Getting the dress... part 2

So Drew and I were feeling pretty close. I couldn't stop staring at myself in the mirror and I was pretty in love.

I continued to try on dresses, and I think I made it through almost everything in the collection.

Then, my sales lady starting bringing out the sale dresses. First I tried on a dress whose name totally escapes me. I had been a pretty heavy stalker of Melissa Sweet and POB but I had never seen this particular dress. I liked it a lot and the longer I looked at it the more I liked it. Oh yeah, and it was on sale. I'm a sucker for sale.

I twirled around in it for a while... and everyone seemed to like this one best. Drew was still on my mind.

To help make the call I decided to try on some other dresses. Great way to make a decision right? Instead of looking at the two you love, add another one to the mix. So out came Nell.

It was LOVE at first try-on. I'd say love at first sight but that would be a big lie. I had seen Nell on-line and I wasn't actually all that impressed. She was nice, but I just didn't think it would be that exciting. So its ok if you see the picture above and think, REALLY? Once I got it on I was SOLD. And it has POCKETS?! Who doesn't love a wedding dress with pockets!? Zach's thought, "I just sort of guessed you'd get one with pockets. It just seems right."

After a few more twirls I was sold, Nell, who was also on sale, would be mine.

Did I 100% loose my mind? Probably. But with my future husband standing there telling me to buy it, how could I not? So it was at least 3 times what I thought I'd spend. Oh well. I can always sell it after the wedding, and make at least half of that back, so it won't be to bad. Or at least that's what I told myself as I handed over the credit card to do the deed. :)

So I have my dress!! I couldn't believe it... I really didn't plan on leaving with a dress. In the car on the way home Zach admitted that he figured we would spend at least $1,000 for my dress, despite all my earlier musings about finding a white bridesmaid dress. Just one more reason I love this man.

Sometimes I get a *little* Jealous...

And even I know it is silly to wish they were in someone else's shoes... but isn't it hard some times?

Lately I've found myself wishing that I had a different set of circumstances to deal with surrounding our engagement. I by no means wish that I wasn't with Zach, but I wish that somehow our engagement could be at a time when we could truly focus on celebrating our engagement and the commitment we are making and plan a wonderful wedding together. That at this time we weren't so burdened with so much other "stuff" that we can barely see the "woods through the trees" so to speak. Zach's unemployment really makes everything so up in the air that the idea of trying to even save the extra $5,000 or so necessary to pull this thing off is almost too daunting to mention.

I guess I just wish I could have someone else's engagement period (and maybe wedding budget) so that I wouldn't have to worry so much right now and could just enjoy it. Instead I find myself worrying so much about how we're going to pay for the damn thing that I can't even focus on what it means. I want our wedding to be a meaningful wonderful day but right now all it is is stressful... and it isn't even going to be a big wedding! I guess maybe someone else's problems would only be worse if they were trying to plan something grand.

Maybe my problems aren't so bad after all...

I Got My Dress! Pt. 1 - Some Ugly Bits

I got my dress, I'm in love, and it was way more than I thought I'd spend, and I don't even care. Care to hear the tale?

I decided, on somewhat of a whim, to make an appointment to look at dresses at Priscilla of Boston (I'll call it the POB). I know, that was really my first mistake. As I had mentioned previously, I fell in love with "drew" and "petunia". I had also moderately fell for a few of the other short dresses available from the collections at POB. I told myself that this adventure would either 1) Make me realize I hated these dresses or 2) Make me fall further in love and realize I needed to find a way to get one of them. I also felt comfortable with POB being the place to start my adventures because they had a lot of short dresses, so I figured they wouldn't be acting all snooty to a short dress bride.

I conned Zach into joining me for this adventure, mostly because I wanted company and I really trusted his opinion. Not to mention, he's the one I'm marrying and I want him to think I look wonderful in the dress, so I want his opinion.


We got there and they I have to say they were wonderful. I really couldn't have asked for a better consultant (A little shout out to Nancy!). She wasn't in any way phased that Zach was there, that I was looking for a short dress, or anything. She actually seemed excited to help me with the short dresses... and boy do they have a lot! I think I tried on probably a dozen or so different beautiful short dresses. Suffice to say, I was in dress heaven! Nancy even brought out some wonderful fun heels and a wonderful bird cage veil, both without me even asking for them specifically! I was happy as a clam.. going along with my short dress plan... not a soul in sight seemed freaked out by what I wanted, or by who my dress shopping companion was! Every time I came out of the dressing room all I saw was happy complimentary faces. Ahh... this is the life.

Of course, then a girl that I know through work happened to walk in (she's getting married soon too) and as I'm out there, spinning around in my beautiful short dress (it might have been drew by this time) in my happy dress-drunken state, she stopped to say hi. Now mind you, this is a person that I would have said I really liked, someone I had actually thought I might try to become better friends with.

Then she just looked me up and down and said, "That's just for fun, right?"

I stood there very confused. I actually didn't even know what she meant. "I'm getting married, yes." You see at this point, I was so in love and on board with my short dress idea that I didn't actually even know what she meant and I wasn't actually sure that she knew I was engaged. Silly me.

"Oh yeah, I know. The dress I mean," She retorted.

"Oh, um, well yeah, maybe. I don't know yet," I responded sheepishly. I don't know how I looked at that moment, but in my head, it was like a little girl who had just been yelled at for playing dress up in her mom's fancy clothes.

She left and that was the end of it. I looked at Zach and said, "See what I mean!?" We had previously had a few discussions about how much judgement there was around weddings, and there it was. He saw the catty crap right in front of him and he agreed, it was ugly.

Too bad for her I was in a dress I was quickly falling in love with and one look back in the mirror and I really didn't care what she had to say. I loved Drew (the dress) and everyone around was oh-ing and ah-ing at how great Drew and I looked together, so the negativity was quickly erased by happy thoughts of marrying Zach in this amazing dress.....

But then she brought out some options that were on sale..... and I got a little bit confused.... stay tuned for more!

Please Stop with the 20-Million Questions!

One of the biggest things I have struggled with since Zach and I got engaged is the constant questioning. From the moment we announced we were engaged... people are a barrage of questions. Did you set a date? Have you looked at dresses? Where are you going to have it?

I know that all of these questions are meant to be nice. I know that these are the questions people feel comfortable asking a woman with an engagement ring on her finger. In fact, they might even feel obligated to ask them, since I'm supposed to be a flutter of planning and plotting by now (we are a whole TWO months post-proposal now). I think if The Knot had its way I would already have a date, a location and probably a dress practically picked out by now.

I don't have any of that done. We're still working on a concept, but I think we're finally getting comfortable with one at this point. Of course, as I start to get comfortable with our concept, the more self-conscious I feel about sharing it with the people who keep asking what we're doing. So for now, I just tell them, "We're still working on it" or "We'll just be doing something small". The second one does seem to get a lot of, "If I were to do it all over again, I would do something small too." Which is somewhat reassuring, but it always makes me wonder why they did it any other way in the first place.

For now, I will leave you with a happy wedding thought, and a happy wedding idea. The photo to the left is from Once Wed and really is a perfect picture of how I picture Zach and I on our wedding day. Well, maybe without the bow tie. Otherwise it looks perfect. Anyone know where that dress comes from?!

A Change of Plans...

Already!? :)

As I had previously mentioned, we had discussed the idea of doing a party at Zach's father's for our "reception". I started doing a little math on that one, and quickly realized that we'd probably end up spending at least $5,000 to make that happen (oh yeah, and that doesn't even include an emergency tent in case of rain!). It also didn't include things like a dress for me, suit for Z or rings. OR the Honeymoon.

Suffice to say after studying all that math, I figured we had to come up with $13,000+ in the next year to make a wedding of that nature happen. Umm... let's say I have $1,000 saved already.... that means we would still have to save roughly $1,000 a month for the next year. Let's just say that, even in the best of times, that probably wasn't possible, and this isn't exactly the best of times. :)

So I was back to the drawing board. I tried to consider what was really the most important things for me when it came to the wedding. Here is the list:

1) Getting married sooner than later.
2) A wedding witnessed by our closest friends and family.
3) A wonderful honeymoon right after the wedding (no 6-months later stuff).
4) Good food and cupcakes (Molly's cupcakes to be most specific).
5) A chance to celebrate with our extended network of friends and family.

Somewhat "Important" Stuff
1) Pretty flowers for me
2) Pretty dress for me
3) Pictures of us
4) Pretty invitations

Let's be honest, that isn't really a very big list. And it can easily be accommodated by a variety of options. Here is what we have come up with so far.

Ceremony: Wedding at the Chicago Cultural Center witnessed by our nearest and dearest 28 or so friends and family. Well, as long as we're allowed that many people. :) I'll have flowers, a beautiful dress and our union will be witnessed by our nearest and dearest. I'm also thinking we'll have cupcakes while we wait... and possibly some pictures. We're blessed with having two photographer friends (one who does weddings for living!) and two brothers who are very good with cameras. Between all of them, I think we'll get some great shots!

"Reception": If you can even really call it that. We'll head out after the ceremony to have lunch with the group somewhere close. We have every intention of footing the bill for this one, and we'll have yummy food!

After Party: We can head out to a bar somewhere in Chicago that night to have a "after hours" party and invite everyone we know to join us for a drink. I figure this way we can party all night with people who love us and not have to pay for the entire party. Yeah, we're cheap, but we also don't expect and/or want presents, so I think that evens out. :)

Sunday Relaxation: We figure if any of our friends and family are still around (since many will be flying/driving in), we can hang out on Sunday and relax.

Monday (or maybe Tuesday) honeymoon!: We'll head out the next day or so for the honeymoon. The current idea is a 7-day cruise, but those are hard to find leaving on an early weekday!

Total cost: probably $6,000 - $8,000

I'm not going to say that even saving that much is going to be easy at this point, but it seems much more reasonable. I hope to be able to find some ways to do things a little cheaper. Do I need a $300 dress? Do I need to get my hair done? Some of those things are still a little up in the air.

Oh yeah, and when I presented this plan to the Fiance, his only input was, "I would really like to do it Labor Day weekend if that is possible. Otherwise it sounds great." Next Labor Day weekend would be out 5 year anniversary. Isn't that cute?

Dress Love...

I would really hate to spend a lot of money on a dress. I say that, and then well, I fall in love with 4 dresses, all over $2,000.

This is Melissa Sweet's dress Petunia. I've had a love affair with Petunia for well, probably years. I originally saw her on some celebrity bride (I think it was some top chef contestant or something) and she made my heart skip a beat. I think I spent HOURS trying to figure out who made that dress... I had to know! Unfortunately my love is only available from other brides by now... and well... even used she's at least $1,500+. Of course... I could always resell it later right? :)

This is Priscilla of Boston's Vineyard's Collection's Drew. Drew and I don't go back nearly as long as Petunia and I do, but well, I'm still in love. In fact, I think Drew has a little edge of Petunia in that she's a tad shorter. I'm not 100% sold that Petunia's longer style would be best on my semi-short legs. Drew, well, she's perfect. And I think she would qualify for Zach's 1 request to show some clevage. :)

Drew is equally outragously priced, starting at about $1,000 used. Again, I could re-sell it right? :)

Oh the terror of having expensive taste on a minimal budget. :)

A Few Worries...

I have two major (at least wedding related) worries at the moment.

1) There is no way we are going to get this thing done in a year.

And by that I mean, there is no way that we'll be able to afford this thing (and a honeymoon) in a year. Not given my recent pay reduction and Zach's current self-employment/unemployment.

I've just briefly mentioned wanting to do this next Labor Day and everyone keeps saying... "Wow, that will be here before you know it!" Yeah. Thanks for reminding me. Want to make a donation?

I recently checked out the Knot boards for my "date twins" (assuming a Labor Day 2009 weekend wedding). Can you say BAD IDEA? Some of these girls have venues, photographers, and caterers all signed up already. I have... well... I've got this idea...

And if that weren't enough I have another worry....

2) And that is the slippery slope down the bunny hill.

If we have a party, I want it to be a wedding-ish party (still emphasis on the party, but a little wedding thrown in). I want it to have a nice aesthetic... I want people to look back on it fondly. I think I want some pictures. I want nice papery goods. I want good food (and plenty of it). I want a dress I feel amazing in. I want Zach in a nice suit vest thing. We might need to rent a tent in the case of rain (although I don't know where we'd actually put it). All of that costs money. And money, is what we don't have a whole lot of right now.

I think that the crux of both of my fears is really that I just don't want to have regrets. I want whatever we do to be exactly what we want to do and to be done the way we want it. I don't want to half ass things because we just didn't have the cash. I mean, I recognize that letterpress invitations might not be in the cards (although I'm not going to lie, I haven't completely given up the idea in my head) but there are other things that might not be so clear cut.

What am I praying for right now? I'm hoping the fine federal government comes through a decides that I deserve the $8,000 first time home buyer credit for Zach and I "repurchasing", this time together as opposed to Zach by himself last time, the house we live in. I mean, this will be the ONLY time I'm really a "first time" home buyer, so if I don't get it now, then I'm just screwed! I recognize that it is probably a long shot, but having that $8,000 in the bank would make the whole thing seem a WHOLE LOT more realistic.

Did I ever mention how much I LOVE the federal government? The IRS especially. In fact, if I could bake the cookies and know they would actually eat them instead of tossing them out of the fear that someone is trying to kill them, I would. :) Please IRS... pretty please?