I went on my first wedding dress shopping excursion today–well, not really so much excursion, but a whirlwind fiasco. After cleaning all morning, I almost forgot about the appointment until fifteen minutes beforehand, so I took the fastest shower known to man and drove over. Luckily, the shop was only 5 minutes away. Of course since I was unprepared, guess who came along? Absolutely no one!

So it turns out that bringing somebody else is very necessary when looking for a wedding dress. Some of the dresses were absolutely huge! I was assigned my own consultant there, but it can be uncomfortable getting dressed/undressed in front of someone you just met so I tried to do as much as possible on my own. So there were a couple of times I was in serious danger of suffocating myself (just picture a half-undressed bride-to-be passed out amidst a pile of tulle). The shop was busy because it was a trunk show and so they were nice but a little rushed. I got a couple of dress styles to keep in mind but no winners yet.

Since I can’t show a pics of the potential dresses, here is one I did try on but won’t be choosing: 

We’re still interviewing wedding coordinators, and we met another one today. I do enough coordination at my job that we’ve decided to at least hire a day-of coordinator.

If you are registering for wedding gifts, it looks like registering at Home Depot is a bad idea. I guess Home Depot is slow or unable to remove items from your wedding registry for some reason. A Home Depot customer registered for an item on the list, and then later decided that they wanted a different item, so they changed the registry. Then, after they changed the registry, somebody was able to order the original item off the list. So, even though it wasn’t exactly the item wanted, the customer tried to remove the new item. Of course, five days later, someone else was able to buy the deleted item. The best part is Home Depot’s response: regift the item. So, if you are going to register somewhere, I would recommend doing so with a company that actually understands customer service.

This is a pretty neat looking Super Mario themed wedding cake. There’s a lot of detail on the cake, it really feels like they captured “look” of the game really well. The full picture set is here.

I went to the Bride Ideas Wedding Show at University Village today with some friends. This by far has been my favorite wedding show to date. It wasn’t too big and overwhelming like the Seattle Wedding Show, but still had very talented and quality vendors there. My friends didn’t mind going there either since they had a lot of freebies: samples from Kiehl’s and Aveda, a cookie cutter from Mrs. Cook’s, and chocolates from Fran’s Chocolates (I even got to talk to Fran Bigelow herself–I think it was Fran…she LOOKED like Fran…oh well, anyway, gotta love those chocolates of hers).

All of us crafty girls of course had to stop at the Impress booth. They had some really creative favor packaging and the ladies there were sooo nice. They kept offering to hold up samples so I could take pictures. One couple that liked coffee had a cute idea of filling a vial with ground coffee and labelling it “The Perfect Blend”.

Chris and I are winding down with choosing vendors, with the major ones left including day-of wedding coordination and flowers. The booth for the Simply Wed Coordinator Kirstie Warren was one of the prettiest with flower arrangements by Laurie Cinotto (see below), and just the right colors–pink and brown! The flowers from Flora Nova were also great. She had a large, round glass vase with orchids spiraling around inside and flowers on top. I should have taken a picture of those. After milling around, watching the fashion show, and stuffing ourselves with cake and appetizers everyone agreed it was a success. ~Carmel

I didn’t even know there WAS a contest. Like the Duck Tape Brand Duct Tape Prom Dress contest, you can admire the craftsmanship of these dresses, I guess. The whole thing just seems weird though. Anyway, the winner is…

Well, we got the postcard yesterday. We weren’t selected to go into the contestant pool for Who Wants To Be a Millionaire. Carmel thinks its because we’re too boring. I think its because they were convinced we would win a million dollars and they just didn’t want to give it to us. At least, that’s what I tell myself at night so I can get to sleep. Anyway, this just means that we’re probably not going to be able to get Cirque Du Soleil to perform at the reception, and the parade of rare animals from the church to the reception won’t happen. This also means I’ll have to fall back on plan B in the wedding finance department, busking at the Pike Place Market. While my skills with the paper horn and autoharp leave a lot to be desired, I thought I might be able to wear a sandwich board offering to answer computer support questions for money.