To Dye or Not To Dye?

I often wonder about the possibility of dyeing shoes. If I wanted to wear ivory (or even black for that matter) shoes for my wedding day, I would be allll set. Actually, I probably wouldn't because I'm so indecisive and there are sooo many options out there that I wouldn't be able to pick just one pair! I've seen beautiful green shoes... in pictures (no longer being sold)... on shopping sites (not in my size)... and shady foreign websites that don't even ask you the shoe size of the Louboutins you want and then send you to Paypal to pay and their account is 'suspended'. Yeah. Shady.

I'm having such a hard time finding the perfect shoes (GREEN peep toe pumps with a bow or flower on the toe and hidden platform), in my size, available for purchase, and not $900. I know dyeing shoes is an option, but would like to hear from some people who have done it? If I were having a red, pink, purple, or blue wedding, we wouldn't be having this conversation! Why oh why don't stores do green?? I don't understand! It's only the most beautiful color in the world (not biased at all...). I was in Marks & Spencer's in London this weekend and they had set ups of accessories organized by color. They had feather clips, hats, fascinator headbands - all separated out by color. Pink. Red. Black. Purple. Blue. Turquoise. Green. And, no joke, all but the green had shoes included in their display. What the deuce?? I was really hoping I'd find green shoes on this trip to London Town, so people could be like "OMG where did you get your shoes??" and I could be like "Oh, you know, just London." But nooo. Apparently this green shoe shortage is international.

Oh my god. In my search for "dyed shoes images" I came across this blog. I think this is my bride twin. At least as far as shoes goes. She was looking for green shoes (about a year ago) for her wedding, and was in love with the same BP Posey Pumps from Nordstrom I've been in love with forever, and blogged about the same dilemma - to dye or not to dye??

BP Posey Pumps. This bride got 'em, the rest of us didn't...

Well, my shoe doppleganger ended up dyeing hers and they look gorge. Don't they?

So should I just give in and buy an ivory or white pair and have them dyed the color I want? Or do I keep holding out hope I'll someday (preferably within the next couple months) come across my dream shoes? DSW alone has about 5 or 6 pairs of beautiful ivory styles. Like these beautiful babies:

-C
xxx

FA Update

FA = Farmer's Almanac, for those not paying attention :) Anyone care for a FA update?

About a month ago I wrote a little bit about the Farmer's Almanac, and how I pretty much think it's a load of crap. Don't get me wrong, I WISH they weren't! But, the fact is, no one can predict the weather from that far out. They can only use historical information to guess.

Here are the dates I chose, locations, and the date range and predictions from the FA.
May 8th, Kansas City, MO: May 5-8: Sunny, then t-storms, warm
May 14th, Philly: May 9-17: A few t-storms

And what happened?
May 8th, Kansas City, MO: CHILLY, and no rain in sight! Very sunny, just chilly.
May 14th, Philly: Super nice out for the whole day, then thunderstorms in the evening.

So there you have it folks. The FA was sort of right for the 14th, but almost completely wrong for the 8th. I'm still sticking with not going by their predictions. I'd rather do my own prediction that it will not rain and will be gorgeous, 75 degree weather :)

If you do care to check out the FA, maybe just for some piece of mind, they even offer a whole page for wedding planning! http://www.almanac.com/content/wedding-planning-wedding-weather-sunset-calculator-tools-and-tips The only thing I will rely on the FA for is the sunset time: http://www.almanac.com/sun/rise/PA/Philadelphia/2010-09-18.

-C
xxx

Londy Londy Londy

Headed to London town today to visit the FH, and I'm excited to see what the fashion trend that grabs me is going to be this time! I know people think NYC is fashion-forward, but I never see anything that impresses me when I'm there. Everytime I go to London, though, I get snagged by one trend or the other, and bring it back with me. They may sound simple, but the trends I've fallen in love with in the past are:

The color purple

The saggy hat

Chinese fans (looks like these are a hot trend again this summer, they're still on my favorite UK store's website!!)

Clearly these are all very technical terms for the trends ("saggy hat"). I'm telling you, though, it's not like I see it in one place. Each of these trends I saw EVERYWHERE in London, from the store windows to every other girl on the tube. Apparently Brits take a trend and really run with it! I love it, though. It's pretty funny, though, that whenever I've pointed these out ("Oooh there's another girl wearing purple!" "Oooh there's another saggy hat, I want one!!"), FH is completely oblivious. I know men tend to not particularly... well, notice things, but come on, how do you not notice every other girl on the tube wearing purple?? I'll let you know what's trending in London this Spring when I get there. Hopefully it'll be something GREEN!! :)

Of course I'm excited to see FH, too, but I can't lie and say I'm not excited to go to Accessorize!! It's the equivalent of our Claire's, but awesome instead of lame. So really the only thing it has in common with Claire's is that there's one every 2 feet.

-C
xxx

Uncle Randy - Help! (or anyone else with ideas!)

Hoping the title caught your eye Wendy... :) You'll see why below.

By now you all know I'm planning a tent wedding. I hadn't mentioned this before (I don't think), but I've been planning all along to do my own lighting (mainly because places charge mucho dinero to do lighting for you). As in, bought a gajillion christmas lights at the after Christmas sales (the cute circular ones - "cafe lights" if you will), and have been acquiring the materials needed for LED throwies that will be put inside of Chinese lanterns to hang in the tent as well. This is a project that's been going around bridal blogs for a while now. It's super cheap, actually REALLY EASY to do, and they last for days, needing no plug-in electricity, which is awesome (see below for info).

Screeeeeech! That's the sound of my ideas coming to a screeching halt about a week ago when talking to my cheap tent dude and he said that basically there's nowhere to hang things from inside the tent. Whaaaaat? But. But. But I want to hang things inside the tent! Namely, lights and chinese lanterns! He was just like um, well, uh, I'm sorry but there's only three poles inside the tent and they go straight up to like 18 feet. The only other place to hang things from is on the outside of the tent, where they usually put perimeter lighting. (Don't get me wrong, he was nice about it, I was just in disbelief that my vision wasn't going to work.) So I'm a little stubborn and refuse to believe that I have to give this project up. I've been thinking about how I could make it work. The original thought was to cris-cross fishing wire all over the place and hang them from that, but, obviously, that was assuming it would be between short sections of poles throughout the tent. I think it's going to look something like this:

(note the three poles in the center)

Soooo I had a thought the other night, and I had to make a drawing because trying to explain it would just be useless (trust me). Don't judge me on my lack of drawing ability. (Please??) I was thinking if we tied one end of a string/rope of lanterns, and tied the other end to an outside pole, it should work.

My problem issss - if the strands of lights are tied to the poles, how do we keep them from sliding down the poles? Do you get what I mean? I need some sort of something stopping it from coming down. Oh Uncle Randy, king of all that is handy, Mr. fix-it of everything, do you have any ideas for me?? I'm not asking you to make something, just to brain storm a little bit since I'm at a loss.

Ideas are welcome from others as well!!

For anyone who wants to know how to make the LED throwies, here's the link. I'm probably getting my Chinese lanterns here: http://www.paperlanternstore.com/, purchased my LED bulbs from ebay for about 16 cents each (I got 200), and got the batteries from ebay as well for about 6 cents each for 200. I've tested out the tutorial and they are super easy to make. I kind of want to light everything with LED throwies now.

-C
xxx

Everybody's Got One...

Ok, maybe not everybody, but I've been noticing it happening more often than not these days. Yes, I'm talking about... the pregnant bridesmaid! (dun dun dunnnn) :) Yup, the one who has to wear a special dress (because she already bought the one you picked out and THEN proceeded to get preggers). Awesome for you, Bridesmaid Lela, and congrats and all that, but better you than me :)

Did you ever know someone who didn't know if they wanted to actually birth children? I mean, besides me of course. Yeah, that was Lela. When I had my bridesmaids get their dresses back in... what, September? October? I forget who it was, but someone actually said to me, "Well, a lot could happen between now and your wedding, what if one of them gets pregnant?" I remember laughing in their face! Well, I think it might've actually been on email or gchat, so I laughed in their face... via technology. "My bridal party? Seriously? HAHAHA!" And I'm pretty sure I even said, "and DEEEEFFFINITELY not Lela!" So I said to whoever I was having this conversation with (I truly don't remember, because obviously at the time it was a non issue in my mind!) that if someone got pregnant, they'd have to wear a "special dress".

Well, looks like Lela changed her mind and decided she wanted to have a baby! I had to keep it a secret for a little bit, but she's out of the closet now, so to speak. And she's even got a blog - inspired by moi of course :) Sooooo somebody needs a special dress! When I originally said that, I was thinking, "If someone gets pregnant I'm gonna make them wear the ugliest, brightest colored dress in the universe!"

This is even too ugly to be funny.

(If you've never been to http://www.uglydress.com/, you need to check it out.)

But obviously that's because I thought it seemed so far-fetched. So we've been trying to figure out some non ugly clothing options for her since I'm not really going to make her wear something hideous just because she decided to procreate! That would just be mean. The dress is pretty form fitting so it's not exactly going to FIT when she's 8+ months pregnant at my wedding. It's pretty stretchy, but not THAT stretchy! Since my girls aren't wearing dresses from a bridal shop, we can't just go to them for a matching one in a different style. Bridesmaid Lela and I have been trying to figure out what to do. At first she thought about cutting the top off the dress and sewing it onto another skirt, but it's a dress I think she'd wear again so I didn't want her to mutilate it (unless she wanted to). The newest development, however, is that her MIL is going to attempt to alter the dress - opening it at the seams and inserting fabric. So she may not look like she's in a special dress after all! I told her she should insert bright green fabric (the dresses are all black). That would look pretty funky! (I'm only half joking. I kind of think it could look cool...)

For other brides in this situation, take note: your girl may not be there for your big day. Bridesmaid Lela has assured me that she'll be there for mine, but know that there are some people who wouldn't even think of even trying. Maybe I'm being naive, but when Lela says she'll be there, I know she'll do everything in her power to be there. Obviously, if a doctor gave her a no-fly order or something, that's not something either one of us can help. You can't just hit pause on the pregnancy. It's the circle of life and all that junk.

So don't be naive and think that none of your bridesmaids will be pregnant at your wedding, because it happens more often than you think! Shoot, if you google "maternity bridesmaid" you get 533,000 results. There's clearly a market for maternity bridesmaid dresses!

While writing this I found a pretty helpful post on things to think about when you're a pregnant bridesmaid. Of course, they try to sell you on their dresses, but I think a couple of the tips are worth mentioning:

* Your body is going to continuously change for the next few months. Eliminate the guesswork (and the stress) by selecting a gown with an empire waist.

* Make sure you will be comfortable - steer clear of itchy lace sections and definitely don't try to squeeze yourself into a gown that is too small.

* Invest in a comfortable pair of shoes. You will be on your feet for a long time so be prepared.

* Make sure you enjoy yourself and don't hide from the camera!

You may be thinking "duh" to all of these. Yes, they may be common sense stuff that all brides/bridesmaids need to think about (like comfy shoes), but I think they're even more important for the preggers ones to think about.

Do you think there are any other special considerations to be made for preggers bridesmaids, besides attire? Maybe a doctor on call? A birthing room? Bachelorette party lamaze classes??

Happy baby-ing Bridesmaid Lela, and Happy Birthday this weekend!!!

-C

xxx

Last Week's Secret Project Was...

...a faux fabulous bouquet for Bridesmaid/Bride-to-Be Amanda! MOH Cassie and I joined forces to make it all happen. She made the flowers and I did the arranging and decorating of it. Amanda's going to use it as her bouquet for her wedding rehearsal (I hope!).

Here's how it was done:

MOH Cassie made the flowers (I'm trying to get her to do a guest post tutorial!) and glued stems onto the blooms. The stems are bound together using floral wire to form it into a bouquet.

I decided to add little tulle circles inbetween each bloom.

I think it adds a little something, don't you?

I wanted the "handle" to be thick and cushy, so I started with some scrap fabric to bulk it up a bit. I wrapped and hot glued, wrapped and hot glued, wrapped and hot glued...

...and then I wrapped and hot glued lots of navy fabric around it as well. I added the white lace at the top and bottom (hot glue again) to class it up a bit.

I only had a little bit of some shiny navy satin, so I cut it into strips and glued it on in a spiral, then added navy buttons on there. Want to guess the first thing that popped off when I gave it to her? Yeah, one of the buttons! Lol, but I was well aware that this could happen. Her nickname ain't "Hot Mess" for nothing!

People kept asking her to pose with the bouquet all day, so I guess it looks pretty good!
I'll fix the button before the rehearsal... :)

-C
xxx

Bridesmaid/Bride-To-Be Amanda's Bachelorette Bash!

Bridesmaid Amanda's bachelorette/bridal festivities were in full effect this weekend. We came up with the theme of "Hollywood Glamour" for the bachelorette party. Here's the pic I made for the evite:

We had everyone else wear black dresses because, well, just about everybody owns a black dress, right? And because Bride-to-Be Amanda wanted Bonnie (Un de Six) to make her a red dress. Pretty sweet being able to be like "I want this exact dress in this color to fit me exactly for my bachelorette party" and for your friend to be able to make it, right?? Here's the dress:


So Bonnie & I planned the bachelorette party last week. In a day. And it turned out awesome. But as soon as the plans were done I was like "Oh sh1t, I need something to decorate with and am NOT going to get a chance to go to Target or Michael's or any other large retail place that would have actual bachelorette party stuff!"* That's when the "Hollywood Glamour" theme morphed into pink and black (at least for the decorations). It just wouldn't have looked right with red and black unless we had like hollywood/movie stuff around to complete it, you know? And we were only decorating the first stop on our itinerary, so no use buying things like that that we were going to look at for like an hour and a half and then toss. So the typical bachelorette party color scheme of pink and black fit the bill. So, naturally, off to Dollar Tree I went. I went around looking through party stupplies, toys, and everything inbetween for just anything pink! I grabbed candy necklaces and jewelry for everyone, hot pink flamingo drink stirrers, hot pink and white polka dot ribbon, pink cupcake cutouts, and a couple other things I didn't end up using. Hot pink solo cups = so cool looking. But where would we use them? Guess we could have used them at dinner but oh well!

Then I hit up Hallmark which, surprisingly, didn't have anything for bachelorette parties at all! I thought that was odd. But I picked up some confetti there (that said "The party's here!"). The next day I hit up 5 Below (a cheapo chain in Philly, not sure where else they have them), and got some pink curling ribbon, sunglasses to complete the Hollywood theme, and some photo clips to hold up signs of the logo Bonnie made for the night:

(It's an upside down Philly skyline. Awesome, right??)

Didn't end up using the photo clips due to physics and gravity, but we put them up elsewhere (like on her chair, with lots of ribbon and balloons). Bonnie also hit up an "adult store" for some male genitalia straws and balloons and various other objects. I had no idea they made male genitalia whistles! Drinks were had, bulls were ridden (seriously), all in all it was a great night.

The secret project was for the shower. It'll be revealed next on the blog, so be on the lookout!

-C
xxx

*If you don't already know, I don't usually move my car during the week for two reasons. Ok let's make it three. 1 - The train into downtown Philadelphia is like 3 blocks from my house, so I walk there and take the train directly to the building I work in. Yes, it's pretty awesome. 2 - The neighborhood I live is notorious for its TERRIBLE parking. As in, it's really hard to find anytime after 5pm and nonexistent if it's after 10. I one time had to park my car so far away I took the train back to my house. Yeah. 3 - It's eco-friendly and wallet friendly. Do you know how often I buy a tank of gas? Ummm I'd say typically once every two months. Alright and we'll make a 4 - I sometimes forget where I've parked my car because I either haven't seen it in so long or just due to the fact that I have to park it in such different areas every time I move it. :)