A Cheaper Wedding Dress
April 22, 2010
Anyone getting married may have noticed that the minute you tack the word “wedding” in front of anything, it’s suddenly 2x more expensive (or more.) This is especially true for wedding dresses where we may have noticed that dresses which look nearly identical to prom dresses sell for $10,000.
Now, I’m a great lover of fashion and dearly appreciate excellent tailoring and fine fabric. I understand why *some* dresses cost thousands of dollars, and for that reason, I understand why *many* are not worth that price.
There’s lots of suggestions on how to get cheaper dresses on the web–vintage, second-hand, rentals, and lastly buying a prom/evening dress that just happens to be white.
I love the first three ideas, especially if you want something designer. However, for the first two, I’ve found that the sizes are never anywhere similar to my size. I think rentals are a really good idea in theory, but I’ve yet to find one that rents actual designer-label dresses. So here’s where my suggestion comes in…
I’m a member of several shopping websites where designer brands are released in limited quantity every day at either 11am or 12pm EST. So far I’ve bought a DKNY suit for H for 60% off that was brand new, fit perfectly, and was returnable. Anyways, so while sitting here looking at this stuff for weeks, I’ve seen many dresses that could be perfect bridesmaids dresses–and cheaper and better quality (and more stylish) than the ones I picked for my girls. Unfortunately, since this is limited quantity I can’t call both girls up in time to check if they like the dress before it sells out. However, I have discovered this is a PERFECT place to get my reception dress as I cannot actually walk in my real wedding dress, let alone dance.
I saw today that Sue Wong (the designer who’s selling the dress I want) is going to be on sale tomorrow at ruelala.com and had dresses for sale on ideeli.com (but not the one I wanted) so I realized: this is the perfect way for girls who want designers gowns to have a Vera Wang dress (but not necessarily a Vera Wang wedding dress), or for girls who care nothing about designer names and just want a shot at something cheaper, but well-made, and potentially wearable. I’ve seen lots of beautiful white evening gowns from big designers (if you’re into that) for as cheap as $100. Or maybe it’d work for your bridesmaids? Or you could buy a suit for your fiance instead of blowing money on rentals (and then you get to own a suit, which is extremely useful for attending future weddings, funerals, and formal functions.)
I’m hoping to get my reception dress and also I’ve been scouring the site for wedding day jewelry as I’ve found I can have something with real diamonds for the price that people charge for crystals (if I’m lucky and fast enough.)
Disclaimer: These links give me a credit if you sign up AND buy something, but signing up is free. If you thought that my suggestions were good, or like this blog, I’d appreciate it very much if you signed up through those links. 
Gilt Groupe - This one is the most high end among the listed, and also my favorite. There’s not a lot of cheaper brands here. For example, Alexander McQueen was 70% off last week, but everything was still over $1000. I’ve only bought a set of teacups here as I can’t really afford to buy some of the clothing offerings, but I love browsing and I think their gift selection is excellent. They also have one of the best ways to view the clothing, since buying sight unseen can be a bit annoying.
Ideeli – I’ve never bought anything here yet, but I’m on a waiting list for a dress. They have a weird system where you have to pay to get first choice. I’m not really a fan of that, but oh well. The selection has a more varied range of designers than Gilt Groupe.
HauteLook – This is my second favorite one. I bought a suit for H here, the delivery was super fast. I’ve found that the selection of designers is consistently interesting and appealing.
RueLaLa – I’ve also never bought from here, but they have my Sue Wong dresses tomorrow so if I buy I’ll tell you what I think about the ordering process if I go through with it. =P
Good luck on the dress hunt!
Filed Under Bargain Hunting, Uncategorized, fashion | Comments OffDressing the Bridesmaids
January 26, 2010
As part of my attempt to squelch my inner bitch and be the most easy-going bride ever, I decided to kind of let my bridesmaids have a big say in their dresses.
This was a mistake.
Not because they have bad taste, or they wanted to do crazy things… but because they were also pretty easy-going as well. Unfortunately, having a bunch of easy-going people means things don’t ever get decided. I started to narrow it down–here’s our color palette. Then even more, here’s the fabric and length I want. And then even more, here’s the exact shade I want… at this point, I really should have just picked whatever damn dress I thought they’d look good and fit their budget, because honestly this was causing me more stress than I ever wanted to have over this.
In the end, I made an executive decision and picked the dress for them (after soliciting their opinions, of course.) They seemed quite relieved. Remember, you may think you’re being awesome and nice… but if there’s no direction AND you actually secretly DO care what they wear, then you’re just stressing them out.
If you are planning on going that “every girl in a non-matching dress” route, remember that there still needs to be some kind of theme or else they’re going to look like random people picked out of your guest list.
Unless you’re cool with that, then of course, it’s cool… 
Guestbook idea for Bookish Couples
January 16, 2010
I saw this on MyDIYWeddingDay.com.
For the guestbook, the bride got some Library Card kits and polaroid cameras. They had their guests write messages and also take a photo which they then slipped into the pocket.
Very cute idea for anyone having a literary themed wedding…
Now I have to think about how to do something similar, but appropriate to our theme, at our wedding.
Filed Under Uncategorized | Comments OffOur Cheap Semi-DIY Invitations
January 7, 2010
Making your own invitations is a great way to personalize things and save some money. Unfortunately, many of us don’t have design skills and/or time. Handling Save-the-Dates and invitations is very time consuming, even when you have them made for you by a stationer. Since both of us work, we decided that we’d go semi-DIY for invitations. Design and assemble them ourselves, but have professionals actually print them.
For a months, we had been hemming and hawing over invitations. A year ago or so I read about a couple that had a map showing where they met, where they lived, etc. for their wedding invitation. As a nomadic couple who met 1000 miles away from our respective birthplaces, we really loved that idea and wanted to incorporate it somewhere in our wedding stationary.
I found out a c couple weeks ago, Zazzle has a pretty ridiculous post-Christmas sale on invitations and other paper goods. How ridiculous? 75% off ridiculous!
Unfortunately, my computer broke….and the sale was going to end in 8 hours. Worst. Bride. Ever.
My Man of Honor, Jon, and I (read: Jon) went to work and several hours later we submitted our design. There’s a couple of flaws that I honestly don’t think anyone will notice so I won’t bother to mention them. They came into today and they look fine. They’re personal, and we designed them ourselves… without having to source paper or use our printer.
We got 150 cards for under $80 dollars. The cards also came with matching white/cream envelopes, which we didn’t like–so we ordered the purple #10 envelopes in the photo. The envelopes we didn’t use? They’re white envelopes. They’ll be used for normal non-wedding things like rent checks.
Filed Under Invitations, Realistic DIY | Comments OffPeacock Inspiration Board
December 8, 2009
Somewhere along the line (I think, in the Philippines 2008) Hugh and I decided we were going to use the peacock as our color motif and theme. Along the way this has morphed a few times. Last night Hugh made me sign a contract to stop changing our theme. Okay, okay…
Here’s an inspiration board I made on PolyVore.com with some ideas for a peacock-tastic good time.
First post
December 1, 2009
Welcome to our wedding blog.
I closed my personal blog to the public in 2007 after blogging since 1999 (back then I called it an “internet diary”). In the meantime, my fiance and I started a travel blog which went on hiatus in early 2009 (when we stopped traveling) and an abandoned life-in-New York blog.
In the past year I stopped blogging, however, actual interesting things have happened in my life than I wanted to share with my former readership and potential new audiences, namely, my wedding.
Instead of just doing a normal wedding blog detailing my trials and tribulations that I thought was kind of boring (even to myself), I decided that to expand on that topic and write about the specific kind of wedding we’re having: modern, yet traditional; lavish, yet on a very tight budget.
So we hope it helps or inspires someone, but at the very least, we hope you don’t hate us.