I'll take Men Swear for 200. That's Menswear actually.

      Enough about me and the things I'm wearing and doing, lets talk about dudes. Fiancée and I have been talking about his wedding style recently.  We've been  browsing the internet and the Mens Wearhouse  website to figure out his vision. I wanted to him to take the reigns on this one since he's the one wearing the tux, not me.

      He's  thinking something like this.

                                                              Image Via blacktiephilly

                                                               Image Via eastsidebride

    Since my fiancée is a sexually trim fellow he can totally pull off these vintage tapered looks. The question is can Mens Wearhouse pull them off? He is very concerned about the fit. He owns one suit and hates the jacket. He says he looks like a kid wearing his dad's jacket. This is some what true. The jacket was not properly tailored and should really be re-done. So when it comes to the fit of his tux jacket on his wedding day he is very fearful of looking like a total dummy.

   I have reassured him I won't let this happen, we will get a jacket that fits him properly and it will be totally rock n roll and hip to the max! What kind of concerns does your groom have about wedding day fashion? Are most grooms going modern or more traditional?

Engagement Aftermath

    I hope you enjoyed watching the video and it wasn't too long. We got a lot of positive feed back on it. People that we are mere acquaintances with would tell us they saw it on facebook and cried at the end. That was a little strange to me at first. I wasn't sure if I liked sharing such a private moment with people I didn't really know. But then I looked at it another way, we brought some romance into their day. They barely know us and they were moved to tears, that can't be a bad thing.

                                                Image Via icanhascheezburger
     After that huge shock of the proposal I felt shaken,. I really felt like I had just been in a car accident or something. I had serious adrenalin going and was a hot mess. I had no idea it was coming and it was a major shock to the system. Turns out a few people knew it was coming. My fiance had consulted our neighbor about a good jewelry store and my mom had been called while at the store to confirm it was a good diamond. People at his work also knew it was happening. Some people who didn't  know were his parents and since it was my birthday we had already made plans to have dinner with them that night.

       About 15 minutes later we were in the car on our way to the dinner with his parents. I remember sitting there in the car taking deep breaths and trying to look like I hadn't been crying. We met with them and when we got to our table we revealed the big surprise. They weren't quite as shocked as I was but I do remember his dad jumping out of his seat and pulling us out of the booth for hugs. He then told our waitress and sufficiently embarrassed me. He took this picture of us shortly after.

                                                      personal photo

    So that's the whole story. It was then time to start planning a wedding. I was actually in a bit of denial at first. I wanted to soak up the engagement a little bit before I started planning. Eventually people start asking you so many questions about it that you have to start planning.

     What did you do after he popped the question? Did you immediately start planning or give it some time to sink in?

Birthday and Engagement Anniversary!

      Today is my birthday! Yay! Woo hoo! Happy 28 to me! But there's something else special about today. It is exactly one year since I got engaged. Yes ladies and gentleman, that means that my now fiance proposed  on my birthday last year. Get yourself ready for this romantic and thoughtful story. Tuck into your cubicle or cozy up in those slippered feet because it's go time.

     It's Tuesday May 25th, 2010 on my 27th birthday. I go to work and get home around 7pm. I had bought a video camera for myself the week before so I wasn't too surprised to see my boyfriend playing with it when I got home. I open the door and he's got the camera set up on the counter recording. I play it cool. He asks if I'm ready for presents. Duh! Let's get this birthday started!

    He then makes an outstanding move, he hands me a clue. Now you have to understand that I have a special place in my heart for scavenger hunts. My dad used to make them for me and I've made one before for Mr. Betty. I read my clue and the chase is on. He follows me with the camera. Now, at this point people have asked me if I knew what was coming. Honestly, I had no clue. I thought he was videoing me getting presents. The thought briefly crossed my mind that maybe at the end there would be a ring but I wholeheartedly believed he couldn't afford one and there was no way that was actually going to happen, it was just me having silly girl thoughts.

      I could keep explaining what happened but you know you'd rather watch it. So here it is. We'll discuss when you've finished but I have to warn you that the video is 10 minutes long. Most of it is me roaming through the house finding little gifts and the last one happens right back where we started in the dining room. Skip ahead if you like. I do have to warn you that my fiance was extremely nervous and acting weirder than normal.

      I still get nervous when I watch that! In this age of technology any one else have a proposal that we can all share?

Latest Vintage Finds

    I'm on the hunt! I've been going to garage sales and I've already shared with you the loot I pilfered from my grandma's house. I'm looking for all things household vintage to be turned into non-traditional centerpieces.  Yesterday I decided to expand my Craigslist search and look through some other categories. I stumbled upon a listing for an antique shop that is going out of business less than a mile from my house! Score! Not for them, but for me!  It was time to go pickin'. I love these guys and they have taught me much about picking.

                                                      Image Via www.tvrage.com
    The plaza that it's in is not the best so I made Mr. Betty join me on this shopping trip. Sure enough the place is being packed up as we walk in. The owner told us that everything was 50% off and he maybe able to do even better than that. This shop was way bigger inside than it looked from the street. There were tons of shelves with tons of crap vintage stuff on them. It's one of those places that has so much going on you can't even focus. It's kind of like when I shop at Forever 21, the place is so packed with all different things that I have hard time finding anything I like, let alone the right size. Who's with me on that?

    So we looked around and came across a few cool things. I came to the conclusion that I'm totally spoiled by paying cheap garage sale prices. There were things in that shop I wouldn't pay more than 2 dollars for and they had a price tag of 30. My darling fiance found both of the items that we purchased. One being a fake old phone and the other an old record player. Once we picked out our stuff it was time to make a deal. Here's where my picking skills came in handy.

                                                             Personal Photo

Rule #1 - Let them say how much they think it's worth. I said "let's make a deal, what do you want for the fake old phone?"

Rule#2 - Point out imperfections. I called it a fake old phone.

Rule#3 - Bundle to get the best price. After he told me how much he wanted for the phone I asked him "what about if I take the ratty record player too?" I then got both for the price he had quoted for just the phone.

       Now don't go to someone's garage or estate sale and call their belongings ratty or fake. I only used those words because this was a store and I knew the guy had no feelings for these objects. At someone's home you're better off pointing out a scratch or something similar but you might as well just bundle instead.

             Anyone else hunting for wedding decor? Any garage sale tips?

Betty's Favorite Things: Black Lace Appliques

    Welcome ladies and gents to another edition of Betty's Favorite Things! Today I will be sharing my love of black lace appliques. This is a new found love that I hope I carry on a long time. It all started when I decided I had to have a sexy wedding dress with black accents but couldn't find one at an affordable price. What's a girl to do? Add her own black to a plain dress of course! And so started my search for black appliques.

     Surprisingly, I can not find any black appliques in my local sewing stores, they have white but no black. The online search then began. I have since stumbled upon this lovely Etsy store.

                                                      Image Via .Etsy

      Here are just a few of the lovely black lace appliques she has for sale. I am trying hard to figure out which ones I'd like to put on my dress.

Birdacge Veil Prototype 1.0

    The Veil....the all important bridal accessory. With out it you're just a girl in a white dress, I think it's when you put it on that you start to look like a bride. As with everything else I have to try my hand at making mine. I've decided to go the vintage route with the very popular and attractive birdcage. In the first few months of my engagement I learned what a fascinator was and I'm going to try and make one of those too. I'm joining a rather large group of DIYers (these are pretty popular projects, wouldn't you say?) so I'm feeling confident.

                                                        Image Via bfabevents.blogspot.com

Photo-rific book part 2

     For those following along you'll remember I was last working on a photo book to give our parents at the rehearsal dinner. I'm using Picaboo (only because I have a Groupon) and was having a bit of trouble getting used to it. I spent some more time on it yesterday and I think I'm getting in the swing of things. Lets go over it.

Things I like:
      There are thousands of back grounds. Really, it's amazing how many there are to choose from. I hope you aren't indecisive because you could spend at least an hour looking through those babies. I went with Vintage wall paper and also Vintage desk. Here's a screen shot of the first page with the Vintage desk back drop. (You're getting a sneak peek at the e pics!)

                                       Personal Screen Shot of Picaboo

Making a Photo Book

    A thousand pictures saved on your computer aren't really doing anyone much good. You have to get out there and make prints and albums. I was lucky enough to score a Picaboo Groupon the other day, it's something like 100 dollars worth of merch for 30$. Score right? Meh...to tell the truth I'm not that impressed with Picaboo yet.

                          ( I'm not an extreme coupon-er yet but I'm getting there)  Image Via The Funky Apple
  

    I decided to use my merchandise credit on some photo books for our parent's gifts. The Groupon expires before our wedding so I figured I'd make albums out of our engagement photos.  I've made an album using Shutterfly before and found it to be an easy process and the quality of the book when it came was excellent. I also fiddled around with Kodak during that time and decided I liked Shutterfly better because of the ability to place pictures freely and not abide by lay outs, or at least I think that's what I liked.
                                                                 It's Betty Approved

                                                           Image Via epinions

     My first surprise with Picaboo is that you have to download the software. Not a huge fan of that but I guess I have no choice. I've only just begun to play with it so my following observations could be due to ignorance. Some thing I don't like is that when you place a picture on the page it cuts it to fit in the box you placed it in. It will cut off most of your picture by making it fit into the box instead of resizing the photo to that box. If I like this picture enough to put it in an album wouldn't I want the whole thing? Why would I want them to crop the crap out of it. When you stretch the box out to fit your whole image I think you run the risk of going too far and stretching it bigger than it should be and therefore distorting it.

      I need more time to feel it out and play with it because there could be some settings I'm unaware of. For instance, all of your uploaded pictures are on the bottom of the screen for you to pick from. Once you've used a picture you have the option to have it hidden. I don't want it to hide, I'd rather just have it checked as used. This way if I change my mind about a page later I can still see all my pictures.

     If any one has any tips or is a Picaboo expert your suggestions are appreciated. Has any one else made photo books as a parent gift? Any favorite sites to do it on?

Bridal Par-tay!

    During my time back home this last weekend I embarked on a thankless journey, bridesmaid dress shopping. You have the best intentions (low price, wear again ability) but must realize you can't please everyone. I originally wanted to avoid this whole thing by having no bridal party. My groom and I were going to fly solo and have no head aches with trying to organize friends and siblings. This didn't go over well.

     My mother was aghast at the idea. She said it wouldn't feel like a real wedding if I were to take out such a big part of it. I was still not convinced. She told me I should think of the pictures and that they'd look nice with the group, I was still not buying it. She then said my friends would have hurt feelings if they didn't get to feel  like a part of the big day...I conceded. I always  have the feelings of others in mind and I knew I might disappoint a few people if they couldn't participate. Plus, when dealing with your mother it's important to choose your battles.
                                                          

                                                             Personal Photo

    Here's a picture of my mother and I, don't tell her what I said about choosing your battles. P.S. we're standing on a slope, she's a bit taller in real life. Anyway, here are some of the inspirational pictures I am working with from the website Unique Vintage.

                                                          Image Via unique-vintage

       My view on bridesmaid dresses: you should be able to wear it again, the bridesmaids should have a say, and they shouldn't cost and arm and a leg. I would like to go with a black cocktail dress. That sounds easy enough right? Shouldn't have to go to a bridal store to find that, the mall should be fine. Wrong! At least in spring time that's wrong.
 
       I had my 3 bridesmaids with me and we scoured the mall and found plenty of white cocktail length dresses but not a lot of black. What we did find was more than I was willing to let them spend. Super disappointed.  I thought for sure Dillards or Macy's would have my back on this one.I wanted to stay away from online shopping because they really need to be able to try it on. We found a few dresses that looked good on the hanger but when on weren't very flattering. Here's a picture of one the best we found that day. 

                                                                personal photo

       Unfortunately, because it was on sale they didn't have it in a variety of sizes. We left the mall empty handed but perhaps a little wiser. I went home and got online trying to find a simple black dress under 100 dollars. My matron of honor also began to research and found this dress at Davids bridal.

                                                          Image Via Davids Bridal

    It's 139$ which is more than I wanted them to spend but it fits the theme so well I think the look is over. I looked around for other dresses that are similar and they are all more expensive and you can't try them on because they are online only. MOH was so excited she went the very next day and tried it on at her local Davids, you have to love initiative!  Here it is on a real life Matron of Honor. I'm loving it. Now we just have to decide if we should go ahead and buy it or wait and see if there is a sale.

                                                                Personal MOH photo


   How did you decide which dresses your bridal party would wear? How much did cost factor into the decision?

Rummaging Through my Grandma's House

     You may or may not have noticed I missed a few blogging days last week. I was out of town visiting family for Mother's Day weekend. But don't think I didn't have some wedding planning on my mind. I arranged a trip to my grandma's to visit and also raid her house for precious center piece items.
     

     It was a gold mine of knick knacks. At first I felt bad picking out things to take that I am going to keep for 6 months but she reassured me she wouldn't mind not having to dust them for a while. It was a win win situation. Now to the loot! The following are all personal pictures of the treasures I swiped borrowed. Lets remember that my table names will be rooms of the Haunted Mansion.

     Here's all the goods spread out on my home made table runner. You'll see 4 old books, milk glass, old tins, an old ice bucket, a candy dish, and some random bud vases. Now, I had already thought of some of my table names like "The Dining Hall", "Master Suite", and "The Lab" but when I was looking at all my new items I thought of some that could match them.

     I could have all the milk glass together and put that as the "White Room".I could fill the vases with baby's breath for a softer feel or maybe some deep red or black flowers for a more dramatic look.

        The tins stumped me a little bit. I'm thinking that table could be "The Butler's Pantry", any other ideas are welcome. My mother thinks they have a country feel about them but I disagree.

       With the ice bucket I was thinking of some kind of den or bar themed table. The two candy dishes around it I may need some help with. They definitely have the look I'm going for but I'm not sure what "room" they would be in. The parlor? I'll have to think about that one.

     Are you going green with your center pieces and using anything from around the house? Pillage any or your relatives for some decor?

First Vendor Meeting

     You have to start this crazy wedding planning somewhere and I began with the photographer. In my last post I said how I had friends who had recently worked with one and I went off their recommendations as well as the awesome photos I saw on his blog. Bring in the awesome photo!

                                                   Image Via Pilster Photography


     These friends were nice enough to give me their information packet along with the price list. This way I knew how much they paid. It was a higher amount than I had envisioned myself paying but I was really digging the work this guy had done and I checked a few websites to see the starting prices of others in the biz. It seemed to coincide with the other higher end photographers in my area.

     Next step: make contact. I wrote the photog an e-mail where I flattered and dropped names. I told him about how I had been following his work and would be interested in finding out some prices and having a meeting. He promptly e-mailed back with his 2011 prices. BAD NEWS! His prices increased about 800 dollars from the 2010 prices my friends had paid. Bummer! At this point I was feeling low. I could barely afford the original price and now I had to try and do another 800, there was no way.

                                                                Cue the sad face.

                                                Image Via  www.morphizm.com

      I wrote him back saying that I was prepared to pay the 2010 price but just couldn't afford anymore than that. I asked him if he knew any other good photogs in my price range and thanked him for his time. To my surprise he wrote back saying he'd give me the lower price! Some times you meet good people while planning a wedding.

       We met at a little coffee shop to talk about some details. There really wasn't that much to talk about since he was the first thing I was booking and I didn't even have a venue yet, but I talked about my vision for the wedding and he told me what he had to offer. A couple days later I made the deposit and sealed the deal.

     Moral of the story: when you know how much some one else paid don't be afraid to try and get that price. I hinted around it in my e-mail not wanting to seem like I was begging but if that hadn't worked I'm sure I would have come right out and asked.

Did you always meet with multiple vendors before hiring one? Have to weasel some good prices out of some?

Picking the Photog

     I am all about research. I think you should search around for the best prices and weigh your options when making a big purchase or hiring a vendor. I threw that all out the window when hiring a photographer for my wedding.

       This picture captured my heart.

                                                     All Images will be via Pilster Photography
   These are some friends of ours that got engaged before we did. After seeing their e session I promptly began to stalk their photographer. The following images are some of my favorites.

How I'm Saving Money

    The real title of this post should be "Cutting the Fat" because that's really my technique for saving, but it's kind of an ugly phrase. Weddings cost a lot in case you are planning from under a rock and haven't noticed yet. You put the word wedding or bridal on something and it jacks the price up 20%. Unacceptable if you ask me.

                                                    Image Via   http://cheezburger.com

    If you've got 30 grand to spend on your wedding then you go girl! I look forward to seeing your breath taking pictures! But if you're like me and you puke in your mouth a little bit at the thought of spending over 10 grand then lets share some saving strategies.