Thank Heavens I don't have to hike in this

Equals gross! Well, I mean, just today. And yesterday, here in Philly. Kyle is in Nebraska but he says it's just as bad there, the whole Eastern half of the US was a big red splotch on the Weather Channel yesterday and speaking of weather, as a side note, hurricane season has officially started. You can go check out Adrian by clinking the link above, or you could look at the ten day at our honeymoon locale:

Eeek! Thankfully I knew this was rainy/hurricane season for Central America and the Pacific in general, and that the rainy season is fully over by the time Kyle and I will be honeymooning there.

But on the home front, it's pretty tropical here too. I was feeling it last night when I met up with Emily to go see an absolutely astoundingly amazing Zoe Keating show she was wonderful enough to buy tickets for.

(Layered cello, yes please!)

Instead of sitting in her cool apartment pre-show, we opted for wine on the back porch. It was gross out there, at 9:00 PM! But worth it because it was very very nice to hang out with Emily outside of lab, and just in general, and especially since she's going off to math camp next week... and because the week after, I'm going survival hiking!

I need to let everyone know that from June 18th-June 25th, I will be completely incommunicado because I will be hiking the Appalachian Trail for 5 days (10 miles a day). This was my dad's brilliant idea because he turned 50 this year (whoo hoo!) and so decided that this would be a great 50th birthday present for himself... and that he should drag me along as well. Just kidding Daddy, I'm excited!!

I borrowed a great pack from Emily, bought a new two pound tent, sleeping bag, freeze-dried food, and DRI-fit (non-cotton, sweat-wicking) clothing from Nike. I'll be carrying my life on my back for 50 miles, and I have to go light. This finally brings me to the whole point of this post which is that we had these fantastically horrible two days of heat and now it appears that the next ten days are going to be fantastic. Look at all those low 80's days! This is what spring should be like. The only thing that really ticks me off is that I really wanted to go strawberry picking this weekend and it appears it's going to be stormy all weekend. Booo!

I do not like spring.

Wednesday Inspiration

I thought I'd take a break from agonizing over wedding attire and think about other wedding stuff...

Remember this?

Well, I just saw a blog post about chair adornments and it got me thinking that what a cute idea to have this fabric backdrop at the alter and also have the same (obviously a smaller version) on the backs of our chairs during the reception!

Whoo hoo for me remembering to link it!

Anyway, it brings up another issue I had never thought about until recently... the chairs themselves!

See, I am not a fan of chair covers, I hate to say it, but it just makes me think 'What are you hiding underneath of there??'

I'm not even posting a picture because you all know exactly what I mean. I would rather have metal folding chairs with plastic 'cushions' than chair covers.

I have been a little laissez faire about these little details and just figured I would deal with it when the time came.

I've seen sooooo many blog posts about how in love everyone is with the chiavari chairs... I mean, people have to mention them every time they appear. At first, I just thought it was coincidence, or whoever was blogging really liked them, but then I noticed that everyone and their mother pointed out the chiavari chairs if they were there.

I still didn't really much care, until I was absentmindedly checking out our venue website (yeah, again):

Boom.

Sorry, that was overkill, but apparently they come standard, this was a question I had not even though to ask at the time we were trying to decide on the venue. Add the amazing hardwood floors (again, ugly carpets not something I initially cared about) and I fall deeper in love with our venue everyday! Sure they don't have cushions, but at least they also don't have ugly covers :)

Oh optimism...

Ha!!



Has anyone else been pleasantly surprised about little details you didn't know you cared about?

Even more bridesmaid indecision

I have been all up and down the interwebs and have not found hardly any bridesmaids dresses that I like. I think this is probably because I don't like bridesmaids dresses, I've never had one that I would ever wear again, and I recognize that this is not a requirement, but I guess I want it to at least not suck:

Let's ignore for a second how much I hate the world of bridesmaid dresses in general (way too expensive for a way too cheap piece of clothing is numero uno offense), and focus on what I wanted initially:

Great, rich burguny/wine color, no shiny, stiff material...

That's pretty much it, well, let me clarify, because those last two are separate requirements, there's shiny materials like satin, silk, silk charmeuse, etc... then there's stiff materials like satin, taffeta, dupioni silk, etc... Some of these are both shiny and stiff, and stiff is by far the worst offense in my opinion. This brings us to the dresses I've considered so far:

I initially thought only of design, but I immediately gravitated towards chiffon:

(You wanna' hear a great [sad, depressing] story?? Well, I am still interested in checking out Jim Hjelm, but I didn't know until just know where I might find his designs... turns out they were right across the shopping center from my Priscilla of Boston... where I was just last night.)

The main problem though is that universally, the colors of chiffon are just awful. I mentioned just a few days ago that the teaberry color from Priscilla of Boston looked like just what I was hoping for, and then I went there yesterday and it was fuschia! (side note, I like fuschia... but NOT at my wedding) like, really fuschia, not at all what I had hoped for when I saw the little swatch online:

 

What I was hoping for...   ...   ... What I got

And I was really disappointed because I really liked some of the chiffon designs they had there and the prices. I don't have anything in particular in mind for design, I just want it to be not too elaborate. I was hoping for a simple, universally flattering design. Enter David's Bridal cotton sateen:

 
And Keri in the dress (she said I could). I'll say again that I can live with this color, but I was hoping for something richer. But more importantly, the cotton sateen was stiffer than I want. I went to Priscilla of Boston hoping that the color would be right and that I would like their chiffon designs more (I'm not even going to comment on David's Bridal chiffon).

I liked the designs more, but the color was atrocious compared to what I was hoping for... and please understand that what I mean by that is that it was a huge shock; expecting a much deeper, richer, wine-like color, and getting fuschia.

The funny thing is that RIGHT NEXT TO the fuschia Priscilla of Boston dress was exactly the color I wanted, appropriately named "Wine." I took a picture but it didn't translate, I had to put the flash on and that made it look weird. Anyway, that color is only available in "Satin yuru" (pronounced yu-RUU) which is shiny like satin, but moves like... like this:

I'm still not particularly crazy about the shiny, but that color was fantastic:

(The veeeery last dress alllll the way on the right hand side. That's my color! Not too purple, not too red, juuuuuuust right!)

However, when we try and put two and two together, there are only a couple designs in this material that I like at all:

 
Just a side note, they will shorten the long dresses.

And I'm really worried that no one will like even these. So what's the point? What's the verdict?? None yet, I'm really confused, I love the way these move, I also loved that wine color, it was exactly what I was hoping for... Buuuuut, I'm still on the fence about shiny shiny fabric. However, I have been able to examine my feelings a bit; of the three factors that I made priorities when bridesmaid dress shopping (the right color, the right movement, the right material), I have discovered that to me, color is most important- judging by the reaction I had when I saw that wine-colored dress at Priscilla of Boston, and movement is a very close second- judging by the fact that I'm slowly changing my mind about the David's Bridal dress because of lack of flow, and material is slowly becoming a non-issue- because I'm realizing that in order to satisfy the first two very important priorities, I have to sacrifice the third.

Do you think my priorities are in the right order?? And what do you think of the above PB satin yuru gowns?

I swear I'm not even trying

Forgot, I just found this this morning, and I have not been looking for these things:

At our venue!

Bridesmaid [In]decision

Great news! Bridesmaid Keri came back into town to hand in her thesis (sorry sorry, DOCTOR Keri) and so she and I went bridesmaid dress shopping. I don't have her permission, so I will not post pictures of her in the dresses just in case she's self-conscious. I thought she looked awesome, and adorable, in some surprisingly cute David's Bridal dresses. Here's the ones she tried (I've shown them before, but here they are again):

This one I felt made her look too big (although the dress was too big) and short somehow.

Cute but boring.

This one is hard to describe... because Keri has hips, it made her hips look even bigger, because since this dress has pockets, it flares out where the pockets are...

That wasn't so hard. It made her look wide. It was a tad disappointing because she likes v-necks and I think she looks really good in v-necks, so I was sad that this was a no-go... but not too sad because the dress was just not flattering.

This one was definitely our favorite! It was flattering in the skirt, slimming in the waist, and the top is really cute.

It's comfortable (cotton! for a bridesmaid dress!! Thank you!) and well-priced and she might actually wear it again :)

My only issue at this point is that up until this trip, I had been looking at this color online (sangria) and even online, I'm not a huge fan of it because it's not very rich. Well, I finally saw it in the store in person and it's just as... meh. Not rich, a little too light. It might be something I just get over, as it still is a nice color, but I've done a little more shopping and found a few more bridesmaids dresses, and I'm back to the same old song and dance...: I just want some movement:

This is a Priscilla of Boston and it's very close to the same price ($20 more) as the David's Bridal and still has the design that everyone (so far) likes but it's in a more free-flowing material. Now, in bridesmaid world, chiffon usually sucks, so I have to go see it first. But they also have a color that I think would be a little more... what I want:


To my untrained eye, it does look very similar to the DB color, but a little darker maybe, a little closer to what I think I want. Whatever, point is, I'm going to at least check them out, especially because while the cotton is comfortable, it does not move at all. And, unlike David's Bridal, this style comes in a long version as well, in case one of the girls changes her mind and wants a long dress.

I'm going sometime early next week, so I'll be sure to take pictures and post them. Sorry to be indecisive girlies. By the way, since my mom had brought up the inconvenience of picking a place that there are none of near her, out of town orders and totally common, and here's a size chart for ya!

Courtesy of Priscilla of Boston!

Just for fun, I do want to show off a few others I happened to like from their collection, just in case someone sees something they like:

 

The first one is too short, I just think it's cool. I really like the two short one-shoulder dresses, so, you know, I'll do the same thing I did for David's Bridal; try 'em on, take pictures, post 'em up.

So the point of the title of this post is that I was originally only looking at chiffon dresses, then found those cotton sateen dresses from DB, then found these PB dresses and switched back to liking chiffon (at least for the time being, you know, until I physically see them). This is not going to be like the wedding gown saga, I've been trying really hard not to pull anyone in a million different directions. Keri was kind enough to come to DB and try on a few dresses, I won't make anyone do it again unless I like the PB dresses. I'm sure in the end it'll all be worth it...

So, has anyone else had a little difficulty finding bridesmaid dresses? I know the last two weddings I was in, the bride was like 'Here, wear this.' but trust me, this is nothing compared to the wedding gown search.

Because I can't not

Happy Birthday Alanis Morissette! But that was just ironic... and I completely didn't mean to do that "ironic" thing on purpose... although I suppose what I meant was coincidental.

ANYWAY, what I'm trying to say is I can't not show this, it's as if as soon as I mentioned bubbles, everyone and their sister walked down the aisle to bubbles, and now I have ANOTHER one to show you!

(I'm sorry, I probably seem a bit spastic today... allow me to explain: "Because I can't not" is an Alanis Morissette lyric, all I meant was that I can't not show you this picture... but I had to make the connection because I actually really like that Alanis Morissette song. Moreover, it HAPPENS to be her birthday, so I definitely couldn't not point out the connection, then I called it ironic, which made it seem like I was being cute, which I wasn't, it was ironic, well, I mean, technically not, because it was coincidental, but ironic might be one of the most misused words in the English language... besides...

)

Anybody whose grammar I have corrected please go read this... and everyone else too.

Irony:

But yeah, me quoting Alanis Morissette by accident on the day that it happens to be her birthday is just coincidental. Sorry everyone.

CRAP!! Her birthday was yesterday...

More bubbles!!

Courtesy of Shea Roggio:

Mmm hmm. The defense rests!

Real quick, I'd like to make a revision about an earlier post about speeches; I don't think we shouldn't have them. This past weekend, Kyle and I were at his dad's house, and Kyle's "stepbrother" (they're grown men, they don't really refer to each other as such, I'm just painting a picture) said he was going to give a speech about how upset I was that the wedding date falls in between mine and Kyle's birthday- how I will be 28 but Kyle will only be 27 still. And I died laughing that he was so adamant about how he was going to tell everyone how angry I was, like it was ruining my day. But it got me thinking, why don't we just let anyone speech it up?? You know, keep your time to 30 seconds or something, and only limit like 6 people total or something like that, but let anyone talk...

That probably sounds stupid to most people, but Kyle and I have a lot of friends and family that mean a whole lot to us but aren't best men or maids of honor. I want to give people the opportunity to speak if they so choose. There will also be people there who've known us longer than our best man/maid of honor (which does not imply one way or the other that this makes them better friends) but I know for a fact that my high school best friend has better spaz stories about me than anyone else. Anyway, just thoughts. I'm sure no one will go for this, but, a girl can dream!