I mean my pink army. Yeah.

I'll spare you the details. They're wearing pink now. Pale pink. And they'll like it, dammit.


Dresses from J.Crew (again)

Truth be told, I disgusted myself with my indecisiveness and whining. Any of these girls would wear a potato sack if I told them it would make me happy. (Hey... that gives me an idea...)

I love them.

My Armless Army

My last blog post got some of us thinking... Maybe we should go for the J.Crew dresses after all. There were all sizes, all colors available last night while I was sucking at Photoshop.

But this morning, there were no more size 0 (a couple of my bridesmaids), and 2's and 4's only came in "chartreuse". (a couple of my bridesmaids are in this range) Then, the frenzy began. One of the blondes is a double 0, so she suggested she get a 2 in chartreuse and have it altered. I was texting and emailing all of them at once. I had one blonde waiting to buy the pink because I wasn't sure anyone else could secure a pink. Then, when it didn't look good for more than 2 pinks, one lovely girl suggested we go all green. The blondes were more into the pink until they looked at the color again - actually the green would be better. I'm calling it green, though it's a very yellow green. I wouldn't call it chartreuse, either. Whatev. More frantic texts: "Everyone! Buy green now!"

I think everyone's just about on board. Presenting...

My Armless Army

Ah Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!

Too funny! (To me, anyway.) Ha ha ha ha! I've been sitting by myself, laughing at my horrible Photoshop skills. I started the think that maybe I should prescribe the dresses my bridesmaids should wear, since they're all having trouble figuring out what I want or finding what they think I want in stores. There's a J.Crew dress I kind of like and the colors are kind of cool - not exactly what I had in mind, but colors I'd be happy with. So, I started photoshopping their heads on dresses... Brace yourself...







Ha ha ha ha ha!

Whew!

The original model in the pink dress is from Ethiopia - a little darker than my bridesmaids, so I tried to lighten the arms and legs. Fail. Then I copied the legs to use on the armless, legless, headless manquin wearing the greenish dress. Sco asked why I didn't just use the polygonal lasso tool to copy the arms, too. I said it was too hard. He said no it's not. I said I don't want to. Fail. Then I cut out the heads and half-ass stuck 'em on the bodies. Fail.


I get my skills from "You Suck at Photoshop."

Bridesmaid dresses!!

So... This is the part I suck most at. I was going to say "this is the part I suck at" but then I realized, I kind of suck at a lot of this stuff. Bridesmaid dresses. In general, I hate bridesmaid dresses because they look like bridesmaid dresses. So... I told my six (yes, six) bridesmaids that they could pick their own dresses provided they stay in a given color range. This is quite a trend lately, and I like it. Then, no one is stuck in an unflattering dress that they'll never wear again. One of my bridesmaids already has one in her closet! I grabbed some paint samples from Home Depot to mail to the bridesmaids. Um, they're still on my desk. I haven't sent them yet. But I did just scan and email them! Here they are:


The green is not totally accurate, but close.



And here is my bridesmaid JS in her dress she has in her closet already.



















And here are her sparkly shoes that are the right green.















We think we can dress it up with some jewelry or some other embellishment. What do you guys think?

I escaped the running of the brides!

Today is the running of the brides! I'm missing it right now! Hundreds of brides and their "teams" camped outside Filene's Basement in Union Square in NYC last night be the first ones in when doors opened at 8:00AM. They're ripping thousands of wedding dresses, often heavily discounted designer dresses, off the racks right now and trading and fighting over them. I, happily, am not there. I'm at my office! My dress is in my closet. Although it would have been kind of fun, I'm happy to not be so stressed out right now, fighting with the masses. :)

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BCBG, it is!!

That's right. I'm going with the BCBG. The cheapest dress I tried on.


Kiss my cheap a**, Oscar de la Renta!!

Battle of the dresses

It's one cheap dress against another... to the death!

And check out my lazy photoshopping skills!

So, I thought it was kind of settled with the J.Crew dress, but then I went to the mall on a Saturday night with my friend Caroline. She can spot a sale from the other end of the mall, and she spotted one in BCBG. She asked if I minded if we stopped in, and there it was... hanging there for all to see. A great wedding dress asking to be tried on. It fit. Well. But they have such a crappy return policy that I didn't buy it right away. In fact, I had Caroline take this picture and I emailed it to people from the fitting room from my phone asking people for emergency help. Can you see the anguish and indecision in my face?

So, I asked them to put it on hold until Monday, but then Sco and I were in the city and we were near a BCBG, so I tried it on there, too. He liked it enough that I decided to buy it. And it was on sale for $217!!

Now, I have until tomorrow night to return it for store credit, otherwise, it's mine forever, whether I wear it to my wedding or not. The J.Crew one can still be returned at this point. I'm heavily leaning towards the new BCBG. So far, the BCBG has the support of Caroline, my mom, and Sco, but one of my sisters likes the J.Crew better. So, what do you think?

This might be it...

Happy new year!!
So... this might be the dress... It's from J.Crew - on sale! Woohoo! It's much simpler than the options I was considering initially. I might still stick a big fabric flower on it somewhere, but it's pretty awesome as is. I would have posted pictures of me in it, but they didn't turn out that well...

Front:


and the back:


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Trying on Dresses with the Fam

I dragged Mommy, Daddy and Sco back to Saks at Short Hills to try on dresses. Well, they didn't try on dresses. Daddy, in particular, might not be into that. I tried on dresses and they looked on and tried not to be bored. I was devastated that they did not have the Oscar de la Renta dress for me to show everyone. I know I'm not buying it, but still, I wanted to show them the dress. Also, I wanted to see if Mommy had any ideas about how to achieve a similar effect in a dress we could make. So, 4 Claire Pettibones, 1 Carolina Herrera, and 1 Vera Wang - purely an exercise in frivolity.

Something bothers me a bit about the Claire Pettibone dresses. I'm not sure what. The Carolina Herrera one I LOVE, but honestly, it is a departure from my other ideas. The Vera Wang prompted Oscar acceptance speeches and Old Hollywood comparisons. It's a pretty dress, but I'd have to change my whole concept of the wedding. I was having a very PMS, puffy-feeling day. Not really a good thing when trying on clinging satin. Whatever. A phrase came to mind that my French Canadian friend said when feeling similarly, "I ate my harms." This makes more sense when you consider her accent and tendency to pronounce h's where there are none and omit h's that are there.



So, later, I bought some silk flowers at Michael's and experimented with adorning a bustier.

It's a starting point anyway.


Me holding the flower carcasses from whence I wrenched the carnation heads.


A close up of my flowery bosom.

Why?!?

I went and tried on dresses at Saks in Short Hills. They were absolutely wonderful. I tried on the Oscar de la Renta one. I love it so much. If Tord Boontje designed a dress, it would look like this. It's $10,500. That makes me want to vomit. I also liked a Caroline Herrera one that was much less, but still ridonculous.


Image courtesy the Knot and Oscar de la Renta

Wedding dress ideas

Ok, so you might have heard that I'm considering making my own dress... I know, I don't really sew, and something about biases... blah, blah, blah... I've made loads of friggin' awesome Halloween costumes, some of which involved sewing and I have lots of helpers. My mom and JodyPrinceton have both made their own clothes. I'm going to play with it, while continuing to look for a ready-made dress to buy. If it seems like it's working, I might go with it. If it totally sux, I'll abandon the idea and buy a dress. Or maybe wear my friend Liz's. So, below are a few things for inspiration... (Images courtesy Style.com, Elie Saab, RealSimple.com, Oscar de la Renta and Kitty Chen Couture)


Aaand, I still love this one..