Bridal Accessories

I'm really struggling with what to do about accessories, guys.  Do I wear a necklace, earrings, bracelet, right-hand ring, a belt, and a flower in my hair?  Do I eliminate the necklace? Do I forgo the right-hand ring? HELP PLEASE!!!!!

Here's a little information to help you help me decide :)

For my 18th (I stand corrected - it was my 21st) birthday, my sister got me a gorgeous pair of diamond drop earrings. I only break them out for really special occasions, since they're too fancy for everyday wear. Unfortunately, I can count how many times I've worn them on one hand.

So, to get that number over the one-hand-count, I've decided to wear them for the wedding.  They are beautiful, and even though she will be standing next to me as my MOH, I cannot imagine not having some part of my sister with me that day.

Diamond Drop Earrings / Personal Picture

Diamond Drop Earrings / Personal Picture

Diamond Drop Earrings / Personal Picture

Next, I will be wearing a flower in my hair, which is being made by my mother. I will also we wearing a belt around my natural waist, so there will be some embellishment there as well.

I do not plan on wearing my engagement ring on my right hand during the ceremony, and will instead remove it for the putting-on-of-the-wedding-band part of the ceremony, and then put it right back on after.  That being said, I will be wearing a ring on my right hand.  My everyday right-hand ring is a simple sterling silver hammered metal band:

Sterling Silver Hammered Metal Band 

(No idea why it looks like yellow gold. It's definitely not. I HATE yellow gold.) / Personal Picture

I'm not sure if I should go with that, since it is really who I am, or if I should do something a little more ornate, like these, which I bought off of Amazon, and would be worn stacked:

 Sterling Silver Sapphire CZ Eternity Ring / Image from Amex Jewelry, Amazon

Sterling Silver Clear CZ Eternity Ring / Image from Amex Jewelry, Amazon

Or this, which I bought off of HauteLook:

Sterling Silver Sapphire CZ with Clear CZ Half Moons / Image via Dillards 

I also have been thinking about wearing something on my wrist, but I am unsure of what style to go with.  I was thinking something along the lines of this:

Blue Nile Bezel Set Diamond Bracelet / Screen Shot from Blue Nile

Or...

Blue Nile Diamond Tennis Bracelet / Screen Shot from Blue Nile

But! Since the beginning of planning our wedding, I have been obsessed with this bracelet:

Alexandra Hart Leaf Cuff Bracelet / Image from Alexandra Hart

This bracelet is gorgeous, and fits our theme perfectly. I mean, seriously. It could not be more perfect...unless it was half the price.  And, yes, I know that the Blue Nile pieces above are so much more expensive, however, I wouldn't be buying real diamonds. Only using those pictures for style references. I'm not made of money, unfortunately.  

Lastly, I have the dilemma of choosing to wear a necklace. While you don't know the neckline of my dress, because I haven't told you what dress I have chosen, please offer me some advice as to wearing a necklace.  

Should I go with a necklace? Should I splurge and buy that bracelet?? Which ring(s) should I wear???

Please help! I need help!!!

So Much for Shopping

Well, shopping for the men's attire this weekend didn't happen, unfortunately, so we will have to keep an eye out for the next BOGO sale at Men's Wearhouse and make sure we go. Not sure how many more of those will happen before the wedding, but we definitely want to take advantage of those.

In the meantime, however, I think I finally found the men's ties.  I have been shopping online for months now, looking for ties, and have not been successful in finding anything.

The thing is, I wanted the ties to match for 3 different people: Groom, BM/GM, and my dad. And by match, I don't mean that they will all be in the same color. I mean that I want the ties to be all the same pattern, but different colors.

I decided a while ago that FI was going to wear yellow, since that is his favorite color.  To match my MOH/BM, the BM/GM would wear green ties, and then my dad would wear orange, since that is my favorite color, and a color my mom looks great in (more on her dress in a few weeks - we haven't exactly gotten that one figured out yet).

So, I searched and searched and searched.  And then I searched some more, becuase the problem I was having was that I could find the same tie in two of the colors I wanted, but there was always one missing.

Like this:

Image via Nordstrom / Woven Silk Tie

Image via Nordstrom / Woven Silk Tie

Available in orange and yellow, but not green. 

This is what I have been finding for months, until now.

I finally found a tie that comes in the colors that I need, so I ordered them.

Screenshots via Bealls Florida / Rooster Large Neon Plaid Tie

The colors look really bright on the computer, but I can return the ties if we don't like them. I'm just waiting on them to come in now.  And, I am also waiting on the swatch from the BM Dress designers, so I can compare the greens. I doubt that they are going to match perfectly, but I think that as long as they don't clash too much, that we'll stick with these.

I think they're kind of funky and cool.  What are your thoughts?  Are you color coordinating your groom and groomsmen? And, is it weird that I want my dad to match even though he's not technically a part of the wedding party?

My SUPER long tresses

I have a slight attachment to my hair.  If you know me in real life, you will know that I've had my ups and downs with hair cuts.  When I was in sixth grade, I cut my hair to be chin-length and loved it, but I couldn't pull it back to play sports, so I needed to grow it a bit longer.  In eighth grade, I made a new friend who had layers cut in her hair, and it looked great, so I told my mom that's how I wanted my hair cut. So, the day before picture day, we went to the salon and had my hair cut. Worst decision ever. The haircut came out terrible. It seriously looked like a lion's mane. And it's captured in my eighth grade picture. Awful. And embarrassing. But at least now I can look back at it and laugh - but that doesn't mean that I'm going to be posting pictures of it.  Sorry!

Anyway, since then, I haven't really done much with my hair, but mostly because I'm afraid to let anyone touch it. Even family, because my mom cut my eyelid open trying to trim my bangs when I was in fourth grade.  Yeah, I'm not making this up - I really have had bad experiences.

I did go a few more times to get my hair cut, but the nice thing was that my hair was starting to get curly.  My dad used to have an awesome Napoleon Dynamite fro in high school, and my mom has very fine but curly hair, so I figured that I would end up with curly hair at some point, but up until high school, my hair was pretty straight.  I had my hair cut my senior year in high school, and it looked pretty good, and this cut actually made my hair curlier, which I liked a lot.

Senior High School Picture Circa 2003 / Courtesy of Mare Studios

When I went to college, I started playing field hockey, and with having my hair tied back all the time, I didn't really care to get it cut.  So, my hair got pretty long, as evidenced below:

Long straightened hair, driving my remote control Hummer, which had a camera on the dash so I could see where I was going on the remote - This thing was awesome, and I used to drive it into other people's dorm rooms and freak them out. Hilarious. / Personal Picture

My sister, MOH E, decided to go to cosmetology school after she graduated high school, and so to practice, we decided to dye my hair blonder, using a box color.  This was a terrible idea, and I ended up wearing a hat for an entire week, as parts of my hair were blonde, some were white, and some were orange. It was a week before Thanksgiving break, a few weeks after the above picture was take, so my sister picked me up from college and brought me to the hairdressers to get this mess taken care of.  Here is evidence of the box color:

Super blonde fake almost orange straightened hair with my yellow lab - we match...wow. / Personal Picture

So, I got that fixed, and since then, I've only done a few things to my hair.  That was the only time I colored my hair, and since then, all the color has grown out.  So, my hair has been long forever - in fact, FI has only known me with long hair.  Right now, after cutting seven inches off this past Thanksgiving, my hair is currently down to the top of my pants, length wise.  I am starting to think about different hairstyles for the big day, and while I have some in mind, I'd like to hear your opinions.  Do you think I should wear it up or down? Curly? Done nicely or somewhat loose?

And what for my eyes?

So, glasses or contacts?

That's the debate we are currently having. If you remember our engagement pictures, both FI and I have glasses on.  When we first started dating, we both wore contacts. As we got more comfortable with each other, and more lazy, we started wearing our glasses more.  When I started my first full-time job, it required getting up pretty early, and I decided that I would rather have a few extra minutes of sleep and wear my glasses than get up a little earlier to let my eyes wake up before putting in contacts.  This turned into wearing glasses full-time, and I have done this for the last three and a half years, and so has FI.

Now, both of our prescriptions have changed and neither of us have contacts that would work for us, so we are trying to decide whether or not to gradually get ourselves back into wearing contacts or just to stick with glasses. Honestly, I'm not all that happy with the way my face looks right now with the weight I have gained over the last few years, so I'm not sure I would want to wear contacts, but I'm also not sure I want to wear glasses. It kind of seems like I would be hiding behind them.  But, then again, everyone has known me with glasses full-time for the last three and a half years. So would changing from glasses to contacts by kind of "not me?"

What are your thoughts? Have you been in this position, deciding between glasses and contacts for the big day? What are the pros and cons you have weighed? Help, please!

Shoesies for my toesies

I don't wear heels. You must understand that from the start. I own two pairs, they are both black, and one is a sandal, the other is a pump. They are max two inches tall each. That's about as high as I can go, and they both have chunky heels.  I fractured my ankle and pulled a bunch of stuff in it my freshman year of college, and while my ankle is stronger now after physical therapy, it's still not the same. But more so, heels just aren't my thing. I like to be comfortable, they just aren't to me.  So, I typically wear either flats or sneakers.

A few years ago, I was looking for a pair of white flats. I went to Payless and found a really cute pair by the American Eagle brand for Payless, so I bought them.  I wore them almost every day that spring and summer, and they got pretty torn up.  So, when I found them still listed on the Payless site, I ordered three more pairs. I decided that I would wear down the two extra pairs, and that I would keep the other pair in its original packaging and wear for the wedding.  I knew that they were comfortable, and they were cute.

Image via Wedding Obsession / American Eagle for Payless - Millie in White *Shoes have been retired from Payless Website

After reading countless wedding blogs, I noticed the trend of wearing colored shoes under your wedding dress. I absolutely loved this idea, but I had to make sure that the shoes were going to be comfortable, and shoes that I would wear again.  About a year later, I came across a blog post with an adorable pair of yellow shoes with teal soles. I contacted the blogger, and she found out who made them: Gavrielli.

Image via Design Sponge

I found the website for the shoes, immediately fell in love, and since they were a new designer, they were having a promo. So, I contacted the company and ordered a pair in yellow, as pictured above, and a pair in orange - my favorite color.  They shipped that afternoon, and I received them in the mail two days later. I opened the box to find the most beautiful packaging! It was absolutely gorgeous, and tucked inside was a handwritten note from the owner with her personal email address to contact her in case there were any issues.

And, I did just that - I contacted her. Primarily to tell her how gorgeous both the packaging and the shoes were, but also to help with an exchange, as the shoes were just a tad bit too small.  She said she would send out the new pair right away, and I could keep the too small ones to make sure that the new ones fit better and I didn't want to revert, and then told me to mail back the ones I didn't want after, using the prepaid return address label. 

I'm telling you, the customer service was incredible! And I'm not being paid or compensated to write this. It really was this good.

The new size fit perfectly, so I sent back the too small shoes, and thanked the owner again by email.  So, here are the shoes that I bought:

Image via Tieks / Tangerine Tieks

Image via Tieks / Mustard Yellow Tieks

So, I love this shoes so much, and I cannot recommend them more.  Therefore, I have decided that I will be wearing the orange ones under my dress on the day of the wedding. They are comfortable, cute, and stylish, and I cannot wait to have that peek of color under my white dress.

PS - Since then, I have also ordered both the Clover Green and Navy Tieks, and when the weather is nice out, I wear them to work. I cannot wait for it to get nice out, as I have tons of outfits planned with these colorful accessories.  Now I just have to keep the orange ones in tip-top shape for the wedding. That may be hard considering I want to wear them every day!