Bridesmaid dress transformation done!

Finally got the chance to fit one of my bridesmaids into her dress to see what adjustments needed to be made.  Realized a couple things:

- skirt fit like a pencil skirt, therefore making it really difficult to walk freely or to bend over and pick anything up
- straps got in the way if you needed to put on the dress by stepping into it (couldn't put it over your head because the skirt was too small!)

Fix?  A slit in the back!  (Sorry, I forgot to take pictures of this).  But an easy fix that I totally didn't even think of until one of my bridesmaids suggested it.  Luckily, there was an existing seam right down the middle of the back of the dress that I was able to easily undo and rehem by hand.

Most of the kinks of the dress are worked out.  My last picky thing is that the front of the dress forms this kind of "pooch".  Darn that pooch!  So the girls will have to consistently pull down the skirt to make sure it's flat for photos or during the ceremony, etc. 

But I think for a $10 dress that turned into $28 after all the extra supplies still looks like a $100 dress to me.  I'm happy!

Wedding Attire Etiquette for Guests

I just felt the need to say something about this publicly.

Maybe not everyone knows it?

I actually didn't know it at first until my own fiance (then, boyfriend) asked me about not being able to wear white to a wedding.  So I looked it up on the internet and of course, everyone says it's just courteous.

So now, as a guest myself, I never go to a wedding wearing a white dress... or anything that might appear white (cream, beige, light gray, etc).  I even have dresses that aren't all white (they have a black sash), but I still just avoid wearing them to weddings.  Why try (or appear) to upstage the bride on her wedding day?

Even if the bride doesn't mind, someone gets offended, whether it's the mother-of-the-bride or someone else in the family.  Just don't do it!  You have plenty of other dresses in your closet.  Don't pick the white one.

So I can only HOPE... the guests at my wedding understand this etiquette.  Ladies... I ask that you please do not wear a white dress or a red ao dai on my wedding day.  And I hope you take this advice to other weddings you attend to in the future as well (unless if it's distinctly a black and white event, then that's okay).  Other brides will greatly appreciate it.

And just so it's not just me saying this, see what other brides are saying about it on weddingbee.

Silk Petals Alternative

So I was making more pillow covers, since I found some more 18" square pillows on the cheap for $2 at some 98cent bargain store near my gym (and I had extra fabric still too).

Remember these?

In the middle of cutting fabric from my purple leafy taffeta fabric... I realized I was cutting off and throwing away a LOT of these leaves... then I thought... WHY am I throwing them away?  They kind of make for interesting table confetti, don't they?

I have about a ziploc bag full of these now.  For the bride who doesn't need a lot of silk rose petals, this is a pretty good idea to save money and try to make use of ALL your materials. 

And we don't need a lot of rose petals for our wedding.  I definitely won't do any rose petals on the aisle floor of the ceremony venue (cuz who wants to clean ALL THAT up?!).  So I just need some petals for a little extra added decor as table confetti for the escort card table and maybe the cake table, kinda like below:

 

Then add some diamond confetti and I think I'm set!

BUT rose petals do look a bit better (curled edges and whatnot).  I still don't know if I want to use the taffeta leaves.  I can always get cheap rose petals on eBay.

FYI, 500 silk rose petals on eBay from China go for $3.99, free shipping.  And 1000 clear diamond confetti (10mm size) goes for $9.99 + free ship, also from China.  It's not much cost to give me peace of mind to make sure I have enough rose petals for everything!  It is a 300+ person wedding after all!  

DIY Digital Save-the-Dates

I only started to see the trend with save-the-dates a couple years ago.  I wonder how long this stuff has been going on with mailing out postcard save-the-dates and whatnot.  But seriously, when I first thought of it, I just thought it was kinda ridiculous to spend extra money on postage.  I'm already spending a buttload of money on stamps to mail out the actual invitation itself, why would I even want to spend MORE money to tell people to keep their calendars open on my wedding date 6 months in advance?

Sure, the save-the-date (STD) notion is a good idea.  BUT spending money on the postage to send them out isn't a good idea in my book (sorry, I'm just not that old-fashioned and I don't think any of the wedding invitees would care).  In this day and age, I find nothing wrong with doing things digital and doing it over the internet. 

That being said... I decided our STDs would be a digital photo of some sort and we'd email it out to all our friends!  Solves the problem of postage!  Woohoo!

I'll be honest and say that I wasn't completely original with the idea of our STDs.  But apparently the people on Pinterest thought it was unique!  Ha!  Woopsie. 

And of course, if you know me and Mat, then you'd understand the significance of photobooths to us (first kiss, proposal... yadda yadda yadda).

This idea seemed easy enough:
- Camera?  I'm a photographer, duh.  check!
- Chalkboard? Bought it at JoAnn's Fabrics.  check!
- Chalk?  Got some chalk from a friend who's a teacher.  (Thanks MyLinh!)  check!
- Backdrop?  That would require some creativity, but... check!






So we had to be a bit innovative for our backdrop.  We were doing this at Mat's house.  I wanted something bold like the red curtain in the above example.  But we didn't have any red curtains.  I actually wanted to use a dark brown curtain that I have in my room, but I forgot to bring it.  So we had to work with what we had.

Debated on using plantation shutters as a backdrop.  But it was too boring or plain to me.  Especially with the white.

After browsing around Mat's house for potential backdrops... looking at his mom's bedroom curtains (which had a pattern), to his sisters' bedroom walls painted red and another blue... we decided on Mat's shower curtain:

Hm yes... I think this will work!

But Mat's shower curtain is a bit neutral.  Soooo... we'll contrast it with his sister's red leather wingback chair!  Put it all together and we've got our makeshift photo studio!

All this was set up in Mat's sister's room... while she out.  Haha, she didn't know we were doing this until we posted pictures later.

This would have been a lot easier if I had a remote for my camera.  But no remote, so it was a lot of going back and forth with the camera set on timer.  Here are a few okay pictures from our photo shoot that we didn't use:

So with a little bit of editing, cropping, and more photoshopping... we got this for our digital STD!

And I also love Mat for his spirit.  After our photo shoot was done, I said, "Okay!  Torture over!"

He said, "Torture?  But that was fun!"

Ah, I love him.


I've already started to send out the STD as well.  And we've gotten back some replies from friends saying this is the cutest thing ever.  Haha... it's funny, but I'm glad I'm doing something a little different from the norm (even though our idea wasn't really that original).  But it's unique if our guests haven't seen it!

Cost of this project: less than $3 (for the chalkboard)

Check out my loot!

Most brides know that vases are EXPEEEENSIVE!  Few brides know that you can find them for cheap.  But you have to hunt.  And you need to give yourself time.  And you have to be quick about it too.  A lot of it is luck, so you have to be patient.

I need to find vases for an assortment of things, but the most important are the centerpieces.  I didn't want vases of all sorts of shapes and sizes either.  I want them to be consistent.  Specifically, my vision is to have half tall trumpet vases (15 or more) and half short square vases (15 or more).  But if I found a good deal on Craigslist for say tall cylinder vases, I'd be willing to settle for that too.

My friend Lan-Anh, a previous bride back in October 2011, told me she got her 20" tall trumpet vases in downtown LA for $7.  That's a really good deal, but her husband said you have to wheel and deal a bit to get that price.  So even then, it wasn't a guaranteed price.  But that became my frame of reference.  It was either find vases for cheaper than $7 or bust.

I began my hunt when we decided we needed vases and dishes for the candy table.  That's easy.  Candy table vases are meant to be a variety and I could easily hit up the thrift stores for that.

My first thrift store visit was the Salvation Army store in Buena Park on Stanton:

Woohoo!  Found a square vase to use for the centerpieces!  And the fishbowl is good for the candy table.

My second thrift store run was during a long lunch break.  Randomly found a thrift store across the street from where I was pumping gas.  Took a look around Sav-Mor Thrift Store in Anaheim and got this:

This was the only vase so far where I've had to pay tax.  Kinda silly to pay tax to a thrift store, but whatever.  The vase is good for the candy table.  Not too tall -- 9.5".  

I've been scouring craigslist for a good deal on leftover vases from weddings.  Whenever I find the ones at great prices for $5, they're always taken by the time I reach the seller.  This time I got lucky.  Twice.  

I found 12 6-inch square vases selling for $5 each!  

Bought them from a mother-of-the-bride from Irvine.  She was so sweet.  Even offered me wedding help if I needed it.  After she helped me load my car with all the vases, she even gave me a hug before I left!  

 I found 20" tall trumpet vases for $5 each!

And yes, they were $5 each originally.  But upon inspection when I got home, one of the vases had a crack!  I told the seller and she offered me a partial refund!  Sent me a check for $8!  I don't know why she sent $8 and not $5, but whatever.  Now I have 13 intact trumpet vases averaging out to $4.77 each.

I thought I was a bit late to respond to this Craigslist listing too.  But lucky me, the seller still had the vases.  I hadn't even realized she was selling two different kinds though (notice one with the rim?).  Maybe that's why she still had them.  She had 8 with rim, 6 without rim.  I asked my florist friend Thi if she could work with them and she said she'd try to make it work.  It was a tad inconvenient to pick up too.  The seller was all the way in Monrovia and she worked late hours!  Eventually we agreed for a Saturday morning pick-up.  I have work at 9am on Saturdays so I had to wake up at 6am to meet her at her house by 7:30am to get the vases.  Then got home to unload them before I had to go to work that day.

I'm almost set on centerpiece vases.  I've got 15 square vases so far (I already had 2 from a previous friend's wedding where Mat and I looted 2 of their centerpieces).  And now I've got 13 tall vases!  If we have 30 tables, I still need 2 more vases... and still possibly more because I'm sure there will be more than 300 people at the wedding.

Over the weekend, Mat and I decided to go around more thrift stores.  Lucky us, Salvation Army Family Stores were having a 50% off sale!  Half off already dirt cheap prices!  HECK YEAH!

All that for $8!  (SA Family Store in Huntington Beach on Beach Blvd)

$4.90 paid at the Fountain Valley Salvation Army Family Store

 I was so proud of this loot that weekend.  6 vases for under $13!

Then during my lunch break at Long Beach work, I walked to the nearby Out of the Closet thrift shop on PCH.  

Stoked that I found that giant wine glass vase for only $3 (totally awesome for jelly bellies), but even more ecstatic that they had the exact same 6" square vase I need for centerpieces for $5.50!

Now I need at least one more centerpiece vase to make my minimum 30.  But will most likely still need more.  I'm still gonna hit up the thrift shops and check out craigslist for them.  Stay tuned for more loot!

Pillows, pillows, pillows

Per the discussion with our reception venue coordinator, we get to have a complimentary cocktail lounge area for the extra unused space at our large reception hall (as long as we have minimum 30 tables -- shouldn't be a problem).  She said they have sofas for us for the cocktail lounge.

Sooo... with sofas, Mat and I thought it'd be nice if we jazz it up a bit with some pops of color with some pillows!  Sounds easy... I actually have LOADS of toss pillows I've collected from IKEA (from trying to decorate my NY and LA apartments in the past).  While they vary in color (I've got red, yellow, blue, green, and pink), it's pretty easy to just make pillow covers with any fabric of my choice to cater to whatever I need it to coordinate with.

First I made my rounds to the local OC fabric shops to look for fabric.  But the fabrics I was interested in were so expensive at $14/yard!  That's ridiculous.  This time, I think a trip to downtown LA fabric district was worth the extra commute.

My mom decided to come with me and we made a morning trip out of it.  I got three fabrics that I needed:

  Silver pintuck taffeta $4/yd
Purple taffeta $1.50/yd
Purple leafy taffeta $7/yd

Plus I got zippers for 25 cents each!

After one evening of sewing (my least favorite part is sewing around zippers... I still don't know what I'm doing with zippers but I usually just wing it and it works out), I made 4 new pillow covers!  And I still have lots of fabrics leftover actually to make more!

I do have 3 more fuschia colored pillows to use so that gives me about 7 pillows in total to use for the cocktail lounge area.  It might be enough, but if I run across any more cheap pillows I can cover, I'll make some more with my leftover fabric.  

Cost of project: $15

4 zippers: $1

Silver pintuck taffeta: $4

Purple taffeta (2 yards): $3

Leafy purple taffeta: $7

4 toss pillows: free (had on hand already)

Time spent: 1 day

Bridesmaid dresses

My original budget for 4 bridesmaids was $50 per dress. This doesn't sound like a lot to some people, but it's because I'm paying for all the dresses and accessories myself. The only thing I expect my bridesmaids to be responsible for are their shoes.




My other issue with the dresses was the shade of purple. At first I didn't want to be picky about any exact shade of purple to make it easier on myself. But the future mother-in-law has this concern about our wedding color of purple often being perceived as a somber color. Thus, I felt the need to put the girls in a bright purple color. I fell in love with this dress on the left here, which I could get at near wholesale price through hookups, but it was questionable... I had no idea when and if the dresses would be available. So I told myself if I found a deal on my own, I wouldn't pass it up.









One day, I walked into the Forever 21 at Anaheim Plaza, where they have the biggest clearance ever. And I actually found dresses in the perfect shade of orchid purple that I wanted and for only $10 each! It was the perfect color, perfect price, but not quite the perfect silhouette. Could this be a DIY project I could do?

The dress looks not too bad on me. But I'm short and I had one of my taller girls try on the dress and it was definitely too short for my liking.

I played around in photoshop and did some mockups of what I could do to the original dress to see if my girls would approve. It was also a concern of how I would cover up the seam line on the hem addition on the skirt.

The votes went for black sash with either #2 or #5. I opted not to do #5 because a large block of black fabric might be hard if I couldn't find a fabric similar in texture. So #2 it is!

I bought three extra dresses to take apart and use for fabric. Those were more expensive because two of the three I bought were $13.50 since they had size large (more material!) for me to take apart.

Here are the extra dresses deconstructed. Made me quite nervous! Hoping that I didn't just make a mistake in my decision to do this!

I decided to tackle what I thought was going to be the most difficult: the hem.  The hem was pretty easy (even though I had to redo it a little bit later to taper the dress in).  The straps, which I thought was going to be easy was really the HARDEST thing to do!  But they're done!

And of course, I made sashes.  Sashes were so easy.... I felt like a sash making beast after I had finished my own sash!

So I originally wanted to add 2 black stripes at the bottom:

Seam or stripes?

 By popular vote from friends, I decided to not add stripes and just keep the seam showing.

Not bad, right?  I also bought rhinestone brooches to go on the sashes as well.  All that's left to do is get all the girls fitted so I can properly attach the straps to the dresses.

Cost of this project:  Under $30 per dress

Dresses: $9.99 x 5 plus tax (1 extra to take apart)

2 extra dresses for more scrap fabric: $13.50 x 2 plus tax

Fabric to make sashes: $4
Extra sewing materials (thread, fusible interfacing): $4
Brooches (5-pack): $25 on eBay
Time spent: 2 months on and off
Money saved: $85 under budget

They may not be as nice as the above dress that was made especially for wedding occasions.  But I think I managed to have bridesmaids dresses that fit the look I wanted and are well within my budget so I can afford to buy the girls accessories AND nicer bridesmaids gifts.