Betty's Favorite Things: Dresses

     During your wedding planning process eventually you get sucked into looking at about a million dresses online, I'm no different. With a budget of only 600 bucks that's exactly what I was doing, looking. I can't begin to afford most of these dresses and some of them I'm just appreciating for the beauties they are. Since I had no intention of buying these I didn't really research who made them or how much they were so pardon me for not giving you that info, but rest assured you'll find all of these through a Google search.   

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        These two up top are awesome and I do know they are Jessica McClintock.  I didn't see them on her website so they must be older. I am in love with the shorter one but not for my wedding day ( i prefer a long dress). 

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    This is one that I did find on the J. McClintock website. It's youthful and spunky and if you're a bad ass bride you could totally pull it off for your reception dress.  


        These next two are both from the same website and I did happen to see how much they cost, i believe around 1,800 pounds. So that would be a whole lot of dollars. I'm into the burlesque look and if i had more money and a little more nerve I would totally wear the 2nd one on my wedding day. 

                                                         

                                                          www.mayahansen.com

       This last one is so classic looking, I don't think you even need to be having an off beat wedding to wear it. Maybe black isn't for everyone but this is so elegant that I think most could pull it off.

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       Today on Rock N Roll Bride there is a Halloween wedding featured. They have my coffin favor boxes and skeleton cake topper (beside the cake). She also has the bouquet I'd want if I could spend 100 dollars on a bouquet. Check it out here

How To Fake It: The Tale of a Fake Vintage Doily Runner

It's a doily, it's a runner, Yes It's Both! My first experience with a doily runner was from a classified ad on  weddingbee. I'd never seen nor ever thought of such a thing. Here's my take on it.

       In a previous post I talked about how I bought 2 lace table clothes at a garage sale. The first turned into table squares and the second much larger one was in the process of being re purposed. Well the project is almost completed and here's what I have. If you'll remember I cut the middle out to make a runner, easy peasy and it looks like this.

                                                  All photos are of the Personal persuasion
       
            Now I have only edges left. I cut out a bunch of the lace patterns that made up the rest of the table cloth with the intention of making them look like a doily runner. Here's a picture of them all spread out on the table.

          To make them look like mismatched doilies some had to go through an aging process. Bring in the tea! I boiled a pot of water and put 4 tea bags in it. I'd read a blurb here and there about this process but I'm pretty much winging this thing.

             I let the tea cool down before I started dipping pieces in it. Be patient, it's worth it to not go to the burn unit. Now here's the part where it starts getting scientific. I rustled up some test pieces and put them in for varying amounts of time to see how the color would turn out.

 

       As you can see there really wasn't a huge difference in the shades and I figure it's going to be very dim at the reception and people won't be able to see very well anyway. So I dipped most pieces pretty quickly and then laid them on an old towel in the bath tub ( wasn't sure if I'd stain the tub).

     
      Once my pieces were dry I laid them back out on the table. I did read this tutorial about how to create a doily runner and took their advice about laying out the big pieces first and then fitting in the smaller ones to fill it out. Since mine are mostly the same size I didn't have to work too hard on that part. I did have to try and mix up the stained ones with the white so it would looked properly proportioned. Here's how the colors turned out.

 

            Now that they are laid out, next step is to make them stick together. I went over the edges with a needle and thread doing long stitches on the under side. It really didn't take very long and you can't see them from the top. Here's the finished product!

      Now if you wanted to you could of course stain more pieces, I only did half. I think it turned out not too shabby if I do say so myself. Cutting out all the patterns was the most time consuming part of this project but when you put on a little "Dog Whisperer" you'll be amazed at how fast it goes, and think of the time and sleep you'll save by not trolling garage sales looking for doilies!  I also had a whole side piece left from the table cloth that I trimmed up to create another runner. For those keeping count that's 3 runners from one table cloth and 6 table squares out of another. Total money spent, $4.  

    What do you think? It takes the cake or it's ghetto?  Lets compare pictures of our DIY doily runners.   

The DIY Photo Booth

Out of all the current wedding trends the photo booth has to be my favorite. Not only am I a DIY bride but I'm also a low maintenance bride, meaning I'd rather stab myself in the eye than get printers and a whole set up going with some one to man the station. This is going to be a low key "booth".


       Here's my plan. I bought a $4 pink damask shower curtain from Ross to be the background. Pink doesn't really go with the wedding colors, which are basically black and white, but it will probably photograph well. I love the bold patterns that people use as the back drop and I'm hoping this shower curtain is going to have the same feel. Look at these patterns below and try to tell me they aren't awesome, you can't!

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     Then I created some mustaches on sticks (another serious trend that I'm digging). See, you and I know that mustaches on sticks are a major trend, but my guests will be seeing them them for probably the first time and think it's very cute. They don't know I'm being unoriginal, it's our little secret!

          I went with a shower curtain because it already has holes in it to be strung up easily, and if I find another I like better then I'll just use it as a shower curtain. The mustaches cost $1 to make. I bought a piece of stiff felt for 99 cents and I used skewers that we already had for the sticks. I Googled Mustaches template and found this site . When I printed it I made the mustaches just outlines to save on ink, cheap thrifty!

       The next step is to collect more props and make photo share cards. I'll most likely use Vista print for the share cards and a photo booth sign. In this photo booth scenario every one is using their own camera and then uploading pictures to a website when they get home. Granted, you're not getting instant gratification from having a photo printed and put into your hot little hand but really, I think people will not even know it could have been an option. I've had the phrase "facebook these pics when you get home" slurred at me from across the bar many times making me believe people enjoy going home and reliving the night by seeing what pictures get posted.
       Here are some of my inspirational DIY pictures.

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      Do you think photo booths are over done? What kind of set up do you think it the best?                                        

The road to the perfect venue.

Once the high of my proposal wore off and I realized I would then have to plan a wedding (yikes) I started to look for a venue. I knew I wanted to get married on Halloween weekend because 1. our first date was October 30th and 2. I really love Halloween, as you can see pictured below.

                               This is an 80's rocker (fiance) and Lady Gaga (me)
    Anyway, with the Halloween theme in mind I pictured and old estate or some kind of historic landmark. I looked around a bit and found them to be very expensive and very strict with their rules. Most big old houses are in residential areas and have noise ordinances that cause your event to have to end at 10pm. Not cool.

      So I then began to research the crap out of unique venues. I started looking on vendor websites to see where they had worked events to try and steal someone's great idea think out of the box. I came upon a few gems, the first being the most unusual place in the mix.

     It's the Winter Park Farmers Market, a building that was originally built as a train depot and now hosts a market on Saturday mornings. It's owned by the city and with in venue budget (which is 1,000).

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     The next venue I contemplated is the Woman's Club of Winter park which is right down the road from the Farmers market. They had nice wood floors and fire places on both sides of the room but they had some strict rules on decor, and the price was slightly higher.

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       Next on the list was a community building about 15 minutes from where we live. I was excited to see the inside after looking at the awesome outside online. It looked like an old house! It was my haunted mansion and I was so excited! Upon my visit I realized they had no ceremony space (unless you count the stage). This was a bummer, with our small venue budget I needed one location. They also had rules about needing to hire police officers if you're going to serve alcohol, which we weren't too thrilled about.

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       The final place I seriously looked into was a golf course club house/ballroom. Picture creaky wood floors and a big stone fire place, it def had the decor I was looking for. They had an out side ceremony space and provided all the food and alcohol. This proved to be expensive. On the up side it meant I'd have a DOC by going with this venue but after negotiating some food prices it was not going to be with in budget.

                                           Photo courtesy of   Pilster Photography
      Above are just the final venues that I took my family to in order to make a decision, I actually looked at at least 200 venues online. So which venue did I go with?  Drum roll please!

     I went with the Winter Park Farmer's Market! Woo Hoo! Hold your applause, you're too kind! It's not an old house but I'll make it look that way. My fiance and I are both very pleased with it. He actually has memories of his mother taking him there on Saturday mornings as a small boy. Who knew that he'd grow up and one day get married there. We love the big barn doors and industrial flooring. They recently installed market lights which are really charming. Here are some more pics!

                                              Photo Courtesy of Jessica Lorren Photography

                                                    Photo Courtesy of Studio 222 Photography

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How long did it take you to pick a venue? How many did everybody look at?
                                                        

Let's Talk About Crafts, Baby

Let me start this by saying that I have spent the last 27 years hating lace. OK, Hate may be a strong word but let's just say it wasn't for me. Lace table clothes and curtains are for your grandma. I can stand a doily here and there but that's about it, and don't even get me started on lace appliques on wedding gowns. It's just not my style. Well, not until I saw this.

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     This is when every thing changed for me. A light bulb went off above my head, this dress and I had a come hither moment. Black lace...Genius! All of a sudden lace isn't for your grandma. It's cool and dark and oh so fashionable. But alas, this dress isn't meant for me, but it opened the flood gates to a world of lace.
 

Oh sure, there were tears when I went dress shopping.

        When my friends and I get together we have a good time, sometimes a really good time. It's one of those situations like when you have one 5 year old they are normal and cute, but put 4 five year olds together and it's total anarchy.  That's what it's like to hang out with us. All of a sudden no one has an inside voice and the conversation is on the level of convicts and sea captains.  Basically it's the best time of your life. 

                                                This is us eating craw fish in NOLA

    

       Not long after I got engaged one of my good friends was in from out of town. Even though I hadn't even began to think about dresses she really wanted me to go try some on so she could be a part of the process. No problem, we were all together anyway so lets do it! Friend #2 makes an appointment at Alfred Angelo and off we go. 

       Our first mistake may have been to go on a Saturday. We arrive on time and are politely greeted. We end up having to wait which at first I'm fine with but I really hate having to wait when I have a set appointment time. To make matters worse there are kids running around the shop like maniacs. Now, I am a very patient person, but when parents let their children terrorize the public I can't stand it. If I acted like that as a child my mom would have grabbed me by my little pony tail and given me a nice threat, end of psycho behavior. 

        After 15 minutes of waiting a girl comes to help me. We say hello and I let her know this is my first time looking. She then disappoints me. 

        Her: Ok, well before I get you a room why don't you look at this catalog and then i'll come back 

               and you can let me know what dresses I can pull for you.

        Me: Actually, we've already been waiting a little bit. How about I go in the room and you can 

               just bring me an A line and a Mermaid so I can see which style I like better and we can go 

               on from there.

         I said this nicely in a regular conversational tone, so what happened next blew my mind! She said OK and to give her a minute while she got a room ready. I sat back down and quickly flipped threw the catalog so I could tell her a specific dress to pull. I quickly found one and looked around for her. At first I couldn't find her but after searching through the racks I came upon the scene. 

    
       She was standing with the manager crying her eyes out. She was facing me and I could see that she was beyond flustered, her face and neck were red and her cheeks were wet with tears. I stood there shocked and asked if everything was alright. They told me that everything was fine and that they'd be right with me. Holy Awkward! I didn't know what to say, had I made this poor girl cry? I didn't feel like I had been snotty, I just wanted to get the show on the road. I returned to my seat to go over and analyze every word I had said to her. I frantically whispered to my friends what I'd seen and they re assured me that it couldn't have been me, she was just having a bad day.    ( Below is a bridezilla which I swear I was not being!)

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    Eventually the manager comes back and presents me with a new attendant who is not crying. During the course of my visit I ask about what happened to the other girl and my new one rolled her eyes and told me not to worry about her. This made me feel better and about 1/4 of my guilt slipped away.

    
       I didn't buy anything that day and even though my friends swore up and down that I didn't make that girl cry they've certainly changed their stories now. When we go out to eat they'll warn me to not make the waitress cry or when we go to the mall they'll say, "I wonder which sales people we can get to cry today?"

   
       It's a very memorable dress shopping experience and not because it was my first, but because I made someone cry. No I didn't, really, you have to believe me!

    Did anything funny happen to you on the way to the dress shop?

Favorite Favors

   When my Fiance vetoed the idea of a coffin shaped card box I had to pull back the reigns a bit and really think about the over all look of the wedding. I did decide to go a classier way but I think I'm still going to have some kitschy fun with the favors.  I have three ideas.
     The first is the most tame and probably the easiest to execute. Heard of  Nieman Marcus cookies? Urban legend aside, I've been making these since I was old enough to bake on my own. I know I get at least 80 with every batch and the idea is to have them in little baggies with a sticker on them. The sticker would be a kind of logo of sorts with the date and a skull. Oh, did I not mention that I'm totally into skulls? More on that later.
Something like this below minus the stars and add a sticker!

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Idea number two: A skull cookie in a cellophane bag with a bow. You know those sugar cookies with the icing that gets really hard, that's what I'm thinking. Obviously, it's going to be more time consuming with the decorating but I think it's a way cooler favor. I mean look how cute and happy this guy is, he's ready for the party.

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OK, this last one will probably not actually happen because it involves a lot of work. It's coffin favor boxes via Martha Stewart. I think these are pretty awesome and people would be super surprised to see them. The draw backs are some one has to fold every top and bottom, which would take a long time, and I'm really just into the coffin itself, I don't even care what goes in it. Since that's the case I think I should stick with one of the cookies.

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What do you guys think? Are you having generic favors or ones that add to your theme?