the dress!

Here's an updated picture on my bouquet progress!

Left: Front view; Right: Back view -- that darker pink one was the style I had trouble with. But that was my third try and it's progressively gotten a lot better. :)  And you can't really see it but I wrapped some pretty ribbon around my glass bottle.

oo O ------------------------------------- O oo

And now... finally gettin' around to posting about the dress. The dress! Except. So. I don't know how or if it's even possible to "zip" up posts on Blogger here and Tim comes around once in a blue moon and I don't want him to see it! So.  There won't be any pictures and you will just have to click on the links.

So long story short, I went to David's Bridal with my cousin back in August. I went in armed with a few catalog numbers of dresses I liked. But of course, they all seemed to look better in the catalog/online/on the models.  :(  I had a REALLY enthusiastic wedding consultant lady, and she brought one I didn't expect to like... but it was my favorite from all the dresses I tried on! The V9409 from David's Bridal. (If you are NOT Tim Condon, please click on the link to view.)  I wasn't so sure about strapless cause I'd like to be worry free that day, but I did not know they make strapless wedding dresses all sturdy like with little risk of slippage. :)

It's simply looking but it's A-line and it's got a lace up back and this asymmetrical split of chiffon down the left side that you can't really see in the picture. There are also some nice not-too-obvious (I think the word I'm looking for is discreet.  haha)  flowers on the bust area.

Now. It is $500. A decent, if not even modest price, in the world of wedding dresses that can go into the thousands and beyond. But. I am not made of thousands. Or even hundreds. My dress budget was ~$300. So it wasn't terribly out of budget if I REALLY wanted it. And Tim, sweet Tim, said... "We're getitng married once, if you really like it, get it. We'll make the money work." *Awww*  haha. But. Since there were so many other expenses, I didn't want to justify the $500 on a dress I'd wear for 8 hours.

So I thought. And browsed online. And thought some more.  There was that big boo-hoo time when I missed a bid on Ebay for the original dress, new for $250. I continued to stalk Ebay and OnceWed and PreOwnedWeddingDress, and even Craigslist. Then I gave up for awhile. But before I gave up, when I searched everyday... on Ebay, this custom dress from China listing, based on/inspired by my orginal V9409 dress would pop up.

Now. China and bad customer service and possibly getting screwed over are risks with ordering from a far away country that might not care if your dress doesn't fit or if they use bad materials. I've done a lot of reading of reviews! Some good, some bad. But then... after I gave up for awhile and got a rest from thinking about it -- I decided that the $160 was worth the risk! Yes, $160 compared to $500 for "basically" the same dress. Same style anyway. (David Bridal dresses are from China anyway. They might have slightly better quality control and you have a brick and mortar store to complain to. But really. They're from the same place.)

So. Here. (TIM, DO NOT CLICK) Here is what my dress is supposed to look like, at least. :-P It is slightly different from the orginal V9409 -- which I'm totally fine with and it doesn't have a train. I did do custom measurements, but it's a-line and has a lace up back, so it should be easily adjustable if they didn't get the exact measurements right. And since it was ONLY $160, I can spend a few dollars getting alterations here (locally) if need be.

They say it takes a month to make and a week to ship, soooo end of December ish?  Maybe a little later if they're busy around Christmas or something.  I'll report back when I get it. :)  It's like a surprise. hehe.

I'll talk about plan C dress in the future if this dress doesn't work out and I decide that I still don't want to buy the orginal one. :-P


Would you have taken the risk for $160? Do you think Chinese custom dresses are risky business?  How important was your dress in consideration of your budget?
 

bouquet kit

(Source)

So a few days ago, I decided to purchase the Martha Stewart Tissue Paper Flower Bouquet Kit.  Walmart supposedly carries it but it was unavailable so I went looking around on the internet for it.  The cheapest I found was on Ebay for $6.99 + $2.43 S&H for a total of $9.42, which is just about the same price as Walmart.  (Click on the Ebay link if you want to purchase.  The seller has like 10 more.  Smooth transaction and speedy delivery!)

It.  Is.  Pretty.  Easy.  :-P  Except this one flower that keeps giving me grief.  :-P  I started soon after receiving my kit in the mail and have made about 9 flowers.  The kit allows you to make 24 flowers.

Everything included in the kit  (Source)

Miss Kitten provides a review, additional pictures and demonstrations of this kit!  Here are my pictures of my efforts:

My first flower, half fluffed

Fluffed!  A carnation, I believe.

This was my favorite one cause it's the prettiest.  Or most delicate lookin' perhaps.  They even come with male sex organs, I mean stamens.  :-P

My progress so far.  :)

I purchased the kit thinking I could learn how to make them from the pros (instead of guessing from tutorials online) and then get some orange tissue paper and make my own.  But currently, I am unsure what I'd use them for.  :-P  I don't think I'd want to carry a paper bouquet and I think the guys would squish it if their bouts were made of paper.  :)  Sooo maybe table decorations?

What do you think of them?  Any ideas for what I can use the paper flowers for?
  

attempt #2

I tried again today!  I put three little orange flowers and two leaves and I think it's a little better.  :-P  Gettin' there, I hope!  :)

And of course, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

(Source)

 

bouts attempt #1

My first hands-on DIY projects! (Somehow DIY/Photoshop-ing the save the dates doesn't seem to count the same in the hands-on category.) This was a pretty minor project... that wasn't all that exciting, but I'm gonna blog about it anyway! :-P

Come along with me on my boutonniere-ing adventure! Soooo.... Yesterday afternoon, I went to JoAnn's AND Michael's. Lemme tell you... anytime before or around Christmas time is not a good time to try to shop for silk/fake orange flowers. :-P JoAnn's had like 2 orange flowers and they were too BIG and ugly, and Michael's had some faded looking orange things. Both pretty fail. But then I picked up some berry looking ball-y things, some floral tape, and green ribbon that I hope is somewhat sort of hopefully no one will really notice if it doesn't 100% match the bridesmaid dresses we haven't gotten yet sage/green ribbon. I really wanted to find some orange flowers so I could practice and get rolling on these boutonnieres, and my mother has this cute bouquet of little fake orange flowers in the bathroom. I asked nicely and she said I could borrow some... if I cut them from the back. :-P

Here goes. My supplies!

Two orange flowers already assembled together with floral tape, a sprig of berry looking ball-y things, a spool of floral tape, green ribbon and a leaf I cut off from the orange flowers. :)  (Sorry lighting is so poor)

Sorry this picture is focused on the WRONG thing (fingers bad, flowers good) but you just add piece by piece, and you just wind the floral tape down, making sure to keep it all tight and together.

Btw, I did not know that FLORAL TAPE WAS SO STICKY!!! Not like... you put it on and it won't come off... but it's just some tacky stuff! But it's quite wonderful how you can rewind and redo parts and it'll still be sticky.

And here is my prototype! :) I thought it was rather cute for a first try. haha. But I think it's a tad bit on the small side. I was working with limited supplies and floral options. I would definitely like to try the orange flower I WAS looking for... it's a bit bigger and it'd look nicer with bigger flowers that won't get lost in the mix. I like how the ball-y things give it more dimension though they wouldn't competely cooperate so they're all just kind of bunched up in a row back there. I think I'd like more a leafy backdrop.

Close up.  I don't know why the little balls have spots on them. Ew. >_<  I didn't do it well on this but I like it when there's an arch of grass in the back.  :-P

I'm excited cause when I do have the supplies I want to work with, I think it could go well!  And they'll cost like... 35 cents each or something.  :-P  What do you think I can improve on?  Are there too many berry balls?

   

With great pleasure, I present...

... the Save the Dates I promised to share. Their arrival was proclaimed here.  So. As mentioned before, some people got emailed their save the dates and other people got a postcard. And some lucky fools got both. ;)

All designs by yours truly. Our cartoony heads were made from Vistaprint's Caricature Design.

It was unfortunate that Tim was/is soooo busy with work/research/school stuff that he wasn't able to like... help. Cause he's got quite the artistic eye when it comes to design stuff and using Photoshop, and I would have loved to see him work his magic.  :(  I sent him everything I made, and he would give input, but I would have liked to have designed them together!  Perhaps on the next project.  :]

But anyway... here they are!

[ Save the Date 1]

Our postcard! This was printed on a simple postcard from Vistaprint. There weren't as thick as I envisioned them but most people who have held on in their hands thought they were fine and nobody has reported any that have been mauled, missing a corner, or sad things like that.

The emailed people got our assortment pack. :) It was kind of nice that way so that none of my crazy, zany ideas went to waste.  People could choose which one they wanted to print out!  The first in the "pack" was the same design as the postcard, followed by these:

[Save the Date 2]

We like brontos. Yes. We know that brontosaurus' have gone the way of Pluto and are obsolete now, replaced by the Apatosaurus. But seriously. Apatosaurus just does not sound as cool as brontosaurus (which I have been saying, and loving, since I was a wee child).

Story! Ok. I don't know if this is a story, but when we were JUST FRIENDS... sometimes I'd draw brontosauruses on the white boards in Duffield (the engineering atrium downstairs from where Tim works, where there were these study alcoves) when I would study there and sometimes he'd see them. And THEN when we started dating... the evolved into orange and green brontos that stood closer together. :)

A couple months ago I made these little clay babies, hehe:

Back to the save the dates...

[Save the Date 3]

Here is our cartoony faces again. (I dig square paper card things.)  I'm not entirely sure why I used that dark pink color for the writing.  I think I just liked it against the tan-yellow.

[Save the Date 4]

To close with our actual FACES. This was actually incase any of Tim's (or my) relatives didn't recognize us by name and needed some visual-aid. Or.  They wanted to see what Tim's fiancee looked like!  (And vice versa)  Or. Maybe some people wanted to see our silly faces.  Who knows.  Ok, maybe just our moms.  haha.  :D  It was inspired by... those Christmas photo cards that people send you of their family that don't stand up on their own (like a normal card) that you don't know what to do with...  Yup.  :]

I know these aren't super exciting save the dates. No cute embellishments or fancy ribbons, but I guess it was my way of having fun and being creative without breaking the bank for some save the dates (which aren't even the invitations!) and would have required more time, labor, materials, and postage.  People have been enthusiastic about these so far, so it's been fun and I'm glad they turned out the way they did.  :)

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And 200 days until the wedding!  Whooooooot!  :oP