Dum, Dum, Dah, Dum....

No, I haven't found a ceremony site or an officiant yet. Thanks for asking though.

and why YES! I WILL BE SHOPPING FOR A WEDDING DRESS ON FRIDAY!

That's right. I'm totally putting boring things like finding a place to actually get married on the back burner for now and moving on to some of the fun things in the planning process. I'm ditching work on Friday and my Mom and I are going to do some damage in the city.

Sidenote: My Mom is my new assistant. I hate making phone calls. She doesn't mind. Nice.

So, she scheduled appointments for us at the Macy's Bridal Salon, Weddings 826, and White Chicago.

I'm sure I'll see things that are waaaaaaaay out of my price range, but I'm going to try them on regardless. Because I'll never be able to do it again.

I've already seen some dresses online that I know are not within reach, but I love them anyway.

Amy Kuschel:

(Astaire Nosegay)

(Ilsa)


(Astaire Kaleidescope)

We're going to Macy's first--I can almost guarantee that I won't end up getting something from there (because of prices) but they have a great selection of designers and I guess they are having a 10 percent off sale this week...so we'll see. So I can get all the sticker shock out of my system right then and there. Then we will eat lunch and head over to Weddings 826 and then end the day at White Chicago. I'm excited to go to the last two places because they sell samples and White Chicago also sells consignment dresses.

I hope I will be able to take pictures, although I don't know how keen I would be about posting them on here...maybe the rejects.

I'm really excited. I hope I find dresses that I like, but I'm also afraid of finding the dress that I want to buy because I want to be able to shop some more. Silly, I know...but this is one of the things I'm really looking forward to doing.

I hope the next two days fly by.

I've officially seen it all...

Well, almost:

Seriously, WTF does a naked dude have to do with me looking for a wedding gown? I mean I get that the end result of your wedding day will probably end up with nudity...but come on. Put some pants on. It's like a Calvin Klein commercial gone totaaaaaaaaaaaally wrong.

So bizarro.

What does it all mean????

Well, it was inevitable. It had to happen eventually, I just didn't think it would be this soon...

I had my first wedding nightmare. It was a doozy too, let me tell ya!

It started with me and my Dad standing outside the doors of wherever I decided to have the ceremony (which is a major decision that is still pending at the moment!) When the coordinator opens the doors, there are these panels of fabric that we have to wade through in order to get into the room. So we wade in, it's dark, like someone has the shades pulled on the windows and instead of meeting Sean at the front of the room, he is sitting on a chair in the crowd and I sit down two people away from him. Then, the guy who is marrying us grabs both our hands and drags us over to this big grand piano in the back of the room and does the ceremony there! Afterwards we are all just standing in the hallway and I'm upset about the ceremony and my Mom goes, "Well, you can ALWAYS do it again, tomorrow!" WTF??? So then immediately after that, it is time for dinner and they are serving salads and I realize that we never even had a tasting!!! I have no clue what is being served and when I ask the banquet manager why we never got a tasting, she can't give me an answer. When I then demand a refund of my money, she tells me no. I can't find my Mom or my Dad and I end up in the reception hall leaning on a table and sobbing. And just thinking the whole time that I am so dissapointed that this is how my wedding ended up. THEN...I finally find my Mom and we both figure out that we are not really at my wedding, because it's only June 14th, 2008 and my wedding is still a whole other year away!!!! How silly of us!

Then I woke up.

Complete...ridiculousness? Yes. But I can understand a few of the things. I am worried about finding the ceremony site and further more finding someone to actually marry us. This has been a bit more difficult than I had imagined. Secondly, I've always been a bit weary about the food and the pricing at our venue. Even though I know they aren't going to screw me, it's a lot of money that we are dealing with and maybe underneath it all I feel a bit guilty about how much it is going to cost in the very end?

Either way, I hope I don't have another one of those for a while. It was pretty unsettling.

decisions...decisions...

Obviously, I've been obsessing just a tad over bridesmaid dresses lately. It's very important to me that I find a middle ground between what I have envisioned for the wedding and what my bridesmaids like, feel comfortable in and of course are willing to shell out the dough for. The dresses below are included in J.Crew's summer sale going on now. I like the yellow and the style, but I'm not convinced that I love the rope detail. They are still $179.99, but that's only about 15 bucks more than I paid for my last bridesmaid dress. Still seems like a lot to ask though. Blarg. Anywho, I e-mailed the contact for information on fabric swatches and return policy. We'll see.

(Strappy Florence Dress, J.Crew)

(Strapless Florence Dress, J. Crew)

I've also been encouraged lately by some of the more updated styles I've been seeing on the mainstream bridal designer websites.

Dessy and After Six have some dresses that look like they could be contenders...only thing is I have no clue about price. Two or three little diamond logos doesn't really translate to dollars for me.

(Note: I have no idea what color I would choose from either of these two designers, so these are just examples of dress styles, not exact color choices.)

(After Six 6510)

(After Six 6518)

(After Six 6535 Front and Back Views)

(Dessy Style 2719)

(After Six 6728)

(After Six 6504)

(After Six 6506 Front and Back Views)

(After Six 6505)

I also like these from Jim Hjelm, but again I have no concept of pricing.

(Jim Hjelm Style: #JH5804T in Pineapple (Yum!))



(Style# JH5709T, Front and Back Views)


(Style: #JH5613T)

That's it for now.

Put on your party dress...

My search continues for an alternative Bridesmaid dress...

Anthropologie has some more cute little options for a bridesmaid party dress.

This one is $308.00 so ummm no. But it's cute!

This one is only $138.00. A little more casual, but still cute. I like the little ruffle at the bottom.

And of course they wouldn't be complete without these shoes for $358.00, would they? Nah.

I took a look at Macys.com and saw this:

A bit more formal, but still has a little funkyness. I don't really like the color though.

Nordstrom always has some good stuff...

If this Nicole Miller dress was a bit shorter, and of course not $465.00, I think I would like something like it...I really like yellow and I love the pattern of the fabric.

(Nordstrom, $465.00)

I was likin' this one for a second, but now I think it would be blah.

(Nordstrom, $158.00)

and last but not least...something for myself, of course. The LBD:

Nordstrom, $128.00

"We're not boat people..."

I was watching Sex and the City the other night and in the episode, Steve and Miranda decide to get married and as they are walking and discussing places the hold the ceremony, they just happen to drop a bag of groceries in front of this adorable city garden. And just like that, they've found the ceremony site! Easy as pie!

Well isn't that nice for them? Maybe that will work out for me too...you see, I'm having a hard time finding a place to hold the ceremony and I'm starting to worry a bit that I won't be able to find the perfect place...or even the near perfect place.

As I mentioned before, we do have the option of having the ceremony at the reception site. There are a few reasons that I am opposed to this. The first is the fact that the earliest we would be able to start is 4:30 or 5. I know myself and I know that I will feel disappointed if I have to wait to start the whole shebang until 5 p.m. Plus, I would have to take pictures with Sean ahead of time, and if there is any tradition I'd like to hold onto, it's the whole not seeing each other before the ceremony thing. Lastly, I don't trust that the ceremony set up would be broken down and the reception would be put together appropriately within the time it takes to have cocktails.

Sean and I are looking for an alternative site for the ceremony. Our families are of different religions and neither of us are practicing in either. So, we won't be doing a church. So the search for the site has been a bit difficult. In my head I picture us getting married outside, maybe under a great tree(s), or some place that was just really "us"! I've scoured the internet and it haven't really come up with anything that great. We went and looked at a couple places, a conservatory in Mt. Prospect that was just meh, and then we went and saw the Schram Memorial Museum in Glen View.

This place has a nice history, it's located in pretty close proximity to the reception hall and it's very quaint. They don't hold church services there, it's pretty much just for weddings. We went and looked at it and it was really nice, but I just don't know if it's the right place.

The inside is pretty plain, but I just don't know if it feels like us...if that makes any sense. My friend at work is getting married there and she said they are pretty much letting her do whatever she wants to as far as decorations, etc.

It was almost dark out when we were there, so I imagine it would be brighter during the day.

I'm not really diggin the stained glass windows...

I did find one great place, it's a Japanese garden and it looks beautiful. But...it's in Geneva, which I think would be way too far from the reception site, so I guess that's probably out of the question too.

But it's so pretty!!!

I'm going to look into putting a deposit down on Schram, just in case we don't find anything else. My Mom has suggested finding the officiant and then seeing if maybe they have any suggestions. Too bad I have NO CLUE where to even look for the officiant...or what kind I'm even looking for.

Venue Envy...

I know, it's too late to have second thoughts on where to hold the reception...but wait, maybe I could just pay back my parents for the deposit they put down?

My crazy talk is stemming from just now discovering the Pleasant Home in Oak Park which I found via A Windy City Wedding . Thank the lord it only holds 150 people or I would be having big time remorse right now...and/or putting my parents in an asylum waaaay to early in the game.