Pain in the you-know-what

Well, we're now less than two months out and I have to say, we're down to a less-than-fun to-do list.

I've been doing things like getting the event insurance our venue requires (I used WedSafe, if anyone's interested!) and making sure all of our groomsmen actually made it into Men's Wearhouse to get measured for their tuxes.

Every time I turn around, I feel like we need more paperwork done or more legwork ironed out, and I'm getting burned out on the tasks that aren't any fun. 

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I feel like this lady

When we were in the early stages of planning, I got to do things like try on dresses and look for beautiful inspiration pictures and that part was a lot more fun. I feel like most of the wedding tasks left to do are headaches that need to be dealt with or things that I'm just plain not that interested in (coordinating rental delivery times with freight elevator availability, anyone?).

Does anyone else feel (or did you feel) this way at wedding crunch time? What did you to to counteract it?

My Dream Dress, Part IV: The Post You've All Been Waiting For

At some point in January, I was making my bi-weekly pilgrimmage to the Stephen Yearick site and noticed that my dress had been TAKEN OFF THE SITE. I freaked out. I called Kleinfeld (where I knew they carried Stephen's designs) and they had gotten rid of their sample. *GASP!*

Luckily, one salon in the city was still carrying it. This new development put me into crunch time as far as making a decision went. So I decided to show my MOH the dress on me, since she still hadn't seen it in person and I needed her honest opinion. She is decidedly the voice of reason within my bridal party and I knew she would be honest about what she thought. When it came time for the big reveal, she was practically speechless. She managed to eek out "I was wrong. It's totally worth it." and I knew what I had to do.

Mr. Star, who has to be the most supportive man on the face of the earth (he's the only reason I finally decided to apply to blog on Weddingbee!), gave me his blessing to start slashing money out of our budget in other places so that I could get the dress I had been dreaming about for years (years? can you believe it was long enough to be years?).

So we:

Decided to make the bouts -- Savings $50

Decided to make the invitations -- Savings $300

Bought awesome rings off of Ebay (story on that later!) -- Savings $800

Decided use parents' timeshare membership to get resort weeks in Greece, instead of doing a cruise -- Savings $500

Are using my makeup friendor instead of hiring a pro -- Savings $150-200

Have an officiant change (story on this later, too!) -- Savings $250

TOTAL SAVINGS: A little over $2k

All of these things made getting a dress that was over budget within reach.

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What the dress looks like on the uber tall and thin model -- talk about drama, right?

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The photo of the sample dress in California that I didn't buy, just to give you a more realistic idea of what my actual dress will look like (in ivory and in a smaller size than the one I'm about to show you)!

Please ignore the stark white color of the sample and the veil on my head that's totally not my style. Unfortunately, you can't really tell how form-flattering this is from this angle, but this is the only picture I have of me in the dress from the front because we weren't supposed to be taking pictures at all!

The drama of the back! Yeah, my hair is different because this is from a different day. I told you, I'm crazy and needed to see my dress more than once. Again, it's a strange angle, but it's all I've got until my first fitting in a few weeks!

Now that is one happy bride.

Okay, that's the wacky actress coming out again. I'm saying, "It's March and I SERIOUSLY have to wait until September to see this again?!?" Oh, and did I mention that my bridal consultant calls me "Stephen" because that's how I refer to the designer? Yeah, even she thinks I'm a little nutty.

So for all of you who totally blew your budget on that one item you just had to have, dress or otherwise, I'm with you, a sister in solidarity. Sacrifice other budget items to get it, if you have to. I don't regret it one bit. For those of you more practical ladies who either never felt that way about a budget-buster or who were able to overcome your impractical side, I applaud you. Miss Star is not so strong :)

Does your dress search have an equally happy ending? What did you splurge on for your wedding?

Previous Parts in this story:

Guilty as Charged

The Rejects

Save Me, Internet!

My Dream Dress, Part III: Save Me, Internet!

When I left you, dear readers, I was in a dress-hunting slump. I was wondering if there was a "perfect" dress out there for me and how I might ever find it. I hadn't been able to find anything that even slightly resembled what I was really looking for in THE dress.

It was at this point that I decided that I had to at least try the Stephen Yearick lovely on. I was secretly hoping that it would look frumpy on and I would be able to get over it, but alas, no such luck. When I turned around and looked in the mirror in that perfect dress, I cried. I never thought a cynic like me would be such a sap, but tears of relief and joy and anticipation and comfort and excitement flooded out. I could picture myself marrying Mr. Star in that dress.

This did nothing good for the struggle within me between the practical "an article of clothing should not cost more than we spend on groceries in a year" Miss Star and the romantic "but I've known since I first saw it that this was my wedding dress" Miss Star.

So I got to work. The obsessive-compulsiveness tendencies in me that you all already read about in regards to my perfect shoes? Yeah, that side of me was unleashed on the wedding dress hunt, as well.

I stalked sites like:

PreOwnedWeddingDresses

OnceWed

WoreItOnce

I even put out an Etsy Alchemy request looking for sellers who might want to make me a replica and got several responses, but chickened out at the thought of all the things that could go wrong. What if it came out to be nothing like what I had asked for? What if it didn't fit like the real thing? What if...what if...what if??

I googled the hell out of Stephen Yearick and the magical style number, which I had clearly memorized by now. Mr. Star had memorized the music that plays on the Stephen Yearick site and could instantly tell when I was just dropping by to say hi to my dress. Did I mention I was obsessed?

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Yup, that's the designer, Stephen. Yes, I pretend we're on a first-name basis. Yeah, I'm definitely a bridal stalker.

At one point, I thought my quest was over. I found an Ebay seller that was a bridal shop in California -- and they had several different Stephen Yearicks listed for sale, but not mine. So I emailed her on a lark and asked if she had my particular dress and, lo and behold, she DID! The shop was selling their sample size 6! She sent me pictures and it was every bit as beautiful as I had remembered it being. Trouble was, even after some negotiating, she still wanted about 2/3 of the retail price for the dress, not including shipping from California and the hundreds of dollars of alterations I would need to make it short enough and small enough for little old me. In the end, I decided I wasn't willing to risk spending thousands on a dress I hadn't seen for a savings of only a few hundred dollars :(

The chances of me somehow getting this dress in my budget were getting slimmer and I was getting seriously bummed out. Not to mention, I had family members and even my MOH (who's usually always on my side!) telling me that it was way too much to spend on a dress and that I should find something else. Maybe they're right, I thought.

Did you stay within your initial dress budget? Did you get your dress from a bridal salon or from somewhere more crafty?

Previous Parts in this story:

Guilty as Charged

The Rejects

My Dream Dress, Part II: The Rejects

So after the heartbreak of finding my ridiculously expensive dream dress, I decided to wait a few months to actually get engaged before trying on any dresses for real. Logical, right? I think it was mostly my attempt to not deal with the obvious "situation" at hand.

Six months or so passed by with the Stephen Yearick still hanging in my dorm room before I could gather the strength to go look at other dresses. My MOH and I headed out to find a gorgeous (and less expensive!) substitute. These are the rejects:


This dress was beautiful. The detailing was exquisite and the fabric felt luxurious - for less than $1000! Trouble is, it made my already-wide hips look GARGANTUAN to me. I began to realize that your typical mermaid-style dress had a habit of doing this. Much as I wanted something form-fitting, I was not interested in accentuating my hips to that extent!


This dress was very pretty and made me look more slender, in my opinion (although less curvaceous-sexy!). The drama wasn't there, though. It was too plain for my taste and just didn't say WOWZA to me. I think that's my nervous, "OMG I'm trying on wedding dresses face." That's my only excuse.


Crazy tulle dress! I didn't like this one at all on me. What you can see from this shot is that the tulle has a faint polka dot pattern, which is awesome, but I still wasn't a fan. That smile is fake.

I took various bridesmaids along with me to several stores (although I never hit the famed Kleinfeld, for fear that I would fall in love with something even MORE expensive) and only found one dress that was even a contender at all. It was a mermaid with quite a full skirt at the bottom, but was only several hundred dollars less than my original dream dress, so it wasn't really helping my cause. I unfortunately don't have a picture of that one because the salon didn't allow photos, but it was very pretty, although still more romantic and less dramatic.


I even got to the point where I was trying on other silhouettes to see if they might suit me better. While I thought this dress was really beautiful, I felt swallowed by it. The only part of me that really needed to actually BE in that dress was my shoulders.

I was starting to wonder if I would ever get that fluttery "this is the dress" feeling after all. I mean, maybe that's just exaggeration on the part of many a bride-to-be, I thought.

Did you get that "this is my dress!" feeling?

Previous Parts in this story:

Guilty, As Charged

My Dream Dress, Part I: Guilty As Charged

I've been promising to write about my dress...oh, since around the time I became a bee! It's been a tough story for me to tell because it's one that began over two years ago! And because my dress is now one of my absolute favorite wedding details.

You see, I was one of those girls who started scoping out wedding things before I had a ring or an official proposal. Yes, I am guilty as charged. My only excuses are that I was terribly excited and that Mr. Star was a serious enabler -- he brought me home wedding magazines as consolation for very long days spent apart when he was working his internship in the city and I was running around between too many classes and shows! So yeah, my feeling is that it's totally okay to get inspiration and look for beautiful wedding things before you're technically engaged. Especially if you know he's already bought the ring! :)

I was drawn to dresses like these lovelies (all images from The Knot):

After looking at a lot of dresses online and clipping a bunch of pictures out of magazines (I'm talking weeks of endless wedding dress drooling here!), I discovered that I was most drawn to dresses that were the following:

• Heavy on the detail - I love me some sparkle sparkle!

  


• Dramatic - I'm guessing you all already know this about me.

  


• Relatively form fitting - I worked really hard in college to get in the best shape of my life and I wanted to show it off! That and the fact that I'm generally petite and didn't want to be swallowed by my dress led me to believe that a mermaid style would be my best bet.

  


• Had an interesting neckline - Much as I think strapless sweetheart necklines are so very pretty, I wanted something a bit different and unexpected.

Much like my shoe must-haves, having all of this criteria made finding the perfect dress a bit challenging. So I widened my dress search on The Knot to include all silhouettes and necklines.

That's when I clicked that fatal click. The click that brought me to the web page that changed my life. The click that found the dress that I. Had. To. Have.

It was a breathtakingly beautiful Stephen Yearick that had clearly been made to be my wedding dress. I immediately printed it out and hung it on my dorm room wall for all to see. Yes, I was even THAT girl.

The only inkling of doubt tugging at the back of my mind was how many of those little dollar sign symbols were next to it on the site. It's gonna be way too much, I thought. I couldn't stop thinking about it, to the point that it was distracting me from papers to be written and lines to be memorized, so I got up the nerve to pretend to be engaged and called a salon in the city to inquire about the cost. I was so nervous and giggled when the bridal consultant congratulated me on my upcoming wedding -- it felt so dirty to be pretending! When she quoted me the listed price, my heart sank. There's just no way, I thought, that's more than my car is worth. So I gave up on the dress search for a few months and kept that sad little picture in its place of honor in my dorm room.

Did you start looking for dresses before he popped the question? Were you disappointed by your initial finds?

Stay tuned for Parts II, III, and IV! :)

Subway Love!

Speaking of ways to get around New York City, another mode of transporation we'll be using on our big day is the subway!

I wrote about our problem-solving parade from the ceremony to the reception way back when I first got picked to be a Bee! I've got to be honest, though, as our planning continues, I'm getting more and more excited about that part of the day! We'll be floating on the rush of just having been married and interacting with our nearest and dearest for the first time that day! And oh, the pictures. The pictures! Our photographer has already expressed how excited he is for the subway shots. We'll get some great pics like this:

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And this:

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And this one:

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I'd love to get a couple of romantic "just us" shots and then get a picture just like that last one, only we'll be packed in with all of our favorite peeps!

Anyone have any other gorgeous subway shots to share? What are the pictures you're most looking forward to getting?

Taxi cab getaway

For me and Mr. Star, wedding day transportation was pretty much a no-brainer. One of the wonderful parts of having our wedding in the middle of Manhattan is that it's never hard to get around. In fact, transportation abounds for those of us without our own wheels!

It was never a part of my wedding dreams to have a big, fancy limo or a sleek vintage car to drive us around that day, although don't get me wrong, peeps, those options are gorgeous, too! But a part of having our wedding in Manhattan was sacrificing the things that weren't a top priority in order to fund things like our beautiful, but expensive loft space!

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And what form of transportation could be more classic New York City than a yellow taxi cab? So I scoured the internet for some totally fab pictures of other cab-loving brides and this is what I came up with:

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How gorgeous is this shot, with the checkered wall as a backdrop?

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So classy in black and white.

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Aww, how sweet is the "just married" on that cab?

So I tossed around the idea of renting a vintage checkered cab for the day like the cabs that were in these pictures, but after getting quotes of several hundred dollars for just a few hours, I decided that we'll be hailing our own cabs to get to the ceremony and then home again from the reception. I figure any cab driver will be willing to stop for a pretty lady in a fabulous white dress, right? So here's a shot with a modern cab:

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I think we're going to get some great shots of us in front of the cabs and it will still feel like a treat for us to ride around in them all day because we hardly ever take cabs otherwise! That's right, the Star household mostly gets around on foot power :)

My only concern was making sure my dress stays taxi-dirt-free, so I'll be bringing some clean towels to sit on and put beneath our feet to protect it! Some of my friends and family think we're really strange for just riding in cabs on our wedding day, so we've definitely gotten some weird looks for it.

What do you think: is it a cool idea or just tacky? Are you having anything out-of-the-ordinary for your wedding day transportation?