So So Pretty!

And after stalking the tracking number for the dresses all week, I am so happy to report that the dresses are here! And they look incredible!!!

Here are some pictures I took!

Front of Watters BM Dress 8154 / Personal Picture

Back of Watters BM Dress 8154 / Personal Picture

Front of Watters BM Dress 9142 / Personal Picture

  

Detail Shot of Front of Watters BM Dress 9142 / Personal Picture

I'll tell you, these dresses look great! The colors match perfectly, even though they look different in these pictures.  My little point-and-shoot camera couldn't really capture the colors well.  

But, now all the girls have to do is get them altered, and then find some silver shoes to go with them!

I am so excited to see the girls in their dresses in 43 days!!!

And They're Off!

I just got an email from Weddington Way to let me know that my MOH and BM Dresses have shipped! I am so excited to get them in the mail! I will be receiving them, and after inspection, I will send them off to my girls. I can't wait to see pictures of them in them!

Woohooo!!!!!!

Order Submitted

You may be wondering why you haven't seen a post about ordering the MOH/BM Dresses..and that's because I was waiting for some good news.

FI and I decided early in our planning that we would be gifting the guys their suits, and the girls their dresses.  Yes, we understand that it is a very generous yet unnecessary thing to do, but it was something that we wanted to do.

Now, because my two girls live so far apart from me and each other, this made it very difficult to try dresses on.  So, I enlisted the help of the internet.

When I first got engaged, like almost everyone else in the wedding-world, changed my relationship status on Facebook to "Engaged."  As soon as that happened, all of the ads changed from social-related things to wedding-related things (and I'm sure that as soon as I change it from "Engaged" to "Married," everything will change to mom or baby-related things - pressure much?!).  One of the ads on the side was for Weddington Way, and featured a dress that I had been eyeing for a while from the Alfred Sung Collection.

So, I clicked over, signed up, looked around, and fell in love!

Now, if you aren't familiar with Weddington Way, they allow for you to search through dresses, choose your favorites, and send them off to your bridal party for them to vote.  So, I did just that.

Bridal Party Added into Weddington Way / Screenshot from Weddington Way (Edited for Privacy)

This was back in September, when I sent the dresses to my girls.  And then, Bridal Week happened in October, and there were all these new dress styles.  But, just after that, in November, I went dress shopping with my sister, MOH E, and she found one from the original list that she liked, and chose that one.

When I went dress shopping in December with BM A, she found one that wasn't on the list that she liked, but wasn't absolutely positive, so we went shopping again in April, and voila! Found one that wasn't on the list.

Now, while you may be saying to yourself, "well, she didn't really utilize Weddington Way at all," I actually did!

You see, I placed the order through them!  Since my girls are in different locations, and dresses should be ordered at the same time to come from the same dye lot, and the closest store to me is over an hour away, I decided that I would order the dresses online.

Weddington Way was so helpful in getting the dresses ordered, especially because one of the styles needed to be ordered in a different fabric and color, which made it a "special order" even though there was no upcharge.

The greatest part about ordering through them though, is that they send you an email every time the status of your order changed.  In the first few days after ordering, I got three emails - Order Received, Order Submitted, and In Production.  And that's where we stand now.

Order Status Page from Weddington Way / Screenshot from Weddington Way (Edited for Privacy)

I can't wait to see the next status change!

Have you received invites or seen ads for Weddington Way? Have you considered ordering your MOH/BM Dresses through them?


*I am not being compensated for this blog entry.  Weddington Way did not ask me to write about their services.

Bridal Reflections

From the title of this post, you may think that this is about me reflecting on being a bride. But, it's actually not.

Bridal Reflections is the name of the bridal shop I went to this past weekend in Massapequa, NY with BM A.  This store was great!

When I first called them, I was still in "search for dresses mode."  I called every bridal store that carried the Watters line within a half hour radius of BM A's house, trying to find out which store would work best for us.  I asked the consultant about some very specific style numbers from the Watters BM Dress Collection, and not only was she great, but she looked up all (9!) of them for me in her database.  They had three on site, which was the most I had been able to find at one store so far in my search.  

I decided to call the Carle Place location as well, to see if they had some additional style numbers, but unfortunately they did not.  I eventually called back to the Massapequa store and made my appointment for 1:30 on Saturday the 12th.  

BM A was able to get the four of us (FI and her husband included) tickets to a car show that Saturday morning, so we hung out there for a while since the weather was so nice.  After being outside in the heat for too long, we decided to grab some lunch, but after seeing how busy every single place was and not wanting to run late to our appointment, we thought we would just stop by Bridal Reflections to see if we could get in early.  At this point, it was 12:45, so we thought that we may just need to wait it out until 1:30.  When we got there, the place was packed, and there were bridal parties everywhere!  We walked up to the counter and told them that we had an appointment in 45 minutes, but were wondering if we could get in a little bit earlier. They said sure! They were able to accommodate us within ten minutes of our arrival, and not only that, but they also had all the style numbers I had previously told them on hold for me behind the counter.  They let us look around a little bit while they were preparing our room, then took what we found and what they were holding for us into a dressing room.

While we were trying the dresses on, the consultant left us alone, allowed us to make our own decisions, and just checked up on us every once in a while.  

And now to the pictures! The first dress that BM A tried on was Watters BM Dress 6478, and we liked the shape of this dress a lot, and the top was very flattering in the way that it criss-crossed. We kept this one on the list.

Watters BM Dress 6478 / Personal Picture

Next, BM A tried on the dress she originally tried on at the store in Connecticut. We still really liked this one, and actually liked it better than the first one, so we crossed that off the list.

Watters BM Dress 7111 / Personal Picture

This next dress was one that I absolutely loved online, and wish that I had an event to go to that way I could buy it and wear it!  Even though my MOH/BM will be in short dresses, I thought that this one could be cut shorter if it was chosen.  BM A tried it on and really liked it, but at this point, the consultant had come back to check on us.  She took a look at BM A in the dress, and said that it looked great, but that she thought I was going for short dresses, which is when I told her the plan for cutting it if we ordered it.  She said that this dress in particular is constructed in a way that when cut short, it doesn't open correctly at the bottom because of the way the side panels are sewn into the skirt.  So, even though we really loved this dress, it was unfortunately no longer a contender.  

Watters BM Dress 9113 / Personal Picture

This next dress was one that I really liked online, but wasn't sure how it would look in person.  BM A was a little hesitant to try it on at first, but obliged since I told her I really liked it. And turns out, she really liked it too! And, she liked it so much, that she chose this one! In the pictures below, it is shown with spaghetti straps, but A will actually wear it strapless.  

Watters BM Dress 9442 / Personal Picture

So with the dress chosen, we packed up our stuff and headed off to lunch. And, the best part? We walked out the door of the shop at the time our appointment was supposed to start! Unfortunately, though, there was a worst part...

See that chair in the last picture? Yeah, that's where I left my camera. But, there's a happy ending to this story, because I called the shop on Monday when I realized that my camera was missing, and they told me that it was turned in (NO WAY! This never happens!) and that they would hold it for me. When I said that I was hoping they could ship it, since I live in Rhode Island and they are in New York, they said they would, and wouldn't accept me paying for the shipping! How awesome!

So, thanks to Bridal Reflections, BM A has chosen her dress, and I got my camera back! Woohoo!

Pretty Camera! (Never leaving my sight again!) / Personal Picture

Has anyone else worked with Bridal Reflections before? Have you ever lost your camera? How did that pan out?

Um....Oops!

Well, sorry about being gone for a week! That was totally unexpected. I got so much done last week, and took tons of pictures, including two DIY's, and had every intention to post about them, and then that didn't happen.

This past weekend, we went to Long Island to see BM A and her husband, and get the final choice on her BM Dress.  We had a great weekend, although it was cut short by Mother's Day.

I still have every intention of posting about the dress and the DIY Projects I was doing last week, but I have had an oops moment...

I forgot the camera at the dress shop.  I realized this morning when I went to grab it out of my bag so I could get the pictures off of it that it was not in there. So I did what every bride and blogger who can't find their camera does: FREAK. OUT.

I searched everywhere, and then after thinking about the last place I had it, I immediately knew that I left it at the dress shop.

Luckily for me, this dress shop is open on Mondays (many in this area are closed on Sundays and Mondays) so I called two minutes after they opened, and they said that it was turned in.

WOW! Such a huge relief!

They said that they were going to mail it to me, so hopefully I get it some time this week.  Until then though, I'm going to have to come up with some non-Personal Picture posts to show you.

Any suggestions?

An Awesome BM

BM A is awesome. And she knows it, but she should.

When she was planning her wedding, I was living 1000 miles west of her.  Even though I was part of the bridal party, I was unable to make it to both her bridal shower and her bachelorette party since I was so far away and didn't have a lot of vacation time from work and one of the events coincided with FI's graduation from graduate school.  She understood completely, although she did wish I could have been there for the activities.

Now that I am planning my wedding and she has done hers, she knows what I am going through, and is trying to be as accommodating as possible.  BM A and her husband work crazy schedules and have a lot going on in their lives (including just buying a new house!), so I knew that getting them to visit for a weekend was going to be a difficult task.  We originally planned a weekend for October, then that fell through with our schedule. The weekend in November we planned after that fell through on both ends, so then we tentatively scheduled a weekend in early December.  And after thinking it wasn't going to work out, BM A rescheduled some things she had planned and devoted herself to me for the weekend. I am so glad that I have a friend that cares so much about my planning, especially since she just finished doing all of hers.  So finally, after some finagling about the time and place to meet, we met at a little bridal shop in Connecticut, and FI drove back to the house with BM A's husband.

The trip was primarily to get BM A to try on dresses in the same color and fabric that my MOH chose.  We found a few that could be contenders and tried them on.  Now, while I didn't care if my MOH and my BM chose the same dress, I wasn't expecting them to, so when the dress that my MOH chose didn't look right on my BM, I was fine with it.

BM A thinks that she found a dress, but since it didn't fit well, it was very hard to tell whether or not it was really the one.  We didn't end up getting any pictures of BM A in the dress, but here is the one that we think is it.  We don't need to order until the spring, so hopefully we can get together again to dress shop.

Watters Bridesmaid Dress 7111 / Personal Picture *Not in this color

After looking at the dresses for her, we decided to pull some dresses to try on for me.  They carried a lot of different designers, including Watters, and more specifically, the dress that I tried on by myself a few weeks ago.  

I tried on only dresses from the Watters collection, as that seems to be the designer that fits me the best.  The first one I tried on was suggested by the consultant because of the way that it sparkles, but I thought that it was too much for what I was looking for, and would have been better for a more formal wedding.  

Watters "Mackay" / Personal Picture

Next was an a-line with some light detailing on the skirt and a lace-like top. Since lace is a no-no, this one was tried on quickly, and taken off quickly too. Don't get me wrong, I really think this dress is pretty, but it's not me, and the tucks in the skirt just don't fall in the right spots for me.

Watters "Napa" / Personal Picture

I knew that lace was not something that I wanted in a wedding dress, but both the consultant and BM A wanted me to try on lace since not all lace is the same.  I obliged, and really liked the seamless bodice of this dress, instead of having a defined waistband, but thought it was missing something, so we added a belt and I liked it better. But, it was lace, and even though it was different from some of the other lace I tried on, I still didn't really care for it.

Watters "Devenport" with unknown belt / Personal Picture

We saved the best for last, the one I tried on by myself. I wanted to get someone else's opinion on this dress, and I thought that BM A would give me the truth.  She said that it looked beautiful, but that it was unexpected, and may be too conservative, but that if it was what I loved, that it would look perfect.  Here is the picture from my first time trying on this dress by myself, just as a reminder.

Watters "Sterling" / Personal Picture

We also decided that the waistband was in fact too thick, and that it would look much better if it were thinner.  I asked the consultant if she thought that it would be possible to make the waistband thinner, and she said that the designer wouldn't do that, but alterations could.  So, the head of alterations came up and we tried to figure out what the dress would look like with a smaller waistband, and I absolutely love it!

Watters "Sterling" with a smaller waistband / Personal Picture

So, what do you guys think about the smaller waistband?  Also, please keep in mind that this dress was a size 14, and was way too big in the bust, which is why it makes me look really broad.  Thoughts?

Strike a Pose

My MOH E lives in Indiana, and moved there when FI and I were moving back to RI, so we didn't get to see each other very much while we were temporarily living in the same state.  Now that we are further apart again, it is hard to do dress shopping and for her to help out with different parts of planning the wedding.

So, MOH E was going to be flying down to our parent's house in Georgia for Thanksgiving, so I called up a few shops earlier in the month to make appointments to try on dresses this weekend, since I wasn't sure if there was going to be any other time that we could do this.

There were quite a few dress shops that were going to be open this weekend, but the primary problem I ran into was that a lot of designers are releasing their 2012 collections, so the bridal shops are either returning the 2011 collections to the designers, or selling the samples off the rack in order to make room for the new dresses.  This was pretty devastating, as a lot of the stores that I had previously confirmed specific dress styles with no longer had them in the shop to try on.

But, we made do anyway, and MOH E got to try on a lot of dresses.  What you need to know about MOH E and I is that even though we are sisters, we are completely opposite from each other.  While I have no chest and huge hips, she has no hips and a huge chest.  However, she is taller than me, and weighs so little, that I knew everything was going to look good on her.  The issue was that it was very hard to see what the dresses would really look like since they were clipped so much in the back.  In addition to all that, she is goofy. And I mean really goofy. And she loves to talk, so it's going to be funny to see her mid-talking or making some goofy face in these pictures.

This first dress we thought was really cute, but agreed that the pleats at the waist only on the hip looked kind of silly. It was very comfortable though, very light, and the fabric fell nicely and the dress did come in the green that I was looking for.

Watters Wtoo BM Dress 784 / Personal Picture

This next one was similar in style to the first one that we tried on, except there were more pleats in the skirt, and it's actually a tri-color dress, so if I wanted, I could choose a different color for all three parts of the dress: bust, waistband, and skirt.  It also had straps, which MOH E preferred since her chest is so big, and she hates strapless bras.  

Watters WToo BM Dress 986 / Personal Picture

I wasn't able to get the designer of this dress, I just know that it's not a Watters dress.  This one was really cute, and had the option of being strapless or using spaghetti straps, which MOH E has on in this picture.  The dress was cute, but it didn't come in the right shade of green, and we weren't sure if the pleats being only in the center of the waist may look like she is hiding something, if you know what I mean.

Designer Unknown / Personal Picture

I have loved this dress since I first saw it on the Watters website. I think it is sophisticated enough for anyone to wear it, yet it's modern and stylish.  I really liked the way that it fit MOH E, but her concern was primarily with how she was or was not going to be able to move her arms up and down.

Watters BM Dress 4417 / Personal Picture

Watters BM Dress 4417 / Personal Picture

This next one I thought was very pretty, and really liked it in the black color, too.  It was strapless though, and while MOH E would have worn anything I asked her to, I wanted her to be comfortable in the dress, and that was my next highest concern to me liking the dress.

Watters WToo BM Dress 854 / Personal Picture *Mid-blink with a silly hand motion

I liked this dress a lot from the Watters website too.  It was very modern, yet somewhat conservative and classic.  The belt around the waist added a nice detail, the skirt was a nice shape, and the pleats at the bust-line added a nice touch.  When MOH E tried this dress on, she said, "Oh, wow! I didn't think I was going to like this. AND! It covers my knees!" MOH E really really really HATES her knees.  So, this was a definite plus. And to top it all off, it comes in the perfect shade of green.

Watters BM Dress 8154 / Personal Picture

Watters BM Dress 8154 / Personal Picture

We have a winner. MOH E decided to go with this last dress, Watters 8154. I am very happy with this choice, and I think she is going to be very comfortable in the dress, and even better? She is going to look beautiful!

After MOH E chose her dress, it was time for me to try some on.  MOH E and my mom really wanted to try to get me to look at other dresses, and more specifically, less expensive dresses, so I obliged, even though I didn't want to try any on.  But, you'll have to wait for the next post to see those. :) 

Was shopping for your MOH's dress an easy task? Were you as limited on time as we were?