Color Crisis

I think a lot of future brides are afraid to commit to wedding colors (not to marriage obviously) for good reason. The colors determine everything else! Choosing your colors is such an important decision and it's one of the first we have to make. We can't pick flowers, bridesmaid dresses, or really delve into decor without first picking our colors!

I've always imagined my bridesmaids would wear olive green, because it's my favorite color, but that was before I knew I was going to have a garden ceremony. I don't want my wedding party blending in with the trees! Is that a legitimate concern? Are certain colors off limits for outdoor weddings?

{Photo credit: The Knot Real Weddings}

Initially, we wanted to have pale colors like pink, champagne, and creme to go with our olive green. However, I've heard that soft colors such as these do not look good in the fall and I'm having a fall wedding. Traditionally, fall colors are bold like orange, red, and mustard yellow. I like those colors, but again I'm worried my bridesmaids will blend into the fall foliage.

To solve my problem, I think I'm going to mix and match the colors. I'm going to add just one striking color to our muted base, therefore, having olive green, champagne, and burgundy! The bridesmaids will wear the bold burgundy so that they are sure to stand out during the ceremony and we will accent everything else with the lighter colors.

{Photo credit: The Knot Real Weddings}

Here are some pictures that inspired my burgundy vision:

{Photo credit: Brides}

{Photo credit: Etsy seller Mollusa Wedding Art}

{Photo credit: Vintage Design Company}

I feel like a babbling mess, going on and on about colors! Please tell me I'm not alone. Are you debating your colors? Are you afraid to commit to one palette? How did you decide what color your bridesmaids would wear?

I <3 Miss Brache

Ok we're about to order the bridesmaid dresses from MissBrache aka Diane. She is a dream to work with. We haven't even put the order in yet but she's been so helpful! She'll work with you to design basically any kind of dress you want (I've only been talking dresses with her but she does all kinds of awesome clothing) and she's great with fabric suggestions, etc. All my bridesmaids (the ones in dresses anyway) have chosen this dress:

(source)

..but instead of the big red petticoat we are having Diane make simpler tulle ones (much cheaper). I put together this little mock-up of what my girls are going to look like, given the fabrics they've chosen (though the belts are not included in the order so they will not look like that exactly; also all of them will have petticoats). I'm really pleased.

And I've just found the perfect necklaces (I think), from FreshyFig. I'm hoping the little birdy is speckled enough that it would go with a number of different blues..?? And I think it would look great with that yellow too?

(source)

I'm still debating what to do for my MOH who's wearing a suit and wouldn't probably like this necklace. Somebody recommended cufflinks (was it you Miss Glen Echo? I can't remember), and I am strongly considering getting her these:

(source)

weee! every time we check another item off the list it all feels a little bit closer to happening.. not that this is even checked off yet but we're close! :)

Here Comes The...Bride...Maids!

Or rather, bride's attendants...not really feeling the word "maid." (source)

Just like Miss Charlottesville, I am also allowing my attendants to wear a gown of their own choosing (hmm...actually not liking that word either...anyone have any suggestions..."bridesgirls," "bridescrew,"...help me out here, people). Having been in weddings before and not having anything to do with the dress that I was required to wear, I felt an animosity towards the bride that was, sort of, irrational. I do have to say though, the animosity was more so related to the fact that, in most cases, the dress was too big or small, the fabric was very unflattering and I was wearing 3 pairs of panty girdles in order to not look like a rolled sausage...although I totally felt like one...

Now that all of the dresses (technically) have been ordered, I can share with you guys my "vision" (ugh...enough with words I hate in this post) of what my brides...uh...peeps will be wearing. I gave them a few guidelines because, well, I still wanted the look be cohesive, but I was also concerned with their comfort. The rules were 1. Bari-Jay (just to make sure the color would match), 2. floor length, 3. sage in color, 4. chiffon. These are the choices they made...good job ladies!

First up, single friend of honor, Kiki (left) and married friend of honor, Polley (right)
.

Next, single cousin of honor, Melissa (top) and my girl B (bottom)



Next, my cousins and some of my oldest and dearest friends, Nana (top) and Fee Bee (bottom)



And last, but certainly, never least, lil' sis, Tia (with the cutest broom carrier ever, my nephew Julian)


How are you Ladies picking the brides...persons...dresses? Are they all wearing the same thing or are you allowing them to switch it up a bit?

Maids and colors and styles, oh my!

Thus far in my wedding planning, bridesmaids' attire has been at the bottom of my list, something I didn't want to think about or deal with. Honestly, I just didn't care what they wore, as long as it was attractive/pretty and wedding-appropriate. I told my sister/MOH to take the reins and to leave me mostly out of it. And, as she is much more of a fashionista than I, she kindly obliged. We discussed finding dresses off-the-rack, as my sister refused to wear/buy a hideous bridesmaid dress (she was in a wedding for which the dresses were so bad that she threw hers out in an airport trashcan on her way home!).

I'm not really a fan of traditional BM attire, where all the maids where the same dress in the same color. For me, that's just too formal/posed, and of course, different styles fit different bodies. I was inspired by Miss Powder Puff's maids, who all wore different dresses in coordinating colors:

(photo from her photog, Shutter Sam)

My sister spent an August weekend at the beach outside of Charleston, SC, and she went shopping on King Street one day where she popped into LulaKate, a small boutique that carries its own line of BM and ready-to-wear attire. And she loved the BM dresses! LulaKate has about 20 styles (3 skirt styles - A-line, full, and party, in a few lengths; a dozen or more bodice styles) and dozens of colors in 3 different fabrics. So over Labor Day weekend, when I was at the beach, I stopped by LulaKate too. And I'm relieved/excited to say that I found my BM dresses! I'm still going to have different colors/styles, but all in silk dupioni fabric and complementary/similar colors:

(images from LulaKate's website and compiled by me in PowerPoint)

Unfortunately, the colors on the website are not nearly as bright or vibrant as the fabric swatches, so the image makes my dresses look a little bland, but hopefully you all get the idea. I've chosen a bunch of colors that all look good together, so each maid can wear a different color in her style of choice, and no one has to get stuck with last pick (I have more colors than maids). My plan is to ask the girls to rank the colors in order of preference, and hopefully I can assign the colors so everyone is happy and gets first or second choice. At least, that's the plan ... and according to the Fashion Queen (my sister) the dresses are very re-wearable. Coming from her, that's saying something.

The only LulaKate location is in Charleston, but the dresses are carried by Bella Bridesmaid shops (there's one in Baltimore if any DC brides want to check out LulaKate), and there's a Bella Bridesmaid shop in the home city of most of my Bridesmaid (not the one in Benin, but that's a story for another time).

Are any of you opting for non-traditional BM dresses? How are you going about it?

35 Days

I have 35 days left until I officially become a Mrs.

Wow.

Well, as I prepare for what will undoubtedly be an incredibly busy month, I am hoping that my semi-slacker-attitude leading up to this month doesn't come back to bite me in the ....

Leading up to the wedding, at least in the last few months, I have done--not as much as I thought I would have. It was like having wedding senioritis. I just, didn't want to anything anymore. DC has been hot a sweaty and that has not been the most motivating thing for me these last few weeks. I hit a few snags along the way. First, one of my bridesmaids received her dress and it was two sizes too big. It wasn't too disastrous---what was awful was dealing with the Jim Hjelm customer service people and the bridal salon that I purchased the dresses from. To be fair, the salon did offer to do the alterations for nearly half of what they would have cost to have them done elsewhere--it was just a pain to have to play phone tag with the manufacturer, the bridal salon, and my bridesmaid. In the end, all was resolved, but it made for a very un-fun few days in July.

I did receive the necklaces that I ordered from Sianlw on etsy for my bridesmaids. She custom-made me pieces with the colors and necklace lengths that I wanted. I am so incredibly pleased with how they turned out and I cannot wait to add it to their bag of bridesmaid goodies which so far consists of ..... well, these necklaces. I can't figure out what else to get them as presents :-/

I also got my headband for my wedding. So excited about this amazing piece from JustLiv! She made it from the extra fabric that was cut off of my wedding dress when it was getting altered.

So I have 35 days to figure out all the last minute details---like getting a license, seating charts, and calling all the non-RSVPers to figure out if I will come in under my wedding budget:-P

Wish me luck and I hope your wedding plans are going well!

So Which Dresses are We Actually Getting?

Obviously you were all up last night wondering WHICH dresses the Fairfax bridesmaids will be wearing. The last post was such a cliffhanger I know! I knew from the beginning that I as most comfortable picking the company, fabric and color, and letting each person select the style she was most comfortable in. We're all built a little different, all have different styles and comfort levels, so I thought each woman would be most at ease in a dress she selected herself. It did briefly cross my mind to say, just get a brown dress! but a fellow bride advised against this. She tried to do it for her wedding (black bridesmaid dresses) and it ended up being more complicated than it seemed. They went with dresses from David's in the end and it was beautiful!

Have to protect their superhero identities! It was the height of summer down south and the black looked very elegant with the light green and yellow flowers.

I just e-mailed the order form to all the ladies this week. I'll be collecting them back in about a months time and we'll see what everyone decided on!

Picking Out the Bridesmaids Dresses

So in a twenty-two month engagement, when do you start looking for the bridesmaids dresses? Oh, immediately. Bridesmaids dresses are one of the easiest things to look at online I think because almost every designer, from David's Bridal to Watters, shows the full bridesmaid collections online and while color isn't as easy to determine on a computer screen, the details tend to be less fussy, so I think it's easier to get a good feel for the look of the dress on the screen.

After hearing about a friends debacle with custom-made, nude, satin bridesmaids gowns, I knew I needed to make the whole process as easy on my lovely ladies as possible. After a little looking, I knew my top two priorities, fabric and price.

I love the look and feel of raw silk, aka shantung or dupioni. I also think the stiffness and characteristic body of the fabric makes it a little more forgiving wear. Since I was also concerned with price, I ended up selecting Aria Dress for the gowns as they offer the most options, best quality, for the best price as far as I could see. Unfortunately, I did much of my research over a year ago, so I can't site specific vendors, but I do recall that most silk dress were in the $250 to $300 range. Aria silk dresses start at $195 for knee-length styles.

I was still concerned about the price, so I spoke with each bridesmaid individually and asked for input on the fabric, price, and all. Everyone seemed pretty happy (hopefully they were telling the truth!), so I made an appointment at the Aria boutique in Dupont for the first round of try-ons.

We're really lucky that we have a boutique here in DC. Karen, the Aria contact here in DC, is lovely and extremely helpful. We were able to try dresses on to our hearts desire, with just us in the salon, and take lots and lots of pictures. We also used the Aria try-on program. Aria's LA shop will mail you up to three dresses to try on if you aren't near a boutique. One of my bridesmaids is out of state and just did this last week. Downsides are that it's does cost $15 per dress, but hey, it's cheaper than flying the person to the shop right? You also receive dresses on Monday and they must be returned by Friday of the same week or you are charged a late fee. Boo. Nonetheless, it worked out and my bridesmaid found a dress she loved that she doesn't think will need to be altered at all.

So let me get to the good parts...here are a few photos from our Aria excursions.

On the first trip with bridesmaid K, we tried on A LOT of dresses, and took pictures so we could show the other girls.

Above is K in style 107 in slate. This was my very favorite dress. I love the sweetheart neckline and the shirring across the bust is really cute too. The skirt is A-line and overall the dress is very flattering. K is very petite in slim and I'm taller and a little more um, filled in and I thought it looked quite nice on both of us. Here I am in the same style in tangerine.


K's dress is in shantung, my dress is actually in satin. While the Aria Boutique is just PACKED with dresses, since they offer so many styles, fabrics, and colors, the options are limitless and they can't carry every combo in the shop. Typically, when you visit, Karen will pull all the styles you like and then pull one or two in the colors you like so you can see the color. Below is bridesmaid K in her brown dress.

You'll notice it looks quite large, I think it was 2 sizes to big, and she was clipped into it.


Here's bridesmaid A in one of Aria's newest styles, 191, with a keyhole neck and a tie at the back of the neck. K actually got to try this dress on when it was still in the experimental phase...we didn't take any pictures, though. We loved this dress on A because it was a little less bridesmaidy, and super fun. This dress also comes with three skirt options: shirred (above), box pleat (below, style 173), and A-line. Most of the other styles have A-line and column as the skirt options.


A's favorite style was the dress shown below:


This is style 185 with a box pleat skirt. We thought the shirred skirt was a little too much skirt and preferred the look of the box pleat and the A-line skirt. Below is bridesmaid K again. This was her favorite style, 106, in eucalyptus.


She's pinching it back just a little bit where it was a little too big. I really liked this dress a lot as well. The neckline was very flattering and the halter ties in the back and there is enough fabric in the back to tie a nice bow if you want. In fact, this was the favored dress by 2 out of 3 Fairfax bridesmaids! Bridesmaid E received this dress from LA and this was her favorite as well.

I'll share just a few more so you can see a couple more styles:

Me in Style 160 in Midnight. This is just a basic strapless, but it has a more defined waistline with the band of fabric rather than just a seam.


This is style 181 in magenta on K. This was very cute and the skirt has a nice swing to it.

Here's the last one. I think this is the only dress we weren't crazy about. There was just too much dress for K, it kind of looked like it might creep up over her neck and eat her! The color is pretty amazing though. The style is 183 in burnt orange. This is the orange that is offered in the shantung fabric, while the tangerine I'm wearing in the photo above is the orange in the satins.

So far I've been quite happy with Aria. I've interacted with Karen in the DC Boutique and made a couple appointments, called to ask questions etc. I've also spoken with the LA office to ask about the try-on program, actually order the try-on dresses and ask about sales tax. They've been great every time.

The dresses are custom-made upon order so Aria recommends ordering at least 4 months in advance of the wedding. My plan is to place our orders the first week in May, though I've been told we could order as late as June 1. Most of the reviews I've read online have noted that the orders came in about a month early.

As far as the need for alterations, I've seen mixed reviews. I've seen some reviews where the dresses were perfect on delivery, and others that said that the whole bridal party needed alterations! I'm pretty confident that we'll be good to go. All the girls seemed to feel the dresses fit quite well in the store.

If you have any questions about my Aria experience, please feel free to e-mail me at fairfaxmiss@gmail.com!

How was your dress selection process? Did you have a good experience with the company you chose?