...And you can totally shorten the dress and turn it into a cocktail dress!

When I first asked one of my dear friends to be a bridesmaid, she happily agreed. She excitedly asked me about a few details of the wedding then asked, "Have you seen the movie 27 Dresses? If you haven't, go watch it and remember that your bridesmaids are supposed to be your friends."

Keeping in mind that I want my bridesmaids to be happy with what they were wearing, especially since they are shelling out their own money to pay for these dresses, I tried to keep them full updated. I also wanted them to have a say in every aspect of the wedding that was going to affect them -- the dresses being one of these major points.

I thought it was going to be difficult because my four bridesmaids are so completely different from each other in skin color, hair color, taste and style. I figured that the dress style wouldn't be an issue because I was going to pick a color and let them pick their own dresses. I was, however, concerned about the color. Originally, I planned to pick one color and fabric and let each bridesmaid pick whatever style they wanted (with my approval, of course!). But then, when I went into David's Bridal to look for wedding dresses, I saw a manequin using two colors for the bridesmaid dress and fell in love. It's called Dress Up Your Dress

Source: David's Bridal

The dress in the shop was a beautiful chocolate color with pink accents and really caught my eye even though I wasn't interested in those colors! I ended up buying some fabric swatches in the colors that I liked, took pictures of them (because the colors online and in the catalog look tons different than in person!) and e-mailed them to my bridesmaid and told them all to pick a color (or two) and I would go with the majority.

Turns out there were 3 votes for pewter and 3 for serene (I have four bridesmaids) which made my decision super easy. Luckily for me, it was my favorite color combination too! While I waited for my bridesmaids to e-mail me back with their choices, I was secretly wishing for either serene with capri or serene with pewter. I didn't want to influence their choices at all so I kept silent until they each got back to me. When my last bridesmaid called to tell me her favorites (she liked serene with capri and serene with champagne then said, "I guess I just really liked serene,") I seriously squealed with delight. "That was my favorite too!" I replied, happily.

I wanted either all four of my bridesmaids to have the same color dress with the other color as the accent or have 2 girls wear serene dresses with pewter accents and 2 do the opposite. I was afraid that 3 and 1 might look a little weird (especially since I'm not having a maid of honor) and again lucked out -- 2 wanted serene as the main color of the dress and 2 wanted pewter.

I absolutely love how you can personalize these dresses by picking either a cuff, sash or peek-a-book skirt (or a combination of these accents)! (The serene color is much closer to a teal and darker in person.) I sincerely hope that my bridesmaids really can wear these again...

DIY Flowers

Real Simple is my savior. I should really think about getting a subscription of it next year (after we're done saving for the wedding and honeymoon) because there are always tons of great tips -- from cooking to cleaning to gift ideas -- I love the unique ideas they have and how simple it all seems.

My current favorite Real Simple project? Turning ordinary supermarket flowers into a bridal boquet! Now, I knew from the start that I was going to do my own flowers because they are so expensive to get them from a florist. Upwards of $200 for just the bridal bouquet and I'd much rather reallocate that money and put it toward our photographer. Wedding budgets are really all about prioritizing -- photography was our top priority and flowers were close to our last priority, but that's just worked for us.

Anwyay, I was a bit terrified about DIYing my own flowers because I have no experience with floral arranging. Real Simple, though, makes it seem so easy and other bloggers have inspired me that one can do her own flowers!

Turn this:



















From Real Simple

Into this:

From Real Simple

There's also a great video tutorial on about.com on how to do your own wedding flowers. When it gets closer to our wedding date, I'll do a test run and post pictures!

Shopping at Michael's, One Week at a Time

Because we have a pretty limited budget, we decided to do as many DIY projects as possible. We want to do our invitations, reply cards, programs, bouquets, reception decorations (including table cloths), aisle runner, accessories (such as jewelry, garter and veil) and possibly even food items ourselves or through the help of friends and family. Also, we agreed to go to Michael's once a week and buy one item at a time (or two if I can drag Fiance with me) with the 40% off coupons that we get with our newspaper each week. Sounds like a plan, yes?

Here's what we've learned.

First, it's not really necessary to hunt down the Michael's coupon each week in our throw-away mail or newspaper. Turns out every time you make a purchase from Michael's, along with your receipt comes a coupon to use for the following week. Sometimes the coupon is 40% or 50% off any single item or occassionally you get a 20% off entire purchase coupon. Personally, I much perfer the single item coupons because I don't mind picking up one item at a time.

Second, Saturday afternoons in the month before Christmas are a terrible time to make your weekly stop at Michael's. I went there yesterday to return a rotary paper cutterthat I bought from Michael's on Black Friday (it was a great deal! It was regularly priced at $70, but was selling for $30 and then I used a 20% off coupon so I got it for $24...but then I decided I really wanted a guillotine cutter instead and will pay the extra $ for what I really want) and buy some silver ink. After battling a Ford Ranger who did NOT want to let me merge into his lane, I get to the parking lot and . . . what?! No parking spaces?! Now, other than Black Friday at 8 a.m., I've only been to this particular Michael's on weekdays either in the early morning or early afternoon and have easily found parking immediately adjacent to the door. Turns out, the story is quite different on the weekend. Ordinarily I would've said "Screw it!" and come back midweek, but I was meeting one of my bridesmaids so we could decide exactly what design we were going to use for my wedding invites. Michael's is indeed a madhouse with the line snaking through the holiday stocking stuff displays, past the cardstock, and halfway through the back of the store. Yeah, definitely not going back there on a weekend, at least not in the month of December.

Third, not all Michael's are created equal. The Michael's closest to where we're currently living has a woefully small paper-product (i.e. scrapbooking) section (and instead is replaced with a ginormous Crayola section for 7 year olds). Sad. Which means every time I visit my old stomping grounds (really only about half an hour away) I must stop into Michael's there.

Fourth, seasonal sales clerks are no help at all. I actually understand this one having worked a number of retail jobs throughout high school and college. Seasonal employees are there only to help with the huge crowds, they get hired in November or so and don't have a lot of time to learn the store, hey often don't care about customer service because they have no real ties to the company. Even so, I get a teensy bit frustrated by the blank stares I get when I ask for help. "Excuse me, but do you know where your envelopes are?" *Blank stare* "Hi, can you help me find your paint pens?" *Blank stare* Worse still is when I get a similar response from an assistant manager: "Excuse me, but do you know where I could find flat glass ornaments to decorate?" I asked, showing him a picture of what I want. *Blank stare* accompanied by, "Uh...if it's not on the shelf, then we probably don't have it." Wonderful.

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Items that I'm looking to buy from Michael's in the next couple months: guillotine paper cutter, cardstock, envelopes, ribbon, eyelets, hole punch, floral wire, double-sided sticky tape, ink...