Where does your wedding dress hang out?

This morning, Mr. Star and I were awakened by the doorman buzzing up to tell us that the post office was delivering a package we needed to sign for.

The package was pretty unassuming, except for the cute little note written in red that said, "do not bend :)"

But when I opened it up, I was thrilled to find my latest completely-unneccessary-but-totally-adorable-anyways wedding purchase: the wedding dress hanger.

I have thought for a long time that I would not be participating in the special hangers for wedding dresses  trend, but when reader ejs4y8 posted a thread on the board with these adorable little works of dress hanger art, I knew I had to have one.

Etsy seller lilafrances makes these hangers with a variety of sayings (or pretty much anything short enough to fit in there!) and I just think they're so precious.

This was the style of hanger that I originally fell in love with, but because of last name changing complications (which I will blog about at some point!), I decided to stick with our first names.

Are you doing anything special for the hanger for your wedding dress? Have you ever originally decided not to follow a wedding trend and then changed your mind?

Band-ing Together

Mr. Star and I had a terrible time finding rings we liked in your traditional jewelry store. There were lots of gorgeous options, for sure, but none that really seemed to be "us" and the ones that even came close were just soooo expensive.

On top of that, my gorgeous engagement ring has a bit of an odd shape, and I couldn't find a single band that would lay flush up against it. Some ladies don't mind that gap, but for my overly picky self, it irked me to no end. My E-ring by itself in case you don't remember the beautiful cluster diamonds on the side that made this process so complicated:

Adding to the complication was the fact that this one wedding detail proved to be Mr. Star's slight foray into "Groomzilla" land -- he was SO picky about his ring, which was only striking because he's usually incredibly laid back about everything. In truth, it was totally fair because I know he spent just as much time finding me the perfect E-ring as we did on the quest for his wedding band, but at the time, I was getting pretty frustrated.

At some point in the process, Momma Star suggested looking at rings on Ebay. I was, at first, slightly appalled. I thought it sounded so tacky. But one night, I decided to check it out and sure enough, there were some really unique and well-priced rings on there!

I knew I wanted and Enhancer style ring and was able to find one right away that matched the style of my E-ring so well. He knew he wanted a two-toned ring with some sort of interesting embellishment and we stumbled across this tungsten ring with an infinity symbol that goes all the way around, which was perfect for him because the infinity symbol has kind've been our thing since the first few days we said I love you ("times infinity to the infinity power" in the Star household!).

I was very concerned about ordering quality jewelry online, so I made sure to only order from Ebay sellers with great return policies. Worst case scenario, we hated the rings and sent them back within 30 days for a rull refund. But that's not what happened!

So without further ado, here they are together:

At first, I was worried about how they TOTALLY don't match, but we quickly decided that we love how non-matchy they are because they both represent each of us so perfectly and we are, in fact, such different and complementary people.

This is how our rings look together with my E-ring making an appearance :)

And a fun shot, just for kicks. I mean, come on, who doesn't love them some Ben & Jerry's?

Did you get your wedding bands at a jewelry shop or did you find them in a more unconventional place?

My Dream Dress, Part V: Fitting It In!

What is that, you might ask? My wedding shoe? Why, yes, it is!

Wait, Miss Star, haven't we already seeeen your wedding shoes? Yes, yes, you have! But not poking out from underneath my dress!!

Or paired with the veil I painstakingly stitched!

Or worn with the smile of a bride who's trying on her dream dress in her size and in the color she wanted for the very first time!

Or with the awkward dance moves of silly young-ish bride in a birdcage veil!

By now you've probably figured out that I had my first dress fitting this past week and it went swimmingly! I'm in love and Mr. Star seems pretty okay with sharing my heart with a dress. The dress fit perfectly except for the fact that it's about a mile too long, so I'm even coming in under my alterations budget if all goes according to plan! 

The only thing I discovered is that I think I need some undergarments to smooth things out in the torso-thigh area because I've got some lumps showing in pictures that I'd like to take care of pronto, but I don't think that's any big deal. I'm guessing I need to buy some Spanx, unless anyone else has a better suggestion.

Did your dress fit like a glove right off or did you need a bunch of alterations? Did you have to purchase some unexpected undergarments?

Internet-less Wedding Planning

Alright, I admit it. I have NO IDEA how they did it in the old days.

Wedding planning, that is.

Maybe it's just because I'm young enough to only barely remember the days when I was forced to look things up in the phone book and the encyclopedia, but I cannot imagine how much harder it must have been to plan a wedding before there was the internet.

Because of our move, I have been internet-less for precisely 11 days and it has been k-i-l-l-i-n-g me.

(Photo Credit)

We are just under a month out from our wedding, and I feel like I haven't been able to get anything done in two weeks! I have had vendor emails go unanswered for several days (wow, I need to have more of their phone numbers handy!), I haven't been able to google things like "where to rent a projector and screen in NYC" and I couldn't copy and paste the text of our chosen readings off of a website and into the ceremony document I was creating.

I had no idea how hard it would be to try to wrap up wedding planning without computer access for a few days until I was forced into it, which got me thinking about how one might go about planning a wedding if there were no such thing as an internet. Wait, people planned weddings before Weddingbee??

Maybe I sound like a spoiled Generation Y-er, but I don't think I'm alone on this one! What would change about your wedding planning if you couldn't use the internet?

Candlestick Centerpieces

It occurred to me a few days ago that I have mentioned several times how I'm not using floral centerpieces, but never actually let you all in on what WILL be gracing our tables.

I knew right off that big, lush floral centerpieces wouldn't be in our budget and I have always loved candlelight, so I admit that I was pretty drawn to candle centerpieces right from the start. I wanted to make them dramatic, though, and I figured that the best way to do it would be to have tapers at each table, but didn't have any idea how to make it enough of a statement. That is, until I ran across this picture in a magazine probably at least a year ago:

(Photo credit for Martha, of course)

I loved the look immediately. I also saw right away the potential for a very "Phantom of the Opera" type drama for this look in our deep purple.

The problem then was how to get enough candlesticks. Let me tell you, most taper candlestick holders are not cheap! I tried the usual suspects: Ebay, Craigslist, etc., but finally settled on thrifting them from around the city. It was an ambitious project, given that I needed about 100 candlestick holders to have enough for all of the tables, but after about four months of thrifting once or twice a week (and a few additions from my dad and stepmom's adventures!), I was able to collect over 100 of them.

This is just a small sampling of our collection. I love all the different heights and shapes!

*Please excuse the poor quality photos, we're in the middle of unpacking and it was just a drive-by mock-up!*

I also picked up some wax candle adapters, which I had never heard of until I started wedding planning:

(Photo Credit)

They apparently keep tapers from tipping over in holders that aren't sized perfectly (which is a definite risk when you're thrifting them!), so we won't have crookedness like the middle candle in the picture I took above.

Then I ordered the purple taper candles in bulk for $75 from the cheapest place I could find them and voila, we had centerpieces! I resolved not to spend more than four dollars a piece on each of the holders and most were only a dollar or two, so all in all I spent about $350 getting gorgeous centerpieces put together! That was one of greatest budget-slashers, since the floral quotes I was getting here in the city were running in the several thousands, even for simple arrangements.


Are you incorporating candles into your centerpieces? How are you trying to make them unique?

Adventures of a Young-ish Bride, Blazing the Trail

There are a lot of perks that go along with being the oldest child: scoring a later bedtime, never having to wear hand-me-downs, getting the bigger bedroom…the list goes on, I’m sure.

There are also definite downsides: getting blamed for something that your little brother actually did, the strict rules you have to follow as a teenager that your sibling ends up somehow getting out of, and, when you add into the mix the deadly combo of a young-ish bride and a young-ish groom, you get Super Duper Wedding Trailblazer status.

(Photo Credit )

Let me explain.

Both Mr. Star and I are the first among our generation in our families to get married. This means a few things:

• No one is exactly sure how they are supposed to behave or what the family wedding planning dynamic is. Both Moms have been unsure of what their specific roles in the planning will be: how much involvement is too much? Should they give their opinions or not? Who will throw the bridal shower? What should they wear? If you’re not the oldest sibling who’s getting married on the young-ish side, it’s often likely that your families will have figured out these crucial dynamics before your wedding planning even starts!
• We are creating the benchmark for future family and friend weddings to live up to and surpass! I feel like there’s a lot of pressure when no one else has done this yet, so we have no idea what our guests are expecting in terms of traditions, level of formality, or even how much each family was willing to contribute monetarily. We’re making this up as we go, here, and I definitely think it’s true that future weddings will take from ours, whether they decide to follow in our footsteps or “outdo” us ;)
• Although my bridesmaids have actually been absolutely amazing, there are a lot of young-ish bridal parties who have no idea what they’re doing. Miss Lightning made her ladies booklets to get them up to speed on wedding etiquette, and Mr. Star has had his work cut out for him in teaching his groomsmen how to be bridal party experts! Older couples often have more married or engaged bridesmaids or groomsmen, which is a huuuuge bonus. I mean, I know that I will be an infinitely better bridesmaid in the future, after having planned my own wedding, don’t you?

There are a lot of unique challenges that accompany a young-ish bride as she fulfills her Super Duper Wedding Trailblazer duties. How have you been a Wedding Trailblazer, young-ish brides and not?

Movin' on up!

Sorry to have been a little les active around the hive for the past week or so! Mr. Star and I have been moving apartments and it has taken quite the toll on us, especially with just over a month until the wedding! I definitely lifted some things on moving day that I shouldn’t have (like one end of the air conditioner and some large IKEA pieces) and totally pulled something in my back, too!

I had intended to move in the spring of next year, once wedding fever had died down and things were less crazy, but we have been having a dispute with our landlord over some serious maintenance issues (don’t get me started on how long we’ve been forced to sleep on the couch because of it) and we got him to agree to let us out of the lease before things escalated.

Lucky for us, we got a seriously spiffy new place! We’ve moved from a fourth-floor walkup with a view of the alley, to this:

And did I mention it has five closets (up from ONE!), level floors, more square footage, an ice maker, and a brand new kitchen and bathroom?? Much as I loved our first place, two out of the four kitchen drawers didn’t open. Period.

Even though it was unintentional, we’ve ended up getting what is pretty much a newlywed home! It’s really exciting to get a new place right as we’re getting married because it feels like even more of a fresh start to a whole new life.

As I’ve been griping about having to move so close to the wedding (hello, stress!), many of the Bees have consoled me with the fact that it would have been much worse to move AFTER the wedding and have to move alllll the wedding gifts and my dress and so on. I see the logic in that argument, especially after how much stuff we accumulated just from my bridal shower. However, we did have to move 8 plastic bins and 6 or 7 big boxes full of centerpieces, ceremony décor, my veils, the mask-favors, and more, so it kind’ve feels like a wash at this point.

What do you think – was it an easier move because it was pre-wedding gifts? Were you already living together and did you move right around the time you got married? How did your new married home feel different from your old “dating” home?