Tic tock goes the clock

Only 4 more months till we say 'I do'! We have accomplished a lot but there is still so much left to do. When I stop and write everything down it feels a little daunting. Why does it take so much to make a wedding?

The check list:

Venue- Check
Photographer- Check
Wedding Cake- I'm making it! Gordon keeps hinting for a tasting
Bride's Dress-Check (first fitting this week)
Groom's Tux-
Bridesmaids' Dresses- Checkish (they've been found and bought, still need fittings)
Groomsmen's Tuxes
DIY Projects- In the works, my sister and I are working on the little details that will make the day extra special
DJ- Check (I think... this is Gordon's job)
Welcome Bags- this is a process because we want to make them extra fun for our out of town guest that will be visiting Chicago for the first time.
Hotel Blocks- Check (we still need to book our room though)
Engagement Photos- Check, we are going to have them taken while we are home in June.
Guest book
Save the Dates- Check, they were sent out and look awesome
Photo Wall
Invitations- Check (part 1.. I bought them now we have to print and assemble them)
Registry- Check, this was a lot of fun I'm super excited to see what we get for our honeymoon and for our home.
Honeymoon- Check, the tickets were bought yesterday, we are going to London Baby!
Passports
Favors
Menu- Check, this is super secret, we are going to do our tasting in June and I'm so excited
Play list- this is one of Gordon's jobs, we need to choose our songs to walk and dance to plus the overall feel of the whole night's dance party
Decor for the space- this is a bit of a process as well, some will get chosen when we have our tasting and some is being done as diy projects I hope my vision comes true.
Officiant- Check, this was a huge relief when he said yes. Our wonderful friend Dan is going to do us the honor of marrying us.
Transportation
Rehearsal dinner
Open house
Gifts for Bridal Party
Flowers
Wedding Bands
Marriage License
Write our vows

We'll get through the list and it will be an awesome wedding. Because event though all these little things need to get done and I have no idea when I will have time to do most of it, but, at the end of the day Gordon and I will be married. I get butterflies in my tummy each time I say it out loud.

Wedding dress woes...

I've had some wedding dress issues in the last week. Issues that I can't really get into because Gordon reads this and I don't want to ruin any elements of surprise for the wedding day.

Here are a few pictures from when my sister, Katie, and my friend, Liz, went wedding dress shopping with me. It was a trial run to see fabrics, neck lines, and embellishments that I may want to add to the dress I, at the time, was going to make. We came across 2 dresses during that trip that I fell for. One was out of any kind of price range I'd be willing to spend and was taking away from the dream of making something. The other was similar to what I wanted to make and because it was a bridesmaids dress and therefore more affordable, there was no way I could have made a dress for less. I went for the less expensive, less stress alternative to making my dress. I ordered the bridesmaids dress in a 'wedding dress' color.

These are the dresses that didn't make the cut. Some I tried on just for fun, others were contenders. This was an option if I were going to go with a short dress. They didn't have many options for short wedding dresses so I had to try on a few short bridesmaids dresses. Use your imagination... picture an off white... cute right?

Here is my 'America's Next Top Model' pose. It got some laughs, I think Tyra would tell me not to smile though. Tyra, tell me the last time you saw a bride that wasn't smiling.

This is my Sense and Sensibility option, perfict or a period, English Garden kind of wedding... not at all what we are having.

What doesn't this dress have? There's lace, ruffles, pleats, beading, and layers... a bit too much if you ask me. I look like a wedding cake threw up on me.

This is the 'princess' look. Not at all what I asked for. The sales woman was insistent that "Every bride wants to look like princess". I do not, never did. The worst part about this dress was that once it was bustled my ass looked 20 times larger than it actually is. I can guarantee 'every bride' doesn't want a huge ass on her wedding day.

This one had a nice back, but not a nice front. I have been growing my hair for the last 4 years and I am planning to wear it down for the wedding. It would be a total waste to cover the back of this dress with my hair.

This was vintage inspired off the shoulder dress that would look perfect with a string of pearls. It was just a little big and overwhelming for my taste.

Again, a beautiful back but the skirt was a little too flowy and it said beach wedding to me.

This one was really pretty, fit perfect (made my boobs and butt look awesome), and it was on sale. Downside, it had been tried on by tons of brides. It was filthy and had tears in the lace so it would have cost an arm and a leg to get it cleaned and fixed thus losing the charm of the small price tag.

This was the first one I tried on with a veil. It was awesome to feel like a bride. This was one of the dresses that made me really think about buying one versus making my own.


So many options and so many decisions to make. I'm happy with the purchases I have made... yes purchases, I found a dress on-line that is almost identical to the one I had originally wanted to make and I got it for a great price. Now I have to make one of the 2 dresses I have work. It was fun to go dress shopping I loved all of it.

It aint easy bein' green....

Or in my case, it ain't easy bein' tall.

I have been tall my entire life. Don't get me wrong I love being tall. I actually wish I was a little taller. I know it sounds silly but, I always wanted to be 6 feet tall. This is the only case in life where I fell short, pun intended.

When I was born I was 22 1/2 inches.... that's almost 2 feet when I was only a day old! By the time I was 2 years old I was 3 feet tall. My doctors told my parents that I was going to be at least 6 feet tall by the time I was done growing. (this is where my dream began) Growing up I was always taller than my friends and the kids in my class. In the 6th grade I was as tall as my teacher.

The 7th grade was a real struggle for me. Not only was I a 13 year old girl who was starting to like boys but I was also taller than all the boys. When I started basketball in November that year I had a physical at the beginning of the season. I was 5'1'' and the tallest girl on the team. I complained all season about my legs bothering me. My coaches and my mom just thought it was from the conditioning during practice. In January I got injured during a game and spent the rest of the season in a brace protecting my sprained/slightly torn ACL. When I was finally cleared to return to gym and sports the doctor gave me another physical just to make sure I was ok. I was 5'8". My doctor did a double take and looked back into my chart. I grew 7 inches in 4 months. That's why I was in so much pain all the time.

I stopped growing my junior year of high school at 5'11'', one inch shy of having the dream. le sigh... I guess it wasn't meant to be. It wasn't till my senior year that guys were finally as tall or taller than me. Unfortunately none of those guys were the guys I liked. In my whole life I have only had 2 boyfriends taller than me. I was made to slouch in dance pictures because once I put heels on I was 6'3''.

Here I am with 2 of my good friends from HS. I look like a giant in every picture of us.

But, like I said before, I love being tall. At fancy occasions when everyone else is wearing heels, and I am not, I feel so short. But I'm not short, everyone else is finally as tall as me or at least close to being as tall as me. I'm the tall one; its what I know, its who I am. I learned that tall is beautiful and its nothing to be afraid of... unless I'm towering over you and I'm pissed off... then, be afraid. The height thing has never been an issue between Gordon and I. Gordon is about 2 inches taller than me. He'll just make a comment here and there when we go out and I dress up or when we go to a wedding. "Its hard to dance with you because you're too tall."

We didn't dance a single slow dance at Kathryn's wedding.

I am wearing flats here and Courtney is wearing heels.

My new issue with height is all this wedding stuff. I don't want to wear flats because I want to be tall. But, I don't want to wear heels over 3 inches because I want to be comfortable all night. I also want Gordon to be comfortable. I really don't want to be taller than him on our wedding day. There is also a problem with the dress. Extra fabric, hems, making sure I have the right shoes when I get alterations. Blahh. I know it will all work out. I'll get to be tall but not too tall. Its such a silly thing to worry about.

It's all about compromise

They say that marriage is all about compromise. They should also tell you that wedding planning is all about compromise.

Something that was very important to me was in the wedding planning process was to make my wedding dress. It's something that I really felt like I could do and the only way I would get what I really wanted in a dress. Some of my friends thought I was crazy, and some of them thought it was an awesome idea. I'm pretty crafty, craftier than the average bear. I've been sewing for years. I don't have much experience sewing garments but I felt that given enough time I could practice a few dresses before making THE dress. I found a blog that showed another bride making her dress. If she could do it, I could do it.

I spent a lot of time looking for the perfect dress pattern. I found one that I totally fell in love with. It was a vintage pattern that unfortunately wasn't my size. I bought it anyway. I asked my friend Liz if there was a way to 'make it work'. Liz use to be a pattern maker for a designer before she moved to Philly, so she's got a little bit of experience making clothes for different sizes. She gave me some kind of equation using my measurements in relation to the measurements of the dress. It was totally confusing. Then I found an easier explanation along with pictures here . So, I'm gonna do this. I'm going to make my wedding dress. My mom keeps telling me I'm nuts and that I have no idea how much stress this is going to add to the wedding planning. I don't care what she says, I'm gonna do this.

My sister was going to be in town for a visit and I decided we should go dress 'shopping'. I feel that you only get to be a bride once why not take advantage of getting to try on as many wedding dresses as you want. My friend Liz came with us and we went to David's Bridal. The goal of the trip was to try on dresses and find aspects of dresses that I liked that I could incorporate into the dress that I was going to make. Things like color, neck line, and lace were all things I wanted to make decisions about. I tried on some nice dresses, some ridiculous ones, and one amazing dress. Then sales woman put the veil on me. Katie and Liz had the same reaction at the same time. "Oh my goodness, Sarah........". Now what do I do?!?!? The I got dressed and started talking to the girls. They both went on and on about how beautiful the dress was and how wonderful I was in it and that it made me really look like a bride. But I want to make my dress. This dress was nothing like the dress I wanted to make. Vintage feel, great cut, and beautiful fabric but not the dress I had my heart set on for the last 2 months. I started to cry. The sales woman said that she could give me a price cut on the dress if I wanted to buy it.... she didn't know about the home made dress idea. She gave me the price and my jaw hit the ground. How much? Really, that's your sale price? Yikes! I can't afford that. She told me I had a couple weeks to think about it and then the sale would be over. We talked about it on the car ride home and came to the decision that I would think about it. That, yes, it would be easier to buy a dress but its expensive and its not what I really want.

A week went by and a day before my sister was to leave town we decided to go to one more place to see what else was out there and maybe push me in one direction or the other. We went to the Bridal Salon at Macy's. They were over booked and short a sales person. The only sales girl in the place gave me a room and told me to help myself to the dresses. Katie helped me get them on and Liz took pictures. Every once in a while the sales girl would come by and ask how we were doing or comment on what I had on. I tried some sale dresses, some just for the hell of it, and some bridesmaids dresses. Something interesting happens when a dress is for a bridesmaid vs a bride.....the comma disappears and the numbers get smaller. One of the bridesmaids dresses was very similar to the dress pattern that I had planned to make. It had a lot of the same elements that originally drew me to the dress pattern. It was lacking in a few places but those can easily be fixed with accessories and the dress could be ordered in ivory so that it looked more like a wedding dress instead of a bridesmaid dress. I tried on a few accessories pulled from other dresses to get the full effect. This is it. This is my dress. I can make the things that needed to be added to the dress. The big scale tipper in deciding on buying vs making my dress was that this bridesmaid dress was under $200. Fabric for making a dress would easily cost that much if not more. I looked at the girls and said, "I'm gonna buy this dress!". Then we ordered it and while I was waiting for the sales girl to write everything up I text Gordon and my mom that I had just bought my wedding dress. They were both shocked and happy for me. Yay! This was the first 'its really happening' moment I had in the planning process. I can't wait for it to come in and I can try it on again.

I still feel bad about not making my dress. I checked back in with the bride that was making her own dress and found that she too went with another dress that was already made. I don't feel so bad anymore. I think I will make the dress pattern that I bought and wear it for some other wedding related occasion.