Dress Success - Pt. 2

Now I can post this because the day has passed and there is no fear of Jay sneaking a peek at THE Dress.

Truth be told, I had drafted this post back in January the week after I got my dress. I scheduled for it to post the day after our wedding.Let me start by saying, I loved this dress so much when I got it. I cried. Mom cried. Carol cried. Shiela cried. Alyssa cried. Cara laughed at all us crybabies. Elisabeth told us to all stop crying because I looked like a beautiful queen (love that girl!) and we should be happy.

The problem is, I've had buyers remorse since day 1. It was definitely the best dress I tried that day BUT (and this is my only complaint about David's Bridal) they did not have my top favorite dresses available in a size that would fit me to try on. Talk about a buzzkill, especially when you're self-conscious about your weight. If I'm being honest, and usually I am, I was really upset about this at the time, but now I think: the biggest have that in is a 6? that's like a 2 or 4 in real-life sizes... the average woman is a 14...David's Bridal is like a wedding machine... why the hell aren't they more accommodating to this? (sorry, train of thought is easily derailed)

Point is, I've been questioning the purchase since day 1. Not at all how you want to feel about your wedding dress. This dress fit perfectly when I bought it, didn't need a single alteration, until I lost 25 pounds and was at least 2 dress sizes smaller than I was when I got it. (FYI - DB seamstresses can only alter a dress up to 2 sizes smaller) Fortunately, they let me exchange the dress. When I made an appointment to swap this beauty out, my mom convinced me to try on some new dresses. She could tell I wasn't 100% sold on this one. I just needed the peace of mind that I got to at least try on a couple of my favorite dresses (even if they looked awful, then I could be sure this was THE ONE).

Turns out... this is not THE ONE. It was good while it lasted but I'm totally OBSESSED with my new dress!

It's funny how things work out. It's also funny that every bride I talk to tells me the same thing, the dress she picked was totally  different than what she was expecting to get.

This dress wasn't even on my radar so I was very excited when Kara brought it out for me to try on! After going through my preliminary list with me, she pulled this dress and said it had everything except a belt and straps/sleeves.

As it turns out, sleeves on dresses made me look linebacker-esque. After looking at pictures of me in the other dress with a belt, and comments from the peanut gallery, we decided that this was much more flattering.

1) fit-n-flare, trumpet, mermaid shape
2) lace or sparkly applicaes on tulle
3) scalloped hem
4) not strapless, lacy cap sleeves would be pretty
5) can rock a sparkly belt 
6) lots of sparkle (are you sensing a pattern)
7) open back? No, but has killer sparkle down either side of the corset, which was much better than having to worry about what kind of bra I'd have to wear!

It didn't hurt that I loved this one more than any other dress I tried. It almost lost to the belted dress in part 1, but after putting it on again, I felt more like a bride in this one. It was just perfect. It had everything I wanted, and things I didn't know I wanted. It made every single girl in our entourage tear up, including Kara, the bridal consultant! 

See more about my dress adventure in Dress Success - Part 1 and Dress Code

Flower Girl Flower Wand

After months of stalking Pinterest and pinning my little heart out I decided a flower wand was the best idea for Elisabeth. I found some great inspiration and then headed to Michael's armed with 40% coupons.

To make a flower wand you'll need:
Hot glue gun and glue sticks
Silk flowers (at least 4 flower heads)
Wire cutters or really good scissors
Wire or wicker wand (optional)
White spray paint
Ribbon (2 rolls)
Glitter

I loved this wand I saw on pinterest so much. I search and searched and finally found it on eBay and ordered it from the UK. It arrived surprisingly fast and shipping wasn't terrible. You could totally make your own though if you're feeling crafty. Just need some wire, glitter, and beads. You can also skip the wand completely and just use a more sturdy flower stem as your base.

 

First, snip each flower from the bunch and clean up the stems (see below). Arrange the flowers around the wand until you like the way they're laid out, then start your gluing. Start with your biggest flowers first (I used ranaculous and roses)

*clip all stems so they are smooth under the ribbon wrap*

Make sure you glue the whole stem from where you clipped all the way up to about an inch from the flower head/bud so that you can still adjust the flowers a bit once they're all glued in place. Once all your larger flowers are in place, you can fill in with smaller buds or flowers (hydrangeas). Keep adding flowers and leafy bits until you're happy with the arrangement.

glue the stem of each flower to the wand

Glue all your stems to the wand to secure them. Try to keep your glue from getting too clumpy in spots but it doesn't have to look perfect since you'll be covering it with ribbon.

see, not very pretty....

Take your wand outside and spray paint the handle/stem (if you're using lace ribbon like I did and don't want the green to show through- you can skip this step if you want a more rustic look or if you have solid ribbon or if you just like it that way)  I also thought about glittering after spraying but I thought that might bother my niece's hands when she's holding it.

I just used spray primer because I already had it at my house

While you're waiting for your handle to dry, you can add glitter to petal edges or spray glue and glitter whole flowers. Go crazy! It's for a little girl after all :) customize however you'd like.

When the handle is dry put a dab of hot glue at the bottom of the handle and stick the end of ribbon to it. I folded mine around the bottom so it would cover the stem completely then started wrapping up toward the top overlapping as I went. Once I got up to the flowers I wrapped the ribbon around the top and glued it down.

Then you cut ribbon to all different lengths and tie bows or leave long streamers. Again, feel free to go as  crazy here as you want. These wands look great with just 1 bow where the ends are left long or you can tie multiple like I did and have the ends hang down all over. Just make sure you double knot your bows or put a dab of glue to hold them in place... these wands are going to be man-handled by crazy little kids... who may or may not use them as weapons against unsuspecting ring bearers... you want to make them as secure as possible.

Viola!! You have a gorgeous flower wand for your precious little flower girl to carry for your wedding and to keep as a little gift for dress up  after your big day is over!

The Best Laid Plans... a bathroom renovation story

We were planning on redoing our hall bath... just not now!

We were going to paint and deal with it until we go the rest of the house in working order... that is until the dreaded Drip! Drip! Drip! I was greeted with after my shower one morning back in June...

So after tearing into the soffit in the dining room and discovering the issue, we decided that we should just redo the bathroom since we had to pull it apart to fix the plumbing...

And while we're at it, why not just turn the "dressing room" area of our master bedroom into a closet-sized on suite?

Glutton for Punishment... that is me.

So we start the bathroom this week and I cannot wait!

 

 Now... if you could just imagine these images in a pint-sized version.... because our new bathroom is literally the size of the shower in the first image, BUT it's way better than the sink/closet weird Jack-and-Jill style bathroom business we have going on now.