Dress me up in your love...in your love...

...all over my body from my head down to my to-oes...***

So I’m a two wedding bride. I’m a two wedding band bride. But will I be a two dress bride?

Pros:
Going to Connecticut this March leaves me with only 4 months to find and order a gown. I’ll have to take this dress on a plane. I might spill something on it or step on it or fall in a giant mud puddle. These things happen to me when I’m wearing white. And I could get TWO dresses! Something delightfully retro with like a little pillbox hat and veil.

Cons:
I’m SUPER excited about the photographer we’ll be having. It would be cool to have pictures in the ‘fancy’ dress. Also, it saves that much money not having to purchase a second dress. And finally, my hope is to find the perfect dress. You know what I mean, the dress that has me twirling in front of a mirror and giggling. Most women only have 1 day to wear that dress – I would get to wear it twice!
So I am leaning heavily towards trying to find the dress and wearing it both days. I just won’t eat the entire time it’s on lol. I’ll pack straws and an apron and bibs. :)

Here are the dresses I’m absolutely loving right now…

(From top left:)

• Faviana Style 6395. I adore this dress. It's traditional yet whimsical and looks totally fun. And under THREE HUNDRED dollars. But the largest size is a 14. Which is not my size.


• Rina di Montella Style RB2950. OMG. Heart stopping. Also 3,100 dollars. Which is not remotely within my budget.


• Jacquelin Exclusive Style 9802. I'm not crazy about the sleeves. And I'd have to go to Savannah or Orlando to try one on. But the price is hovering around 1k which is closer to sanity. Still not fully certified as sane though.


• Martina Liana Style 260. Also beautiful...I tagged this dress from a magazine ad. I notice though that it has a much fuller skirt than the other dresses I've favorited. I hate that the skirt comes off because I know I would never use it as a cocktail dress. I LOVE the lace bolero jacket.


• Jacquelin Exclusive Style 9532. This dress is perfect stylistically for how I envision our wedding.

Now. Battling all common sense, these are the dresses that threaten to make me a 2 gown bride.

Argh they look so classicly elegant courthouse elopement. They SCREAM elopement. More than that, I can tell I would twirl for hours in these dresses. I would happily stand in front of a mirror and just swish my hips in these dresses. Especially the middle one.

So I don't know. I have to get into some bridal shops and start trying stuff on but I've been strangely reluctant. I'm anxious about having someone help me get dressed. And I know I'm supposed to be wearing the shoes and undergarments I plan to wear with the dress. If I have those things any time in the month before our wedding, I'll be shocked at my togetherness.

***Sidenote*** If I could, our reception would be a full-out Madonna-Rama. Nothing but Madonna all night long.

A Two Wedding Bride

Okay wow so things are finally starting to come together...we're making decisions! :) We are going to elope to Connecticut on our 6 year anniversary and have a wedding here in Jacksonville this summer.

I'm writing this and I realize I still don't know where in Connecticut or Jacksonville we'll hold our weddings. But just deciding on states has been an enormous happiness for me. No longer will I have to search venues in Vermont, Maine, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Florida, Pennsylvania. Not to mention all the times, I thought I was looking in the 'right' state but had actually fallen into the 'right across the border' hell of NH or NY. Now it's Connecticut and Florida. That's it. :)

March 21st is the first big day - only 4 months away...

My Proposal Story...

Elissa and I actually met in a Women & Gender Studies class at Sweet Briar College the 2nd semester of my Freshman year. I thought she was amazing and will readily admit to having had a crush on her. We debated things in class together, often on completely opposing sides. I was more apt to quote Wendy Shalit than Kate Bornstein. At any rate, it made for lively discussions.

Fall Semester of 2003, we both attended the Women & Politics Semester at American University in D.C. A.U. is where we became ready friends. We did everything together. We stayed up for hours just talking until we fell asleep on the sofa. We met each other for lunch every day. We vandalized furniture together. And we had a dedicated Face Mask Night. Every Tuesday was 'Face Mask Night'. We'd get together, order a pizza, rub mud all over our faces and settle in to dry. I'm not sure how it started or when we realized this was a Tuesday night tradition but there you have it.

This past Sunday (Oct. 18th), we had a supremely average weekend day. We met her father & step-mother for lunch, we went sofa shopping, E did work for school and we had dinner at O'Charlie's. When we got home, Elissa asked me if I'd like to put on face masks. This is a weekly tradition that has long since fallen by the wayside...it would be more fair to call it a bi-annual traditon now. Anyways, we had fun putting on our masks and were giggling and taking lots of pictures and just being silly. I glanced over at Elissa and realized that she was holding my ring! My beautiful ring!

She said simply, "I knew when we were first putting face masks on at A.U. that I loved you. And I love you today. Will you Marry me?"

And I said "oh wow! yay!!!!" Or something equally inelegant. :)

I evidentally teared up. Photographic evidence.

Organza Flowers

I keep seeing these beautiful button bouquets and handmade flowers but I hadn't yet seen a tutorial. Luckily, the other day I found Reese Dixon's tutorial on making Organza flowers and was super impressed. So last night, I went over to Hobby Lobby (which already has Christmas displays btw!) and got my supplies. I got a shimmery ivory organza and today, I picked up a yellow organza from JoAnne's. You can't really see much of a color difference in the picture but it's there! :)

Anyways, I ran into a few little problems while making the flowers. First off, I can't free-hand cut flowers from Organza with ease. And when I tried to make a little cutting guide, it kept sliding out of place. Luckily, the organza appears to be pretty forgiving once it's been melt and all put together. I've made two different flowers so far. The first, I used more of a starfish-flower pattern. This flower looks a little more island exotic to me than the second flower. I'm embarrassed to admit that the flower shape shown on left is one of the better ones I managed to cut!

For the second flower, I used more of a circle shape with small petals. I think I like it more because it seems more 'English Garden' like. For this flower, I just cut out 6 squares all the same size (roughly). I lined them up as best I could and cut away. Organza is slippery!

I had a bit of a Goldilocks issue with my candles. The flame on the left was too small and the flame on the right was too hot. So I had to choose between holding the organza forever to coax it into melting OR hold it briefly and then cut off the portions that turned black from burning. Yeah. I went with the small flame but it seriously tried my patience. I'm not making any more until I have another candle! :) I'm thinking the one candle is just so old that the wick is burnt down and the other is cheap.

So anyways, for each flower, I mainly used the ivory organza with only one yellow layer. I might swing by JoAnne's and pick up some green organza to play with as well. My beads were yellow and green. Sewing them on was very simple.

I had originally been imagining that I'd make my bouquet, a boutennere, bridesmaids bouquets and maybe a pomodar for the flower girl but now? I don't know if I have the patience for that! I still want to make about 10 more though so I could get an idea of whether they'd look good as a bouquet.

Somebody's Getting Married Todaaaaaaay!

:) I love this! Talk about a blast from the past. I've been humming it all morning.

DIY Fabric Luggage Tags Save the Dates

Okay so one of the projects I have been relatively obsessive about are these luggage tags made by Sarah over at Craftini. I have this total picture in my mind of these nicely mounted on a post card with an insert reading 'We're Heading to a Wedding!' above the normal address lines. Corny? Why, yes! But I love it. :)

So here's the small, itty-bitty hiccup...I've never used a sewing machine. I mean I've sewed all my life. Counted cross stich, embroidery, hemming, hardanger...you name it. Buuut I've never used a machine. And perhaps more importantly, we don't own one.

So today, I dragged E through Jo Anne Fabrics with the promise of coffee and Yogaberry treats. We looked through a lot of fabric but didn't find anything just right in the yellow & green family. (Or sunshine & clover when I'm being particularly bridal lol)

We looked at machines too but I think I'm going to buy a cheapie one for like $80 from Target or Wal-mart. The reality is that any sewing I ever do is going to be beginner projects like draw curtains or an apron. No bridal gowns are coming out of my hands lol.

These are some of the prints I love from fabric.com...

I'm not completely in love with any of these options though. And for as much work as this project is going to take - I need to LOVE the fabric.

The colors are still negotiable at this point. For some reason, I really have yellow stuck in my mind as a prime color choice. This is totally odd because my favorite colors are ALWAYS jewel tones. I like teals, purples, fuchsias, etc. But a sunny yellow & grass green are the two colors that I keep imagining when I picture our day.

I think this would be a really fun option for our Save the Dates. And probably the only project I can be completely OCD about because as we get closer to the date, I just won't have time.

Non-planning

I haven't posted in awhile...

I just got back from Puerto Rico. E was there for a conference and phoned me that she had a room to herself after all. 5 hours later, I was driving to Miami to make my flight the next morning at 6:30. :) Spontaneity like that is why I love E and us.

We had no idea I'd be going to Puerto Rico too or we might have tried for Proposal 3.0 lol. It's coming.

I'm still reading my wedding blogs all the time. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed now about the whole thing. A lot of my wedding planning is stymied by not really knowing how many guests we can expect to attend.

So anywhoo, being that it's a destination wedding, can we expect 20 people or 40? I want to invite my entire family but if only 20 people are going to be able to attend in the end...that's a very different venue option from 40.

We're both really clear on the sort of language semantics we want to use. Wedding. Marriage. You won't see the word 'union' anywhere near us. Which is crazy ironic because if this were a hetero-wedding, I know I'd be all over 'union'. I like the meaning of the word, the imagery...but I want to be crystal clear for everyone. We're having a wedding to celebrate our marriage. A big gay wedding for our big gay marriage. :)

I rented 'First Comes Love' from Netflix. It's a reality wedding planning show on LOGO hosted by Elvira Kurt. Loved the show. Loved some of the one-liners...especially from Mandy & Danika. Our favorite was that they didn't want any bastard children. Also awesome because these couples were like a few weeks out and had very little planned. :) This made me feel slightly ahead of the game lol.

Yeah so anyways, I haven't been posting blogs because for now, they'd be relatively boring 'non-planning' blogs. Where I'm just chatting about my anxieties about trying to plan something for an unknown number of people 1000 miles from my home.