Confessions of Jersey Girl

Since i’m relatively certain that Matt doesn’t read my blog… I’ll be posting my adventures in wedding dress shopping here to share with you guys.  My first stop on the road to my dream dress was Davids Bridal.  I was a little hesitant and actually considered canceling the appointment.

We got to Davids Bridal at noon on Sunday afternoon, and we were one of the first groups of girls there.  Yes, I said groups.  I was totally one of “those” girls Sunday.  I had my two best friends (and bridesmaids) and Matt’s cousin with me, and I was seriously apprehensive about the whole having and entourage thing, but you know something?  It turned out to be really fun!

Appointments at Davids Bridal are 1 1/2 hours long, and it goes by SO FAST.  About a half hour into the appointment, things got RIDICULOUS in there.  So many people, it was like a free for all.  I probably tried on seven dresses.  Two of which I didn’t even make it out to the mirrors in, they just weren’t my style and the girls let out a resounding “NOOOOO!” before I could ever get myself out of the dressing room.

I seriously recommend bringing the girls with you.  I have three more wedding dress trials lined up (Tesi Bridals, another at Davids and Kleinfelds), and I have between 1 and 6 girls going with me each time.  There’s a few reasons why I really think this is the best way to go.  1. Being it is just more FUN!  There was more laughing and carrying on and just all around awesome with my girls there.  2. They will smack you down to reality.  They don’t care that you love the $6,000 dress.  It makes you look fat, and they are going to tell you.  They will also tell you how ridiculous you are for even considering spending that much money on a dress.

Anyway.  So yes.  I was pretty shocked by what we found at Davids Bridal.  I had seen two fashion shows of David’s Bridal dresses at two different Bridal Shows and I didn’t see a single thing that I liked.  I looked online and didn’t see anything that I liked.  When I got there?  I found two dresses that are both SERIOUS contenders.  I was SMITTEN with the first dress that I tried on.  My bridesmaids loved it too, until I tried on the last dress of the day.  They were won over by that one.

Here goes.  (Apologies in advance for the crappy phone pictures.  Everyone left their cameras at home figuring we wouldn’t be allowed to use them.)

This is my pick.  I stupid LOVE the ruffles.  I love all of the chiffon and I love the beading around my waist.  It makes me feel like a princess and I feel like a million bucks when i’m in it.  Granted, I can’t breathe when i’m in it, but I think that’s one of it’s pluses.  I don’t have to worry about anything jiggling that shouldn’t be and it makes me look super skinny.  I’m 5′3, 130 pounds and somewhere between a size 6 & 8 normally.  I was scared that this dress would swallow me, but it doesn’t!  I just love it.  I get a little giddy every time I look at the picture (and can’t wait to go back to the store to try it on again).  It’s pretty inexpensive, so that’s good.  I’m unsure how it would look altered, they said 4-5 inches would have to come off the bottom of that.  If I go with this dress, the guys will all probably be wearing linen suits instead of just linen pants and white shirts to class it up a bit since my dress is more fancy pants.

Dress #2.  NOT A FAN.  Funny enough, Sara (@bittycolour) LOVED this one.  I just don’t understand.  The lace added so much bulk to my frame.  The back was what originally drew me to this dress… I saw just the back in the catalog that they give you when you walk in and I loved it.  However, I think it would work better on someone with a little more back area.  The corset thing that they put on you when you get there wasn’t helping this either. It made me look like I have back fat, which I can assure you, under normal circumstances I DO NOT.  This dress was a big fat no.

I have ALWAYS loved dresses with pickups, ALWAYS.  I think this dress is super adorable and I love the tan band around the top of it.  However, It was NOT a sweetheart neckline, which was okay… but it sort of cut me off rather abruptly.  I think sweetheart necklines are more subtle and romantic.  Also, this dress was HEAVY.  It was all satin.  I would be dying of death in Jamaica in this dress.  So, this dress was a no.  Boo.  No pickups in Jamaica.

Sorry for the weird face i’m making in this one.  Sara was just snapping away on my phone.  If I thought the last dress was heavy, this one put it to shame.  I’m not even kidding, this thing had to weigh 15 pounds.  I mean, it was GORGEOUS.  It also made me feel like my salesperson wasn’t listening to me AT ALL.  I mean, I’m getting married on the beach in Jamaica.  Formal much?  I did love it though.  The beading around my waist sat really low so it made me look super long.  This was another dress I couldn’t breathe in, which was good.  But, it’s just too formal and too heavy for a beach wedding.

This was the bridesmaids choice.  I really, really like it.  It’s SUPER form fitting though, so I really have to step up Operation Six Pack if this is going to be my dress.  Or just a double layer of Spanx.  It’s super flowy and beachy.  It’s nothing but one layer of satin.  I love the beading detail on the front and on the back and the little waterfall bustle.  It’s the cutest thing ever.  It would be super easy to move and dance in all night, I wouldn’t have any trouble sitting down to eat, or jumping into the ocean in this, since it’s a super crazy cheap $450.

So, that was day one.  two serious contenders.  I have an appointment lined up at another semi local bridal shop (it’s an hour away) on Thursday and then after that, i’m heading back to Davids Bridal to look at the two dresses that are serious contenders again, maybe try on one or two more and then maybe make a choice.  I have an appointment scheduled at Kleinfelds in NYC on April 8th too, so if i’m still at a loss, i’m hoping the Mecca for all things wedding dress will have something there for me.

I also applied to be on Say Yes to the Dress, so keep your fingers crossed I’ll be showing up on TV!

So, I’m getting ready to finalize everything for the wedding in October.  Originally, we were planning on having the ceremony, an hour or so break for pictures and then an hour and a half cocktail reception with hors d’ ourves and a DJ.  The way I see it, the resort is all-inclusive.  Why pay more to have them feed us food we could go out and get for free?!  I’m not trying to be cheap here, not one bit.  It just seems so impractical to spend more money for family that honestly doesn’t really care much either way.

We are having a private rehearsal / welcome dinner for everyone the night before the wedding.  We can’t move that to the night of the wedding because the resort is stupid.  So, the formal dinner IS being held, just a little out of order. (We’re also having a pancake and mimosa farewell breakfast, but that’s more because it’s my favorite than anything)

Since we wouldn’t be having a formal sit down dinner the night of the wedding, I thought it would just be fun to run around the resort to the restaurants and bars together and just have some fun.  I mean, come on.  Girl in a wedding dress, her entire bridal party and guests?!  How could it not be fun?

And then tonight, I thought about it.  There are a few people from my office that are coming.  There are a few polices officers from Matt’s department coming, our closest friends are coming, a bunch of family… it would be nice to have a sit down dinner with everyone.   I sort of feel like I should want to impress these people and show them a good time.  They are traveling all the way to Jamaica for our wedding… it doesn’t seem fair to short change them on the reception.

REMEMBER THOUGH: The resort is all inclusive.   We will be eating dinner, just maybe not the way I had envisioned.  The cost difference is a lot.  There’s about a $1500 – $2000 difference between the two options, depending on how many people show up.

I just don’t know what to do!  There should be a pretty even mix of older people & younger adults / twenty somethings… so I want to keep everyone happy.

What would YOU do?

So, I showed you my save the date cards.  Well, I mean… I showed you the design for them at least.  I had these babies designed and ordered before Christmas and when I got them, I sort of… put them aside.  I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do with them.  Do I just hand write a little note on the back?  Do I stick them in envelopes and mail them out?  I had no idea what I wanted to do and making a decision stressed me out.

here are all of my supplies ready to go!

I decided one day that I wanted to put the cards in envelopes, but not just any envelopes.  I wanted blue.  I decided white would look too generic (my original plan was to do white envelopes with blue label wraps, but when it came down to it, that was a lot of work).   So I went online and found myself something different.

It all started with the perfect return address stamp, that turned out to be not so perfect… but I hushed my OCD demons and used it anyway, even though it didn’t match my tropical theme.

Stamp was purchased on Etsy @Note Trunk

So, after I had my pretty blue envies (that’s bride speak for envelopes, get with it) and my return address stamp that I was going to (reluctantly) use… It was time to get this show in the road!  I needed to address and stamp a hundred envelopes, ack!

but not without assistance from my too cute for words siamese cat, Liza.

I suppose Liza wanted in on the wedding festivities.  I kept calling her Matt because she kept doing exactly what he would have been doing if he were here… getting in my way.

I wanted to rip my hand off after this.  OUCH.  Pressing down on that stamp all of that time HURT.  Not a good first experience, I’ll tell you.  But, I got it done. And it was so pretty!

Mid envelope stamp, I realized that NOTHING on our save the dates had our last names on them.  I mean, I’m sure that was fine… everyone know’s who we are and that we’re getting married in Jamaica, but it bothered me.  So, I whipped up 100 labels with the booking information for our hotel WITH our last names sneakily stuck in there. :)

So pretty and ready to be enveloped up!  I love it!

I loved the contrast in the blue colors of the STD and the blue of the nevelope.  They were actually a lot closer in color than the picture is showing, but whatever.  They are cute.

I’m lazy.  And i’m also VERY particular.  So far, I’ve managed to keep The Crazy bottled up (see how I played off the envelopes not matching the cards perfectly by calling it “contrast”?) and not let the little things get to me.  Addressing the envelopes was seriously causing me to lose sleep at night, i’m not even joking.  My handwriting is nice, but it has a tendency to not be so… consistent after a while.  So, I looked around for handwriting fonts that look believable and stumbled upon Fonts for Peas, installed them all, picked “Pea Ninh” and printed out 100 envelopes!

Stacked and ready to go out!  I realized I forgot to take a picture of them after they were all stamped and ready, but the stamps I used were so great! I’m sure that a lot of wedding stationary is going out with these adorable little things, but here they are:

Right?!  I mean, use your imagination and picture them on the envelopes.  SO CUTE.

They went out two weeks ago officially and they got the best compliments!  I was so proud to tell people that I had made them completely, from start to finish.  It’s a great feeling.

Here’s the breakdown:

The cards were 4×6 postcards from Quantum Digital.  I think 100 of them was $17.

Envelopes were from Action Envelope and they were $22.

The return address stamp was $20

The labels for the back of the save the dates were FREE.  (I “borrowed” them from work)

The postage was $44

That works out to $1.03 PER SAVE THE DATE INCLUDING POSTAGE.  I think that’s a massive DIY win, don’t you?

Did you / are you doing anything yourself for your wedding!?  What are your tricks for saving money when it comes to your big day?

I had a post scheduled for tonight, but it can wait.

Please, take a second and say a prayer for Cpl. Jonathan Porto and his family, especially his daughter that he will never get to meet. You can find his wife’s blog  here.

As women married to the military, this is our worst fear.  It’s hard to believe that another blogger, someone in our own circle is living this nightmare.

Keeping you and yours in my prayers Mrs. Porto. <3

Have you ever been without the person that you love for 100 days?  If you’re not the girlfriend, fiance or wife of someone in the military, chances are that you can answer that with a resounding NO.  For so many of us that love a man in uniform, this is simply a blip on the radar, a milestone that we have all come to know all too intimately.

It’s just a spot we hit on our countdown.  For some like myself, that means you’re a little past half way.  For others, that means you’ve still got another few hundred to go.  It’s hard, but when you’re put in this situation, you manage.  You learn to manage.  Sure, I haven’t done my laundry in a month, there are dishes in the sink and the mail is piled up sky high on the coffee table… but that’s because he’s not here to see it, he’s not here to care.  Mostly though, it’s because I get home from work and want nothing more than to crawl under the covers in my bed and wait for an email, a phone call, anything at all.  Dishes can wait, making the bed can wait, priorities are different when the man that you love is fighting a war.

I guess, looking back on the past 100 days, I can hardly believe it’s been that long since i’ve seen him, since i’ve touched him, since i’ve held his hand.  It’s sort of unreal that i’ve made it this far.  Sure, there have been days when I wanted to just call out of work and stay in bed.  There have been days when he didn’t call when he said he would or he didn’t email when he was supposed to and i’ve completely lost my shit and fallen apart.  There have been nights that i’ve cried myself to sleep because all I wanted more than anything in the world was just to have him close to me, just to have his body next to mine.

Part of me just can’t believe that i’ve made it this far on one piece.  Kissing him goodbye at the airport, I really didn’t think that I would be okay at any point in this deployment, but truth is… there have been good days and there have been bad.  There have been days when not a single solitary thing has gone right and naturally, I blamed the deployment.  That’s about the only thing deployments are good for, you know?

But there have also been really amazing days.  Days when I put a bookshelf together on my own, unclog the shower drain or take care of the truck when it’s brakes go that make me realize that as hard as this deployment has been on me, as hard as deployments are for the thousands of other women that endure them… maybe  they are a blessing in disguise, you know?

Being apart for hundreds of days force you to learn how to be strong, to function on your own as well as learn to work as a team under one of the most stressful situations a relationship could ever endure.  Absence, however painful, really does make the heart grow fonder… i’m sure of it.  Now, we’re nearing the point of this whole thing where I might be able to start counting down without wanting to cry when I look at the countdown.  I’m excited.