Happy Birthday, Wade!

This is it - your last birthday as an unmarried man!

Let's go to Dairy Queen for ice cream cake tonight, or maybe a treatzza pizza!

Yes, I (heart) J.Crew, too ... but ...

Um, I get that weddings are can be expensive. I get that bridesmaids, more so than groomsmen, take on a rather large financial responsibility in order to support their friend as she gets married.

I also get that everyone loves J.Crew bridesmaid and wedding dresses. Myself included, even though I've never been inside a J.Crew.

And everyone who loves the J.Crew dresses likes to point out that they're so cheap!

Um ... that is where I disagree. Most of the bridesmaid dresses seem to be around $300. Yes, they have sales, but colours and/or sizes may be limited. As for the bridal gowns, with a few exceptions around $300 and a few exceptions around $3000, prices tend to be $1500-$2000.

Oh, and J.Crew isn't in Canada, so you have to bribe a friend in the States (if you have one) to accept the dresses at her place, then send them on to you.

So, while I respect that $300 for a bridesmaid may be cheap for you, and I'll admit it's not bad, except that it's in American dollars. Which right now means it's closer to $350-375.

Here's what I'd like for bridesmaids' dresses, if money was not an object and I could afford to buy the girls their dresses:

At some point in time, I saw these dresses in a floor length version, which I liked even more, but that's not available on the website right now. These "tea length" dresses are $300 each.

There's also this dress by the Dessy group that I like too:

On the web it appears to be anywhere from $275-350 (some of those prices were listed in American dollars, some in Canadian dollars). It can probably be found for a bit less.

However, I wanted to find dresses that were around $200. The dresses I chose are only slightly more than that. But I do love those J.Crew dresses! Swoon! :)

Bridesmaid Feature: Kristy

Bridesmaid Kristy is a very sweet girl. She's everything you want to be yourself: kind, compassionate, smart, empathetic, caring ... and she's a doctor. She's currently doing a residency in pediatrics. Yes, she's going to be a children's doctor. During med school, she managed to go to the gym reguarly, volunteer in a children's cancer centre, participate in other social functions, and do her 60-80 hours a week (or whatever it is they work) in med school. Now she volunteers as a mentor for med students, participates in a charity that provides medical aid to children in third world countries (anti-malarial medicine, maybe?), goes to the gym and works her 60-80 hours a week.

Don't you just hate her? :) Then you meet her and realize you absolutely adore her. She's fun, loving and adores crafting and baking. I met her at the end of first year university (March or April 2001) and then lived with her for 3 years. I was a little more messy then (okay, a lot more messy), but she likes things to be kept very clean, so I drove her nuts a few times. Now that I'm less messy, I feel very bad for that.

The "deadline" for everyone to pick their bridesmaid dress and get sized was coming, so I sent a reminder email out. Kristy responds, saying: "I'm sorry that I haven't been responding to your e-mails in the past couple of weeks. Things have been busy as usual, but that's not really any excuse. [...] I feel like such a terrible friend/bridesmaid, and I totally understand if you're frustrated with me. If you decide that I'm too much trouble & you'd rather have one less bridesmaid, I understand." I promptly emailed her back and told her that she was being silly!

I am honoured that Kristy is going to stand up for me at my wedding, and I know we'll have lots of fun getting ready together!

Here's a picture of Wade, Kristy and me on Canada Day 2007:

Blogging

Well ... I'm apparently crazy. In my list of people who follow (all of whom I also visit frequently), I noticed I could no longer see my first follower this morning. Carly, where did you go? Then tonight, my second follower Jenny. What am I doing wrong?!

Then I noticed that because of two new followers, my blog can't display all the followers in one thingy (the application thing in the side bar).

Whew ... I was worried Carly and Jenny didn't love me anymore.


P.S. My newest followers, The Wedding Corner (tonight), Miss Want (this morning) and The Professional Bridesmaid (a couple days ago) are all great blogs, too. I suggest you visit them!

Invitations

These are the invitations (with some variations, of course) we're going to get:

They're from Bella Figura and they haven't been ordered yet. I had entered a contest to win $350 on Snippet & Ink, but I didn't win. My odds were better than the lottery, but not quite as good as Bridechka's first giveaway. I would have used the money to purchase the response cards. Since I didn't win, out of financial necessity, I'm going to "DIY" the response cards. I'll show you that project when I do it.

What do you think?

I forgot to mention: I gave each of my bridesmaids the choice between the 2 dresses. So they will pick what they like best. I told them 2 weeks ago they could choose, gave them a list of nearby stores that carry this line, and told them to let me know by this Satuday.

What do you think of that idea?

Bridesmaid Dresses: the final 2

This dress, which we will call "Dress #1", looks less "sweetheart" in person:

"Dress #2", on which the rouching covers the belly nicely, has a corset-back:

The only concern I have is that the sweetheart neck on the second dress does dip low, and shows off "the girls" on women with an ample bosom. It's very flattering on women whose cups are not "over-flowing".

Update: What I meant to say is that it's flattering on smaller "girls", but shows off the girls in an unflattering manner on larger "girls". I just wanted to clarify what I was trying to say.

January Poll is Closed

23 people voted on what they would like to wear as a bridesmaid.

Only 22 people voted for the three bodice options, half of you picked a v-neck (11), whereas of the other 11 bodice votes, almost twice as many of you would rather wear sweetheart (7) than strapless (4). I'm wondering if that means one of you did not like any of the options? Anyway, MOH Joce inititally agreed with most of you, preferring v-neck so she could wear a proper and non-strapless bra. I made her try on a bunch of dresses, including a v-neck option, a sweetheart neckline and a strapless neckline, Joce was torn between the strapless and the sweetheart.

Again, only 22 of the 23 of you voted for the length options. Does that mean that 1 of you did not like any of the length options? Mini-skirt, maybe? :) Anyway, most of you (15) preferred tea-length dresses, over floor (5) and sweep (2) options.

For the cut or shape of the skirt, 3 of you like ballgowns, 14 prefer a-line, and 4 of you like trumpet (mermaid). I presume that means 3 of you didn't like any of the options? The problem with full ballgown skirts is they are cumbersome, and can become quite hot. The concern many of you have with trumpet style skirts is probably that only certain body-types look good in this style. A-line skirts are universally flattering.

I gave my bridesmaids between two dresses, one of which is the sweetheart-strapless, the other is a strapless bodice. When looking at all the dresses, Joce vetoed the v-neck dress. Both dress are floor-length and a-line. I really struggled between the floor length, which is timeless, and the tea-length, which is fun. Ultimately, there are more floor length options, which helped me to make the decision.

I am also wondering if those of you who didn't vote on some of the categories did not have a preference? Anyway, I'm glad I got so many votes, to gauge what you would like in a bridesmaid dress when you're the bridesmaid!

Tomorrow, I'll re-post the 2 dresses the girls are chosing between.