Category — maids

I am in love with this paper chain idea for asking your friends to be your maids. Super cute.

(Seen on Once Wed, DIY by Anna of Rifle Design)

My cousin Mariah graduated today (congrats Mariah!) and afterwards when we went out to dinner my grandma shows up with 3 white cake stands to put cupcakes on. And wouldn’t you know it, 3 white cake stands are on my “to do/need” list!  A few hours later and I am now at home with three gorgeous cake stands. I love it when things are easy.

Speaking of easy, I have to send my hair girl pictures of how my bridesmaids want their hair. This picture pretty much sums it up:

(image from Matthew Morgan)

Oh and total side note, but I just finished reading My Sisters Keeper and the ending? Yeah, didn’t see that one coming. I am an easy crier, so the fact that I cried doesn’t say much, but still. I cried. Hard.  UPDATE: Since a few of you have read it… Alec Baldwin is sooooo not who I was picturing as the lawyer.

I always tell myself I will do a contest or something fun for my big posts. Well, turns out the veil post was number 500. woo hoo.  

anyways, this is number 501 (yay!) and it is all about the maids. Kind of.

I am struggling over what to get my bridesmaids. Jewelry? A clutch? If it was me I would want personalized letter-pressed stationary. But that is just me. And apparently not everyone is infatuated with letterpress (I know, I was surprised too).  I’ve got a pretty good list going on my wishpot right about now. You can see it here. Some of my favorite choices right now are…

(buy them here)

(buy it here)

(buy it here)

So many choices… Wishpot is great for making lists like these. I also have lists for me, around the house, things to wear (yes it is all J. Crew, I know ). It is good for lists. Although I will say it isn’t the best for using as a wish list/registry type of thing because you have to be a registered member in order to have it pop up that you purchased anything. Or something like that. We will just say that I got the same sweater from both my mother and my future mother in law because one of them wasn’t a registered member so she couldn’t see that it had been bought. Or something like that. Whatever. Basically, it is WONDERFUL for making lists

Yes. Yes. and Yes.  Everything I see these days I immediately think ‘bridesmaid gift!!’ but this one I may have to keep for myself…

(buy them here, first saw them here)

I am loving this wedding over at The Bride’s Cafe today. So fun!

Have you seen these new bridesmaid dresses at J. Crew? Love them. Particularly the lavender color. 

I got a few comments on the purple bridesmaid dresses so I contacted the bride. You are going to love me for this. They are from Davids Bridal Here are a few more pictures, all shot by Matthew Morgan and edited by me:

“oh honey, you are way to early, call me back after march”

This is what I heard when I contacted a local florist. Unfortunately, she doesn’t know me, and, well, to not plan something ahead of time is just not in my blood. So maybe I will call her back in march, but for now I have a meeting set up with a girl my age who does flowers on the side She just graduated from design school and we are meeting at a starbucks… and she is the granddaughter of the wedding planner at our church. I am really hoping it works out with her, she already sounds like my favorite! 

Another thing to check off the list is reworking our invitation suite. I had it all done months and months ago. Then we changed our save the dates. A few times. I have the main invite worked out, still working on the RSVP. I saw this from Martha (and have seen it used before) and think it is a super fun idea. Right now I just have “Don’t waste the paper! Write us a note on the back!” at the bottom, but I think making a little speech bubble with my gocco would be perfect!

Also, related to yesterday’s reader help post, I found this picture from (my recent photo stalking obsession) Jonathan Canlas, displaying the use of colored sashes to bring some black dresses together

I received an email this morning from a reader of mine regarding the well known bridesmaid outfit problem. Maids of all different sizes (4-24), in all different locations.  She is looking to get them all in black, tea length dresses that are similar but vary slightly from girl to girl, while staying away from bridal salons. Here is what I came up with. If you have any ideas, please comment and leave a link!

Getting different dresses for each maid is super smart. This allows them to find something that flatters them, and when you go with black, you really can’t go wrong. 

The two retail stores (that I know of) that carry bridesmaid dresses that you can mix and match are J. Crew and Ann Taylor. Neither one offers plus sizes however, so no to those. My only other “same fabric, different dress” idea would be David’s Bridal. (i know i know, no salons…) But they do offer a lot of different styles in the same fabrics and are located all over the USA. Here are some options (sorry for the random sizes!):

They also offer sashes, which can coordinate all the dresses, even if they aren’t of the same fabric/from the same store. (sorry for the color, it’s random!)

As it may be difficult to find one store that offers different dresses in such a wide range of sizes, I would recommend letting the girls pick their own, but give them a few rules. I would say that hemline and fabric are the two most important thing when it comes to coordinating. Ask them all to find tea length dresses in a certain fabric. Satin, chiffon, or just a matte black. This way you don’t get someone in a silk taffeta ball gown and another girl in a black mini dress Here are some dresses I found:

(lane bryant)

(macys)

(nordstrom)

(spiegel)

I hope this helps! I am sure no matter what you end up picking for them they will look stunning! And again, if anyone has any ideas, please comment!

Dude. I don’t know where you live (and if it somewhere where it gets below zero outside, skip to the next paragraph) but it is flippen freezing outside! Like, less than 50 degrees out freezing. I can’t feel my hands or my toes.  I don’t think it should be allowed to get this cold without at least giving us some snow.  But that is just me

Ok. So it is a new year With the craziness that was the holidays, I kind of put wedding planning on the back burner, and now is the time to start it up again. Here are some things I am thinking about right now.

I need to call florists this week. 

May be kicking the homemade cookie favor idea to keep us sane. Now what?

Can we do this? And where would we put them?

I need to talk to our reception venue coordinator about brining in my own napkins and or coasters.

Maybe these for my maids?

I like this makeup.

We need to create a cool map. 

The guy from the gelato company has not gotten back to me in about 2 months. I emailed his boss last week. We have decided to give them until the end of the month to communicate with us. If they don’t (we will be bummed cause a gelato cart would be awesome) we may go this route (which would cost half as much

See, just a few thoughts Also, we have our engagement Encounter weekend this weekend Should be fun!

Images from top to bottom: The knot, martha, sws, sws, anthro, ?, mint, Darling Dexter