and I think I will do some power-dress-shopping there. Crossing my fingers that I will find something!

The other day I picked up a lovely letterpress wedding card for some friends of the boy who just got married. It’s by a Canadian outfit out of Montreal called That Sky Blue Stationery. While browsing their site I noticed that they have a line of Letterpress Invitations for weddings. Invitations are another thing I need to tackle soon. Anyway, I wish they’d show more of their wedding invitations line on their website. It’s annoying to have to track down a retailer and then make the trek out there if you’re not even sure what the offerings are.

One of the first dresses I ’saved’ from my online browsing is this one from the Vineyard Collection by Priscilla of Boston.

Asides from the fact that it’s probably totally out of my budget, I don’t love it in its entirety. But there are elements that I really like a lot. Namely the neckline and the horizontal pleating happening on the bodice.  Later, while browsing patterns at Fabricana, I came across this vintage Vogue  1950s dress pattern that has some of those same elements that I like.

I’m just not really sure about the off-the-shoulder look though. I have a feeling this pattern would have to be modified if I wanted a definitely on-the-shoulder look and that’s enough to keep me looking. But I’ll keep this in mind. I’d have to modify the skirt as well, because I tried on a very full skirted dress and wow that’s a whole lot of poofy, Poofy, POOFY white. My mom actually burst out laughing when I walked out of the change room. I think I’d rather go with an a-line or slight trumpet bottom like the Vineyard dress.

I’ve really been procrastinating on dress shopping because I’m just not that excited about it. I think my first experience going to a giant Mississauga bridal dress warehouse a number of years ago with a friend who was getting married kind of left me a little bit weary. It was too much like a big explosion of poofy white. Poofy white and more poofy white as far as the eye could see. There was no escaping the poofy white.

Two weeks ago I finally started on the much dreaded task by going down to Washington state to David’s Bridal. I’d found a few dresses online that I thought were ok and really reasonably priced, so I figured it would be a good starting point. Here are some of the dressed I tried:

I liked the simplicity of this one, but when I tried it on I thought the top looked a little too ‘adidas’ and sporty with the three bands and halter combo.

This one was similar to the first one in a strapless version. But I don’t think I really dig the strapless look. Plus it’s practically starting to look like a wedding dress uniform.

This last one I tried on a whim in the store even though it’s totally not my style with the lace and all, but the fit and cut were surprisingly flattering. I think it’s a very nice dress but the lace just isn’t me.

So that was my David’s Bridal experience. It’s definitely worth the trip if you are a dress hunting Vancouver bride. I didn’t have an appointment, but the staff were pretty accommodating, although if I had to do it over I would make one. My consultant was really nice and helpful and helped me with the dresses (dive in to the white poof).

If I’d found The Dress For Me there, I’d definitely be taking advantage of their infamous $99 dress sale. There’s one currently happening until March 23rd.

How cute are those save-the-date pencils?! They’re only part of the save-the-date package that Vancouver bride Amber put together. Her whole school theme was beautifully executed. Check out her wedding bio page to see her full wedding and all the fun ideas she had. I also love her little monogrammed magnets.

That reminds me of an alternative I thought of after I had already ordered my save-the-date magnets: pinback button style magnets. Local outfit, The Mustache Press does magnet back buttons for very reasonable prices. I found them while perusing the Indie I Do exhibitor list.

I think I have the last of the Save-The-Dates addressed and ready to go. Just had a few addresses I was waiting on or had to verify. Here’s a photo of them before we assembled them and sent them off. I ended up using assorted colored envelopes my mom had gotten for free. At first I wasn’t crazy about the assorted colors, but then I realized they were free and that’s hard to say no to. The green polka dot card is what we mounted the magnets on to mail.

To make the addressing manageable I used the form feature of Google Docs, as per this post on WeddingBee, and my parents and the boy entered the addresses. It saved me tons of time and now the addresses are all in there for when we send out the real invitations. From Google Docs I imported the list into MS Office did a mail merge to print the addresses. And my printer handled those freebie envelopes like a champ.

I’m way over trying on wedding dresses after going to a bunch of places last week. After a while they all start to look the same. I’m seriously thinking of making my own. But first I want to get some of my ideas on paper, quickly and easily, while still looking recognizable. I’m really out of practise sketching though. Luckily I found these awesome free fashion croquis templates. They’re great quality and you can even download them in Illustrator format. I printed a basic front facing one and now we’ll see what I can come up with for dress ideas.

I’ve been playing with Wordle, making word clouds that I could somehow incorporate into the wedding. Not sure for what yet? The invitations maybe? Table numbers? A big poster? Anyway, it’s fun to pick fonts and colors and I like the way it looks and how it has significance to us as a couple. I ended up using text from the story of the development of our relationship and I like that you get the main gist from the big words and then can dig down and read the smaller ones. But really you could use text from anything, whether a favorite story or poem, or even emails you’ve written to each other… Or if you both have blogs it can pull the words from the RSS feed. Lots of possibilities!