Wednesday, August 31, 2011

bridesmaids dresses!

As promised, today's post is all about my lovely bridesmaids and what it looks like they will be wearing on the wedding day!! In advance, I apologise for the long post! Feel free to just look at the pretty pictures if you like :)

Previous posts have discussed our initial colour scheme ideas and showed a few pictures of bridesmaid colours I had liked, without really focusing on the actual dresses. It also touched on the idea of adding lavender into the original colour scheme of light grey, blush and ivory.

But before we reached this colour scheme, I had ideas in my head of long, green dresses. Yep, green. No particular reason why, our home is filled with soft greens so I suppose it was a natural progression from that. I also thought the roses would pop against the green!

These are two of the original pictures I saved, more for the colour then for the dress:



I definitely always had a pretty, flowy dress concept in mind - very romantic and soft. Before we established some colour ideas, here's a few pictures I saved. As you can see, I was leaning towards a longer dress...





After we found our starter colour scheme, I was leaning more towards the blush colouor of dresses, but I did find that a lot of dresses were a little too pink for what I had in mind:


[source]

[source]


I DID manage to find this little number in my lunch break one day and it was a great little bargain at only $80...but end of stock items so it was unlikely that we would be able to get all the sizes we need.



Ok. So that quickly catches you up to wear my head was at with regards to the dresses before the girls and I went shopping over the weekend. Taking a break between bridal boutiques, we headed over to my FAVOURITE store (I would happily have this whole store as my wardrobe, seriously), Forever New. I had headed over here with the girls, with the idea of them trying on this gorgeous maxi dress. I love the colours but didn't really know if it was too much for bridesmaid dresses...but I figured that it wouldn't hurt to try!!!


I apologise for the bad pictures but unfortunately there is no particular of this dress on the website. These were taken in store on my phone one lunch break.


Early on I decided that I would probably prefer to buy the girls dresses from a regular clothing store, rather then a bridal store - they are cheaper and prettier, and it's much more likely that the girls can wear them again!

Anyway, while we were in Forever New, I basically gave the girls free rein to pull anything and try anything on that they liked and thought might work well. Some of the dresses the girls pulled or thought about included:




This included the lovely Miss Romana pulling a dress which I had previously looked at (especially since it came in two of the colours for the wedding - Soft Blush and Lavender Shimmer!) but didn't really feel on the hanger.

WELL. When Ro walked out in the dress, I immediately loved it. It looked so much more delicate on then it did on the hanger, where the top of it looked somewhat 'clunky' (for lack of a better term!). It was flowy, came in the perfect colours and I loved the shoulder detail!

So, without further ado, let me show you what it looks like the ladies will be wearing at the wedding! (Pending two ladies getting a chance to try on their sizes/colours). At this stage, the blondies in the group will be wearing lavender, and the dark haired beauties will be dressed in the blush. Unfortunately, due to the amount of people in the change rooms, I didn't get to snap any pictures of the girls in the dresses. My mum managed to sneak just one of my lovely MoH (although in the opposite colour to what she will be wearing and she will probably hate me for sharing the picture hehe). The other two pictures have been sourced from the internet, as again these dresses aren't on the Forever New website (I swear that the two dresses I wanted pictures of are the only two who aren't!). I love the length, I think it actually looks better on the ladies then the longer dresses and I'm excited to see how they look all accessorised :) I'd love to hear what you think!




02/09/2011 EDITOR'S NOTE: Here's a prettier picture I took in the store on my lunch break yesterday! I love how pretty the two colours look together :) Wish I had pictures of the girls in them! Once they get them all, I will definitely put some up :)

Sunday, August 28, 2011

dresses, dresses everywhere!!!!

So! Today was my wonderful first day shopping for my wedding gown. And let me tell you, it was fun :) Hehe. I did feel rather silly at first, and it is still bizarre to me that I actually went shopping for a WEDDING dress today, but it was a LOT of fun!

My lovely bridesmaids (minus my poor sister, who had been up all night with my sick nephew!) and my wonderful mummy joined me for a very girlie day of trying on dresses, eating McDonalds (whoops!) and finding bridesmaid dresses (yes, it looks like we have found them first go...more on that later!).

First up we had an appointment at 10am at Park Avenue Bridal. The ladies here were SO lovely, professional and HELPFUL. I was so overwhelmed when we first walked in, there were just SO many dresses to choose from! The lovely saleswoman we had (Julie) picked out a whole bunch of dresses for me to start with, based purely on my body shape - allowing me to try on a number of different shapes. As we moved through them, as I commented on things I did and didn't like, she would pull other dresses and cull the ones that didn't seem to fit. At the end of the day, we ended up with 3 dresses - two that were rather similar, and 1 COMPLETELY different. One was a lovely vintage style, one was more of a 1920's/modern look (these two were rather similar but had very different bottoms) and one was a complete PRINCESS dress that had a full bottom and completely jeweled top. I was SO surprised by the last one and how much I liked it!!

Going into the process, while I really did have a very open mind to try on almost anything, I did have a vintage/old world charm in my mind. The first two dresses very much fit into that, but the last one was the COMPLETE opposite. It was pure white for one thing, when everything else I tried on was mostly ivory, and it was ... well, a Cinderella dress. Completely. And I loved it. But as much as I loved it, it really isn't what I had in mind for my wedding (it doesn't really fit the style) and as the sales lady said - I love it...but so does everyone else. She considers it a slow week if she doesn't sell at least two of those...not making it as different as I'd like :)

The other two dresses remained...everyone else had a moment when I walked out in the vintage one (it was one of the first I tried on). I didn't really have a moment. It was definitely the first dress I had tried on and liked though! It was very pretty and it looked really nice on but it just didn't feel like the type of dress that I wanted to wear to my wedding. It turned out to be a very useful thing though, because I discovered that (opposite to what I thought!) I am leaning more towards a fuller skirt and less towards a fitted dress. This was a very fitted dress with a BEAUTIFUL lace overlay but it just wasn't right.

So by the end of it we were left with the 1920's/modern dress. I really, really like it, it is beautiful. After all the culling it was definitely my favourite out of all we tried on at the store. But did I tear up and have a moment? Not quite. I think the next few days will tell how much I like it, because I'm someone who knows how badly I want something if it sticks in my head for days after...as such, not going to go into too much detail at this stage! But it was lovely, different, old worldly yet modern. I think the future mister would like it as well, which is a bonus (I've already established that he will laugh at me in anything too..."foufy" haha).

Alas, no photos from this store! We weren't allowed to take any inside (much to the disappointment of my sister) and because most of the dresses are designed specifically for the store, they aren't floating around on the web. Don't fret however, I have a couple from the next store!

After some lunch and some bridesmaid dress shopping (this one will have it's own post, I promise!) we headed into a small boutique up the road from Park Avenue, called Vision In White. Smaller selection of dresses (which was good, because we were up for a shorter visit by this stage) the staff were lovely but moved a lot faster then the other store - basically if you didn't love it straight away, it was taken off and you moved to the next dress. We tried a few on here, nothing really grabbed me...until I hit the pocket dress. OMG THIS DRESS HAS POCKETS. SO cool!



This dress is called the "Mimi" and is by Wtoo Brides. Again, this was a dress I was completely surprised by. I tried on the ivory version and when the lady pulled it from the rack, I thought it looked like a 50's prom dress (and the ivory looked a little dirty). When I got it on though, the lady removed the flower (MUCH better!) and honestly, the cut of the top of that dress was SO flattering. I loved the pockets, and what I loved the most was that this dress allowed me to take advantage of how much I love sashes! With a sash on, this dress looked gorgeous. I was completely picturing it with something similar to below:

[source]


I was surprised at the simplicity of this dress and how much I loved it...the only "but" was the material. And it was a big "but". This dress was MARKEDLY cheaper then the other store (although the other store happily worked with my budget) but unfortunately it showed because quality of the materials in most of the dresses was somewhat lacking. Unfortunately this dress was one of them. In any other material this dress probably would have been a strong contender. In fact, I had tried on a dress at Park Avenue that didn't make the cut but was a GORGEOUS material and it would have been PERFECT for this dress.

The second dress that made the final cut at Vision In White was this Henry Roth - Inga:



What I really liked about this one was that it mixed a few of my favourite things from other dresses into one - the fuller bottom, the lace overlay and a sash! We turned the top into a sweetheart necklace though, and it looked a lot better on my shape :) This one comes in all different colours of lace (I tried on one with a gold edged lace, which was very pretty) and the colour of the sash can be changed. It was really pretty but again...no moment.

There's another store in the area that I really wanted to go to (two of my friends have found their wedding gowns there) but unfortunately it is closed on Sundays. We're going to head back one Saturday, I think it will be another long appointment because they have a lot of stock! Should be good fun :)

Otherwise, we're going to hit up the area where my SIL found her gown! Today was very much more about getting used to trying on dresses, finding out what shapes and styles I like, and just having fun. I wasn't expecting to find a gown today so it took a lot of pressure off and just made it a lot of fun. We still have a lot of time to play with, and now that I have a better idea of what I like it will make the process a little easier next time!

How did you guys all go with your first wedding dress shopping experience? Did anyone find their dress their first time out? Or did you take your time and try different stores? I would love to hear your experiences!

Next up, the bridesmaids dresses and slight adjustments to our wedding colours!

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

belated gifts and minister meetings!

Well today was the first meeting with our minister, a lovely man by the name of Ron. As it happens, Ron married my bridesmaid, Romana, and her hubby, and my OTHER bridesmaid, Kylie, was in her wedding party. He was quite excited to hear this, and decided that my wedding was going to be a "mini reunion" hehe.

I'm so glad we asked Romana for a recommendation for a minister - he was LOVELY, he has a good sense of humour and specifically went into celebrant work after retiring as a minister specifically because he saw such a gap for young couples who wished to have a religious ceremony but weren't allowed to have their ceremonies where they wanted them (ie. if they wanted a location outside of a church). He was absolutely wonderful to talk with today, but us both as ease and helped us through all the beginning stages of our Intention to Marry paperwork, etc. Now all we're waiting from is a little package in the mail with all the details for the costs of the ceremony, as well as our little ceremony workbook package and we can start planning our day! Very excited. I particularly loved that he made a point of speaking with the future hubby and letting him know that he expected him to be completely involved in the creation of the ceremony - he wasn't allowed to just go with whatever I want! He has been told that he has to make sure that what he is saying and doing at the ceremony is as much what he wants as what I want.

I love this because as much as I want the future hubby to be involved in every step of the planning, he is very happy to just go with the flow - not because he is lazy but I think because he has no specific expectations of what he wants from our wedding day other then for everyone to have a good time and to have a wonderful, love filled day (oh, and the boys in grey suits! hehe). So while that is great when it comes to picking out the table cloths or the bridesmaids colours, I do really want him to have involvement in the creation of our ceremony, the selection of our readings, the decision of what to say for our vows...all those things that are most important to us as a couple, making a promise together. So points to Ron for that!!!

In other news, we got a couple of belated engagement gifts over the weekend - small sections of bigger gifts (they had already spoiled us!) that weren't around in time for our party. One such gift was a lovely Etsy buy (I believe it was Etsy? I love that I got her hooked too!) from Miss Laina and her partner:


Nawww! It's just gorgeous, I love it!!!!!


She knows my taste so well. She even requested colours to match our decor!! Hehe. You can't really see in the pictures but it has a pretty black ribbon to hang it up from but we have no hooks at the moment, so it's living on our DVD shelf. Must remember to buy a hook!!

The second gift was from my gorgeous sister-in-law and my brother - this gorgeous little book of sayings and vows. I love it! I already have a couple of pages marked and this will definitely come in handy when we're creating our ceremony!


Juzzie also wrote a gorgeous note inside the front sleeve for us...


That's likely to be all the wedding news from me this week, until we hit up the bridal boutiques on Sunday! This is because I have taken a task on this week - I have dug out my Nanna's old sewing machine and I am trying to learn to sew! Following the lovely Suzannah over at Adventures in Dress Making and seeing all the gorgeous little dresses she has made (not to mention her wedding dress and bridesmaids dresses!! Seriously, start following, wedding recaps will be starting soon and I can't wait!) has inspired me to try and save some money (Hi, my name's Amanda and I'm a shopaholic) and learn to make myself cute dresses! Particularly since summer is coming and there are so many options for beginners cute summer dresses! In particular, I fell in love with this little number over at The Selfish Seamstress, only to find that the folks over at Grosgrain had created a Frock by Friday tutorial on it!


Image courtesy of Grosgrain


So, my pattern and material is cut, my bobbin is threaded...but my machine is not. My machine is SO OLD that I can't even find a tut on how to thread this particular one online. I got to a certain point using a generalised threading tutorial, and now I'm stuck. Luckily, my lovely Mum will hopefully be coming over to give me a hand. It's killing me not to be able to move forward!

Wish me luck and hey - why not join me and make yourself a fabulous little dress? There are plenty to choose from over in the Grosgrain 'Frock by Friday' series - leave me a comment below if you decide to try your hand at it!

a busy wedding week

I promise a more exciting post with pretty pictures soon, but I thought I would share some of the exciting things going on for us this week!!!

Tomorrow we have our first meeting with the Reverend we are hoping will perform our wedding ceremony! After the dramas of trying to locate our birth certificates (despite me bugging him for 2 weeks the future hubby left it until today to pick his up from his Dad's... Of course it's not there... Lucky as I am writing this (at 1am) his Mum just messaged as to say she found it!), we are now organized and ready to go in the morning. I'm nervous! I have this irrational concept of someone turning around and saying nope, you guys aren't actually fit to be married. Anyone else feel silly like that?!

Also in wedding news, I walked into a few bridal boutiques today and booked in some appointments for Sunday! Yep, we are finally officially going dress shopping. This. Feels. Weird. Honestly, I'm not actually excited. Is that weird? I kind of feel like everything until now (despite having paid for things!) has just been day dreaming, and because I've mostly been talking about it on here there's been no one to mock me! However I feel like when I go to try on a dress people are going to ask me what the hell I'm doing! Like I'm a little kid trying on Mum's clothes.... I almost feel like I'm going along and it's actually for one of the other girls... Not for me!!! I think I'm going to feel so silly trying on the first gown!!!

I'm counting on that feeling going away though, and look forward to blogging about the experience. Tell me though - Do/Did any of you guys experience similar feelings before you first tried on dresses? Or were you just excited?

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Mixbook comp!

Only a day left (well, maybe longer for the US residents, but for me the 17th is well, in a few minutes!) to enter this awesome comp over at Saying I Do! Enter to win an awesome Mixbook!



Check out Laura's blog to see an example of the cool pages she has made using Mixbook, and to find out how to enter. Best hurry! (or not. I'd like to win. hehe)

wedding day nails

I've had two wedding deliveries over the last few days that I can't show you until after the wedding... That = :(

However, one arrived today that I CAN share! That = :)

I had been toying with the idea of a pale, pretty blue colour nail polish for my toe nails come wedding day. I like the idea of random little "something blue" moments. Well, thanks to a nail polish post from the lovely Rorie over at Imperfect Obsession (check out her blog, great reading!) I discovered the Essie wedding polishes! A quick trip to my local Myer ended in disappointment, since they had hardly any of them, but a quick eBay search provided me with this little beauty:



It arrived today and has inside a mini version for 4 of the wedding polishes. Including the perfect pale shade of blue, "Borrowed and Blue". So excited, can't wait to test run it to see how it looks on my nails. Of course, now I want all of the pretty wedding related polishes because...well, just because!!!

Has anyone else hopped on the bridal nail polish train? What great buys have you had?

PS: So excited to realise I have 20 followers!! Small number for other people, VERY exciting for me! Welcome everyone who's new and following, I hope I don't bore you too much!!! xxx

Monday, August 15, 2011

wedding fitness!

Well, I did it. I started jogging. Ahhh!

This is a big deal for me because I have ALWAYS hated running. I was that kid who would WALK the entire Cross Country Run at school. Yep, that was me. And it wasn't because I wasn't fit, oh no. Dancing classes for 5 out of 7 nights a week meant that I was DEFINITELY fit. I just hated running. HATED it. My dad used to always say, "As a runner, Amanda makes a great dancer"...hehe

But I have broken down and given it a shot. My MoH had a lot of success so well, why can't I??? (I still don't know how long this will last...)

I got myself some running shoes (brand new from my sister who bought the wrong size - that was handy of her) and downloaded myself a "Couch to 5 miles" app on my iPhone. It's for real beginners (ie. never really run in your life!) and it works over my music...and today was my first day out. I don't think the fiance really believed me when I told him I'd done it!!

But the proof is in the pudding...or iPhone snapshot:

I love that completing a day's plan is a "win" - I'm totally "winning" with my one day...hehe...


Wednesday will be day two...let's see if I can make it through 21 days of continuing the program - it's supposed to take 21 days to make or break a habit right??

In other fitness news, I got myself a shiny new dance pole for my birthday and it FINALLY arrived at the end of last week. (Yes. I pole dance. Purely for exercise and fun and let me tell you - it's the BEST exercise and BEST fun EVER!) I haven't had a chance to set it up and play yet, I can't wait to. I've had to stop classes for the last 10 months thanks to health issues but I am hoping to go back soon. And hoping to get myself back into pole shape with my new pole before I do so (I really don't want to repeat the same level again!). Either way, I'm hoping to jog or pole dance my way into a more toned body for the wedding. With our "1 year to the big day" count down starting very soon, I figured now was a good time to start!!!

What fitness routine have you started/plan on starting to get yourself into shape for your wedding day? I know there's a lot of runners out there! Did you struggle to start like I am?

Friday, August 12, 2011

organisation!

Ok so I'm slightly....over organised. I love check lists, To Do lists, pretty stationary....I love it all. If you've been following the blog, you would have already seen posts on my Wedding Folder, and my fabulous Wedding Notes.

Well, thanks to Caizn of Homespun Bliss and this post, I'm now going to be spending the day printing out all of the marvelous templates for my folder that can be found at the Russell and Hazel website. Dangerous. Yet so satisfying!

For anyone just starting in their planning and creating their own wedding folder, check out the awesome templates over at Russell and Hazel. They cover almost everything you can think of, although I will be adding a DIY list. They even have some templates for destination weddings!

I'm looking forward to spending the day relaxing, listening to some Adele and organising my folder...I also plan on going hunting for some cute little boxes for a wedding-related delivery that arrived yesterday! Unfortunately, I can't share with you til after the wedding (over a whole year away!)! How will I survive!? Ah well, more to write about after the big day...

Coming up soon - bridesmaid dresses, groomsmen boutonniere and my DIY plans!!!

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

6 months have flown...

6 months ago today, my gorgeous man got down on bended knee and asked me to marry him. In just over a year, we'll get to say "I do". Can't wait to be his wife <3

Making it seem even more real is the fact that we booked our first meeting with a minister yesterday!!! Eek!!! I think meeting with the Reverend will make the plans seem much more real - and all the paperwork that goes along with it!

Hope all is going well in blogging world - I promise some more posts soon, I'm just a bit sick with the flu at the moment!!! Xx

Friday, August 05, 2011

i love mail deliveries...

...and I've had a few of them this week!

First up, our stamp came! And I love it! So all our Thank You's have been stamped and were mailed today - yay!



Then, I had a little envelope from twobirds arrive, with some sample colours I requested...If you haven't checked out twobirds dresses before, definitely do - they are awesome and about a bajillion dresses in one! (may be a slight exaggeration!) Very versatile and the colours are lovely...but I just don't think I'm a fan of the material. For any other occasion, yes, but the material is a little too, hmm, shiny maybe? for what I have in mind for bridesmaids? I think I'm leaning more towards soft and ethereal...But they really are gorgeous dresses...



THEN I got another AWESOME delivery from good ol' kikki k! You may remember I ordered my Wedding Folder from them? Well I got a $15 voucher from kikki k, just for having a birthday (isn't that nice!) and decided to buy their AWESOME Wedding Notes. Seriously, if any of you guys are just starting out your planning, or need a present for a bride-to-be, this is the BEST organiser I have come across! (and I am an organisation/stationary freak!) Check lists, lovely layouts for budgets, sections for EVERYTHING YOU CAN THINK OF - this planner has it all! Plus, it is pretty and elegant. DEFINITELY recommend it!!! I was in my happy place this afternoon filling in all the pretty little areas and ticking off enough things to make me feel satisfied that I am an organised little bride-to-be :)




I was filling this out while watching "Bride Wars" today. I had my folder, my organiser and a bridal mag in front of me...all while watching a bridal movie...the future hubby walked in from mowing the lawns, took one look, shook his head and walked right back out. *whoops*


I also bought myself the newest Wedding Style Guide yesterday - it's my fav. wedding mag and I intend to get all of them before my wedding next year :) They just look so pretty too!!!



I also contacted a man about a car today (and future hubby is currently decided yay or nay!) and have a number of posts planned for the upcoming week! Going to try and blog for frequently!

Until then, I leave you with a picture of this stunning vintage Dior gown that The Lane posted on Facebook this week...*sigh, happy place again*....

Enjoy!


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