This is farfromtheshore's Pink Wedding!

Hi ladies I have a question for you all.
I was just wondering if anyone has used an Ebay store called April Bridal and what the results were. My wedding dress is pretty heavy and although I will want to keep it on as long as possible, I'd also like to dance at our reception so I think I found a few cute and cheap dresses just in case I want to change.


http://cgi.ebay.com/Formal-Wedding-Prom-Gowns-Bridesmaids-Dresses-Size-Free_W0QQitemZ170203314824QQihZ007QQcategoryZ91248QQcmdZViewItem

This is what happens when I'm bored and stuck at work all day. I once again apololigize for being such a picture and idea pack rat lol I just realized that most of my bridesmaids have no idea what the lodge looks like. We're doing the ceremony down by the dock and using the winding cement path that leads from the house down as the aisle. The reception will be around the front of the house where the ground is more even and there are trees to string lights from.

Do you have to change the music when the bride comes it? A friend told me that traditionally there is a music change when the bride comes in but I'm really laid back and I kind of hoped my bridemaid Lauren would sing "More I Cannot Wish You" from Guys and Dolls for the processional and I'd just come down the aisle during the last verse, which I guess if she does the jazz arrangement does have a key change, it's so cute and the last verse is so pretty:

Music I can wish you
Merry music while you're young
And wisdom when your hair has turned to gray.
But More I Cannot Wish You
Than to wish you find your love
Your own true love this day
With a sheeps' eye
And a lickerish tooth
And the strong arms To carry you, away.

Other song ideas:
Father-Daughter Dance: "I Loved Her First" by Heartland
Mother-Son Dance: "Loves Me Like a Rock" by Paul Simon (very Patrick)

So I found these on weddingwire.com today and just love the idea of taking a few pictures in a field so I thought I'd post them as to not forget this brilliant idea later lol. I have become a wedding idea pack rat.

Dead sexy....













No I'm not serious. lol

So I finally found the site, only I forgot to save it, I think it's called weddingbee.com all you have to do is search wedding inspiration board on ask.com and it comes up. So here is my first attempt at an inspiration board.

I think the site is bighugelabs.com

So i found a few good websites that carry reasonibly priced flasks. I thought it would be funny to give my bridemaids girlie flask as attendant gifts, I mean they'll get more use out of them then a matching necklace and earring set they'll wear once. I found purple and pink glittery flasks, celtic flasks and my all time favorite... RED SOX flasks!! lol I'm excited and they're better quality and cheaper than on theknot.com.

http://www.gunthergifts.com/majleagbasli.html

http://www.eflasks.com/leather-flasks-leather-flasks-for-women.html

What are you ladies giving your bridesmaids?

So I came across this site and they have amazing jewlery for super cheap, like $20-$30 per set. They even have a quiz thingy to help you find the right accessories to accent your dress style and neckline. Here are a few that I love!!



http://www.annabellagio.com/

http://www.evesaddiction.com so that i don't forget

I love the clean lines with the starfish and seashell accents, especially with a silly Red Sox tofu "grooms" cake. (I'm allergic to milk)

So I've been stuck inside at work for the past three hours so I did a little homework ....also known as stealing pictures and ideas fromt he wedding channel lol but I love keeping all of my pictures and ideas on this one site, it make life so much easier.

I'm getting married on my fiance's family lake house in Swanton, MD (way up on Deep Creek Lake) and am slowly realizing that I may need a wedding planner to find and take over wedding vendors and agreements. As of the moment I have no idea where to look for Deep Creek or Cumberland, MD vendors or planners (only a few are coming up online). Can anyone recomend Northern Maryland vendors or planners? Thanks! :-)

So I've decided to ask both sides of my family for a peice of white fabric from each woman, i.e one of my grandmothers lace doyalies, my a peice of fabric from my great grandmothers hankerchief or a peic of her clothing, lace from my mothers wedding gown ect. and I'm going to attempt to sew the peices together to make the ring pillow for our wedding. I may end up enlisting Gina (one of my bridesmaids) to help with the project since she quilts and sews beautifully. I'm also keeping an eye out for an ivory reception gown, I might order a bridesmaid dress in ivory then wear a lace balcero so that I can dance at the reception (my gown is heavy). Any ideas on where to find a super super cheap reception gown?

http://stores.ebay.com/onlinebridal

that site has great cheap baleros, I need to remeber it lol.

I LOVE it!!!!

I'm not even sure what else I can say lol. I can't wait to walk down the isle to Patrick in this dress! The lace is beautiful and the woman who owned the dress before me must be exactly my size minus a few inches though becuase it said that she wore two or three inch heels and its just long enough for me to wear nice sandles or kitten heels no more than half an ich or one inch. I can't believe I found it! I may also look for a cheap reception gown though becuase with the bustle the dress is very heavy and would be hard to walk around our outdoor reception and dancing would be a no go.

So after changing my mind like ten times, I was looking at used couture dresses online and was completely dumb struck by this beautiful Lazaro gown. Its only been used once and might be a little big but the price was wicked cheap! Here are the pictures from the lazaro website but they really don't do the dress justice. Its a beautiful Ivory color with alcon lace on the sweetheart bust, with lace details on the bottom and train. The bustle is soo pretty and it comes with a long purple ribbon for the waist but I'm going to have to search for a long champagne sash instead. It's lovely and if all else fails it comes with a seven day money back return policy. Definetly check out this site!! I wish they had kept the picture up, the Lazaro pics really don't do it justice. I'm soo happy!!!!!

http://www.encorebridal.com/home.php

**UPDATE******
I sent a quick email to encore bridal asking if they could email me the pictures they had so that my mom could see the dress and they very quickly did just that! The woman was soo sweet and even told me a little about the bride who is selling the dress and that she is happily married :-). The dress will be here Wensday and I could not recommend this site more!!

Sorry about the last post, it was one of those days, well weeks. Today things are going much better and I have happily found summer employment...still gotta find a full time position but at least this is one problem under the rug. My old mentor from Lookingglass has offered me a summer position teaching theatre camp for a month in VT. The pay is wonderful and lodging is included! Plus I would get to work with her again which is better than anything else!
Another plus, spring lines are coming out!! Yay!! So surfing the web today on campus I came upon the new Watters bridal line, its beautiful! The all lace gown I keep trying on at house of brides is a Watters but I wanted to add a ribbon and hated the neckline, well now I don't have to becuase the spring line has one exactly the way I wanted it! Now to find a store in the city that has a sample I can try on! :) Yay!

*the exact pic won't save so here is the link

http://www.watters.com/product.php?coll=brides&showid=675

Sorry to bitch but the past week has been absolutely horrible, everything just seems to be going wrong lately. Early last week in the midst of trying to be there for my fiance while he was going through a hard time with his family, I was diagnosed with gastroparesis, a disorder where the muscles in my stomache take longer to digest things due to damage and need medication to help them function. Although I am very greatful to finally know why I keep getting sick, the treatment for the disorder entales four medications daily (the side affects suck), no liquid a half hour before or after I eat, and four to six mini meals a day, no normal size meals. It's going to take getting used to and the medications make me constantly sleepy, anxious, and achey. On top of this my children's productions go up at the end of this week at the Irish Heritage Museum here in Chicago and the only time the theatre in DC I really want to work for can observe me teach is first thing Monday morning. I told the theatre that there is no way I could skip my students production to come teach and interview for them and my advisor and my best friend screamed at me yesturday that I could do it I just don't want the job badly enough. But what kind of a teaching artist would I be if I abandoned my students during their show? Not the type I would want to hire. They're my students and they need me there, so now I'm out of a summer job. I just don't know what to do, pray that I get the drama teacher position I just applied for here in Chicago.

I found this great website today,

http://www.weddingmountain.com/p-6894-coastal-mist-keepsake-garter.aspx

they have the cutest hockey playing groom topper and beautiful garders and lots and lots of sea themed decorations

I found laterns!! Yay!!!

http://www.paperlanternstore.com/evriropala.html
more lanterns even better and hanging candles www.lunabazaar.com

Yay custom cake toppers! They can do red sox brides!

http://www.jwcaketops.com

This site has great garters and cake toppers for waay cheap! they even /www.funweddingthings.com

starfish for cheap http://www.yourweddingcompany.com/index.php/action/listProducts/categoryId/122/

So I ended up having quite a few bridesmaids but I couldn't have my big day without them by my side. So here are my girls:

Family Member Bridesmaids:
Maid of honor-My older sister Kailyn, she practically raised me.
Colleen- Patrick's oldest sister, shes too funny and great girl.

The Rhode Island Girls:
Amanda and Gina- My best friends from high school, they're sisters
to me. We've been inseperable since 9th grade.
Lauren- One of my best friends from high school chorus and fun
times back home on the island.

My Chicago Girls:
Beth and Molly- My best friends since freshman year
at The Theatre School, I think barely
a week goes by when we're not
doing something together or having
class together.
Summer- The other half of Beth and Molly and fellow
teaching artist, she's what gets me through
TYA classes with Prof. Brown :)

So I am soo I am horrible at making up my mind, so I went and tried on the lace Watters gown with my Chicago bridesmaids. Oh and while I was home on spring break I made a mock up of my center peices, tall vaces filled with cream and peach sea shells with a starfish on the side, total cost without flowers, $5 plus using my own vases will cut down on florist costs and we'll only have to pay for small bunches of flowers but they'll look bigger in the tall vace. :)

I needed a place to keep these lol although I'm fairly certain a few of these are waaay out of my price range like the wicker furniture lounge area but oh well I can dream lol.

So I recieved some unexpected good news last night :). Patrick and I hadn't planned on having engagement photos taken but I remebered that a good friend of mine here at the theatre school does photography. Turns out he's starting his own photography buisness and gave me a great price on engagement photos! I'm not sure when we will have them take but I needed a place to store some of my ideas. I haven't chosen locations yet but but I'm hoping to keep them Chicago themed since Patrick and I met here, went to school here, and have lived here for five years now but are moving to DC later this summer. If anyone lives in Chicago here is the website for the photographer you couldn't ask to work with a nicer person :).

http://www.christopherburpee.com/CBurpee/Photography/Photography.html

ps. Thank you to the brides I borrowed these pictures from!!

Okay so this is too good to keep to myself! I was searching online today after a not bad but not wonderful encounter with house of brides couture (there was just soo much poof and sparkle sorry I know I'm strange but I just don't want to be a pretty pretty princess on my wedding day), anyways, I found this site:

http://www.whitechicago.com/

I'm going to try to make an appointment for tomorrow evening when I'm done teaching. I'll let you know how it goes.

*******UPDATE********************************************

I called to make an appointment and they told me that they do not accept appointments for brides whose weddings are more than one year away (mine is 15 month away?!) she told me to try again this summer and when I told her that my fiance and I are moving to DC in June she skeptically asked if I had already begun looking for dresses before offering me an appointment next week.........Seriously?! Why are so many bridal consultants rude and mean, as if finding a dress wasn't hard enough!! I'm not even sure if I'm going to bother going there, is a good price really worth the nastiness?

Hi everyone I found this website and thought I'd share. www.bridepower.com it's a bridal outlet store in Boston they have Vera Wang gowns for under $2,000!! They also have an in house designer named Liv Harris, her stuff is beautiful and they offer to send you the dress to try on for $30 and the price of shipping and you three days to let them know if your going to send it back. Happy shopping.

Okay, so started having second thoughts. I love the Mon Cheri dress but its just nothing like I had imagined myself wearing on my wedding day and a little bit heavy and formal for an outdoor wedding. I went today to house of brides couture here in Chicago and loved the dresses but didn't get "The" feeling. Did you guys honestly just know when you found the right dress?

It's so great to talk with other brides but I was just wondering how many of us are in the early stages of planning our weddings? I know it says when our ceremony dates are on blogs but it's slightly difficult to go through everyones to see who else is working on a summer '09 wedding to exchange ideas and compare notes on when to do things (like save the date cards, when do we do those?). Thanks! :)

Well, it's back to the drawing board with bridesmaid dresses as well. One of my wonderful bridesmaids stopped by Davids Bridal and picked up color swatches from the dresses we liked, turns out the pretty patterened dresses that looked brown and champagne on the website are actually olive green and cream. Is the straight latte and pearl pink too dark for a summer evening wedding? Let me know what you think, my brides maids are divided on the subject.

I love these lanterns I think they'll be awsome for our outdoor reception.

How long before the wedding did you buy your wedding dress? My wedding isn't until early June of 2009 but I'm worried about waiting until winter collections come out, will winter collections still have dresses to fit my summer wedding?

Patrick ended up popping the question in the park where we first met. He told me that he wanted to take our next step in the place where we took our first step. He got down on one knee right where we had our first kiss and told me he didn't want to spend the next 20,30 or 50 years without me, would I do him the honor of becoming his wife. Then he pulled out his laptop and showed me web messages from all of our friends and family from all across the country (Patrick and I live in Chicago but my family is in RI and Washington State and our friends are all over the east coast.) It was soo cute and heart felt, then we had a romantic dinner at a cozy resturant across from our house in Lincoln Park.

We're doing an summer evening wedding at his uncle's lake house.

Patrick picked it out all by himself and knew that I love art deco and vintage peices. He apparently talked to a designer in NYC and had him make my ring. It is so me lol I love it! 1.09 center stone with .28 of side stones all G... beautiful!!!