After my last post, about eschewing tradition and doing what makes you as a couple happy when planning your wedding, was well received by other brides experiencing similar challenges, I wanted to share more non-traditional wedding plans that I have with everyone. This will be my first post in a new series I've felt inspired to begin, called Going Against the Grain.  

I am not one of those brides that ever expected her bridesmaids to wear the exact same dress, so I guess even in that I was being non-traditional.  However, bridesmaids wearing different styles of dresses has become much more popular and common, and my initial plan was to have my bridesmaids wear a dress from JCrew that was the same color/material, and they could choose the style they liked best, since they were purchasing their dresses themselves. 

Given that I wanted to keep costs down and keep things simple, I figured that this should be no problem as I am only having two bridesmaids anyway, my sister and my future sister-in-law.  I discussed potential dress colors with my mom and bridesmaids, and then decided upon having the girls wear navy dresses, as this would be the most flattering color on both of them, since they have very different skin tones.  After browsing online with my sister-in-law, she decided that she liked a strapless style in silk taffeta, which we thought would be a good material for a winter wedding. She promptly ordered it, and was happy with her choice, so things went smoothly there.

My sister, the MOH, was a different story. She was adamantly against strapless, as she has a larger bust, so she ordered a wrap style.  The first one was too large, so she exchanged it for a size smaller, but then still found it very unflattering and "tent-like."  I thought the dress was adorable, and was disappointed that she was unhappy. 

(Dresses from www.jcrew.com)

She also ordered another JCrew style with spaghetti straps, and was still unpleased. At this point, we were both getting stressed out, and I was worried that there was very little time left to order more dresses and return them.  I decided to browse the selection at Ann Taylor, which we had originally looked at, but didn't have any navy dresses.  They had some new dresses in stock, and even had a navy color, but it was not exactly the same as the JCrew color.  It wouldn't be fair to ask my SIL to return her JCrew dress since she loved it, so I lamented over what to do. Part of me wanted to be a b*%ch and tell my MOH to suck it up and keep the third JCrew dress, because I didn't have the time or energy to figure out an alternate plan with everything else I had on my plate now that we were towards the end of our planning process. But then I felt guilty because I am not paying for her dress, so she has a right to get something she wants (though I know most other brides would disagree).  Ultimately, I found a dress in silver (another one of our colors) silk taffeta at Ann Taylor, and my MOH decided to order it. She ended up keeping it, finally!

(Dress from www.anntaylor.com)

In the end, I think it will actually be cool to have the MOH stand out and to have one girl in navy and one in silver. I could have gotten all bridezilla and freaked out about this, but I'm glad I decided to keep my cool and not stress too much over having everything be "perfect." I always said I wanted to have a unique wedding, and here is another way I'm getting one :-)

The entire wedding process that I've been going through for a while now has really given me some perspective on values, traditions, and expectations.  While a lot of brides just go about planning their wedding with traditional events and milestones (the bridal shower, bachelorette party, rehearsal dinner etc), I'm not really one of those brides. Deviating from the norm in any way, though, really seems to surprise people, or make them think that something might be wrong with you.

Case in point: A lot of my friends were shocked when I told them I wasn't having a bridal shower.  The reason I decided not to have one is because my fiance and I already live together, and we have too much stuff crammed into our two bedroom condo as it is. Adding tons of kitchenware did not seem practical, especially when we had to already give away goods to consolidate our collection after I moved in with him. We do need a few more expensive items, such as a good mixer, that we were not going to get at a shower due to their price, so having one didn't make much sense. Why not have an alternative bridal shower, like a lingerie shower you ask? Answer: most of our relatives in the area are older, stuffy conservatives (no offense) and it would not be very fun way for me to spend the day.  To make up for the lack of a bridal shower, my fiance's mother is generously taking us shopping this weekend with the money she saved from not throwing a shower, to buy a few new items that we do need, like the mixer.

Image Credit: Williams Sonoma

Instead of a shower, I'm also having two bachelorette parties, which I think is WAY more fun. I didn't initially intend to have two parties, but given that I grew up in New England, went to college in NYC, and now live in Chicago, my friends tend to live all over the country, and many could not make it to my Midwest party. So I had a fun, low key bachelorette weekend with my Chicago friends, as we took a road trip to coastal Michigan, and rented a cute beach cottage.  It was early October when we went, and we had a great time enjoying the fall colors while pumpkin and apple picking, getting lost in a corn maze (seriously), and getting mighty tipsy at all of the lovely wineries and vineyards in the area. 

I'll be having another bachelorette party in Boston the weekend prior to my wedding.  This will probably be a more traditional, crazy party given that my East Coast friends are a bit wilder.  I'll also be including a few male friends in this party, because why exclude close friends from your celebration just because they are the opposite sex? In the end, while it would have also been fun to have one large party will all of my friends present, I really like the idea of having two very different parties, and getting the best of both worlds!

Another way in which I'm having a non-traditonal aspect to my wedding is my rehearsal dinner.  In the interest of saving money, my mom, sister and I initially discussed having the rehearsal dinner at home, with my mom cooking all of her scrumptious New England delicacies (calamari, lobster balls . . . mmmm).  But after we created a head count for the event, my mom felt cooking for that many people would be too overwhelming with everything else she had going on the day before the wedding. But I didn't want to hold the rehearsal at a restaurant, since this would be the first time certain members of my and my fiance's families had met, and I wanted an intimate affair in which people to be able to mingle, chat and relax, instead of being isolated at separate tables. 

So, we decided to still hold the party at home, but get the majority of the food catered, while my mom would still cook the appetizers that we all love. I'll be making a hot mulled wine as the signature drink (more about that to come) for the event, and we're going to put a single long table in our living room, so everyone can sit together in front of a roaring fire and chat over good seasonal eats. 

Image Credit: Country Living

These are just a few of the issues I've had with the expectations and traditions that come with being a bride-to-be.  I plan to blog more about other ones in the near future. What do you think? Has anyone else been struggling with tradition as much as I have? What traditions are important to you to hold on to, and which ones, if any, have you eschewed in favor of doing things your way?

I'm just gonna throw it out there.  My fiance and I are not good dancers.  We dance like white people.  And not white people like Justin Timberlake.  My fiance in particular is terrible, and my dancing abilities go way down due to his inability to properly lead.  Thus, we need a nice, slow song to gently sway to for our first dance, so people don't comment on our horrendous skills.  We also need to get a dance DVD stat to start practicing, so recommendations are appreciated.

Conversely, I have the fear of fire being haphazardly waved in the vicinity of my dress, especially by a bunch of people who have been drinking for 8 hours, since we are doing our send-off at midnight. However, I do realize that with proper use, proper being the key, I should not fear about me or my precious dress catching on fire.  I'm also a bit concerned about the set up of the whole thing, and getting everyone to coordinate lighting them simultaneously.  However, I think having a smaller wedding will be an advantage in this situation.  So, I decided to suck it up and order them from Sparkle, and now I'm getting really excited about incorporating them into the wedding. 

And if I'm feeling really crafty, I might even make some cute tags for the sparklers, a la these (though I'll probably just end up making a simple sign): 

Still, despite all this planning, I just hope everything goes smoothly with the sparklers and I look as happy as all the brides I've seen in the photos.  Has anyone else used sparklers at your wedding, or been a guest at one with a sparkler send off? If so, how'd it go?

As a bride on a budget, I'm so excited to begin my DIY project series and share my first project with you! Since my wedding is having a vintage vibe and I'm incorporating brooches (for example, I'm wearing one on my bracelet, to be featured in anther post), I knew I wanted to use one to jazz up my bouquet.  I really feel like it's the little details in a wedding that make it special, so I began scouring Etsy for affordable brooches ($10 was my maximum) that would fit with my Christmas winter wedding.  I initially found some lovely ones that were in the shapes of snowflakes and wreathes, and was strongly leaning towards one of them because I loved their combination of crystals and pearls, which I will also be wearing.

 

 

I was really tempted to blow the budget and just purchase the G brooch, but something inside me told me to keep looking, and I decided to change course and do a search for cameo brooches.  I've always admired cameos because they really take me back in time, as my grandmother loved them and always wore them.  I have fond memories of being a little girl and rifling through my nana's jewelry box and admiring all her lovely cameos.   So when I came across a set of three cameos featuring mermaids, my heart literally skipped a beat. Not only did they cost a mere $1.50 for all three, but the mermaids on them are very sentimental for me.  My mom has made a tradition out of always including something with a mermaid in our Christmas stockings, and every year my sister and I look forward to her latest find.  I knew that this would be the perfect addition to my Christmas wedding, and loved the fact that I could purchase three, one for me and two for my bridesmaids, who include my sister and future sister-in-law, so we can continue our tradition.  And who knows, maybe mermaids will become a part of our family's wedding tradition too now!

I only purchased the cameo featured on the bottom, of the single mermaid, from Cathysjewels.  There was only one problem: these were not set in anything, and the vendor didn't have anything in which I could set them.  So after a lot more searching, I found a vendor who sells antique silver plated settings that fit the cameos.  The settings were only $2.75 each from Dangled, and here is a picture of them:

As promised, I took pictures of my hair trial with the fantastic Jessica DeGravio of Shampoo Salon in Dennis, MA.  This was the first time I had met her and I was nervous about using someone I didn't know for such an important part of my wedding.  But all my fears were assuaged once I saw the final product.  She was so helpful as I really had no idea what I wanted, other than something pretty and natural.  We decided upon an updo, and I love the way it turned out.

I still haven't decided upon flowers yet. I told her I was debating between a giant flower clip from Etsy and fresh flowers from my florist. She ingeniously decided to make "toilet paper flowers" by bunching up toilet paper to look like white flowers and putting them in my hair (sadly I don't have pictures of this). I liked how it looked, and now I figure, if I like how toilet paper looks in my hair then maybe I should go with real flowers after all! We'll see . . . Did anyone else debate about what to put in their hair as much as I am?