I had been planning on adding a colored sash to my wedding dress similar to Barbie here (minus the embroidery at the ends). Later, I was horrified to find out that the sash I had been using at my dress fittings (a 4 1/2-yard length of ribbon from Monique Lhuillier), was $240! I just about keeled over. I vaguely remembered reading from my trusty reference, theknot.com message boards, that you could buy ribbon from a local craft store or online for less.

After making some inquires at a local ribbon store and looking at their special-order ribbon book, I found what I think is the exact same ribbon (from the satin material , double-facing,  and even down to the color names!) from a brand named Morex. You could special order a 27-yard spool for $69 + tax. I really think is the same brand that Monique Lhuillier uses and then she just charges about 4x more. Talk about wedding mark-up! Sorry Monique, I’m letting your secret out! I bought a length of it from a place on E-bay, but you could also buy it from online stores like romanticflowers.com . Hmm…I am scared to think how much the embroidered ribbon would have cost.

A gaming nerd couple is using MiiSculptures to top their wedding cake. An interesting idea, and certainly far better than a Luke & Leia cake topper.

This is one of the times you should be truthful when someone asks: “Do you think it’s too much?”

In our wedding cake search, Chris and I were hoping to get our cake done by a pastry chef that we loved, Sue McCown. We learned about her when she was a pastry chef at Earth & Ocean where she had some really fun and imaginative dessrts. When we heard that she recently opened up a dessert lounge and wholesale business called CoCo La Ti Da, we of course had to go see if she did wedding cakes, which she did.

We met Sue and we were happy that the price she quoted was pretty reasonable. However, despite great reviews from The Seattle Times and Seattle Weekly, we were disappointed to hear that the business closed. In our minds it certainly wasn’t due to the food, which was great.

Instead for cake, we’ll probably going with Mike’s Amazing Cakes. They make a really yummy buttercream frosting (from scratch) and have great filling flavors like Orange Peach Shnapps and Almond Roca. He is also a great cake designer, although we’ll probably go with something simple.

After much shopping and debate, the bridesmaids dresses have been picked out! Because of everyone’s different sizes/tastes and to cause myself the least amount of stress and grief as possible, I decided to let everyone just each pick out the style they wanted as long as it was the same color and length. This ended up backfiring–but not necessarily in a bad way–since in the end everyone ended up picking out the same one. Take note future brides! Just let them pick! So 5 shops and scores of dresses later, we are going with the Alfred Angelo 6133. I would highly recommend the Alfred Angelo brand because of their large selection of dresses and colors and a great mix-and-match line when not one style suits everyone.

A picture of the dress is below, but please ignore the blindingly bright pink and black, instead the dress will be in Espresso Brown and the ribbon in Dusty Rose. Below that picture is Jenny’s pick, Alfred Angelo 6453. Not everyone liked the bubble hem, but it was a pretty dress…poor 6453, may you rest in peace.

The official bridesmaid dress pick                Rest in peace 6453…

I also recommend Bellevue Bridal Boutique. They were very helpful and had a great selection of dresses for all of the bridal party as well as jewelry and accessories. We also all took turns wearing a huge tiara that we dubbed the “Miss America Crown” and practicing our big speech” “No…I won? Really? Thank you! Thank you so much everyone!” insert hysterical sobbing and the following poses (we did take pictures, I’ll post them later):

Yes, it’s been a long time since anything’s been posted. Why? Because we’ve been busy with actual wedding planning! We’ve been able to choose a wedding coordinator from Bridezilla Events. We have heard nothing but glowing reviews about them and after we booked, some of the vendors we talked to talked about how much they liked them–where were you people before? Everyone likes to raz us about the name of the company, but hey who could ever forget a wedding coordination company called Bridezilla?

A few of us also went cake tasting at Creme de la Creme where they make absolutely beautiful cakes. We also hit three bridal shops to look at bridesmaids/flower girl dresses that day. Did I mention it’s also wedding show season? There’s the Seattle Wedding Show, Bellevue Wedding Show, Macy’s, Winter Knottie Fair; open houses at the Washington Athletic Club, The Grand Hyatt Downtown, not to mention our own reception place, the Columbia Tower Club. There seems to be at least 2 that we are invited to every weekend–not that we plan on going to all of them, but Crikey! There are a lot of them. We’ve also been making calls for the rehearsal dinner and hotel room blocks. Busy busy busy…

Sad! MSNBC article

I think I may have found ”the dress”! Too bad I can’t post anything about it (Chris is watching!). I have one or two more places to go to, and there is yet another trunk show this weekend (what’s up with these things?). I’m trying to be speedy, having gone to at least 4 bridal shops in one week. I was hearing a lot of scare stories about some of the dress shops, but everyone has been exteremely nice. Tarinda at La Belle Elaine’s was especially great to work with. That shop was also the most fun. They have large dressing rooms and even a runway–yes, a runway–to parade your potential dress in front of your friends.

We’ll probably do the Puget Sound Heart Walk this weekend at Qwest Field. I’ve done this for the past few years. The walk is along Elliot Bay on top of the Viaduct. Other than to fundraise for the American Heart Association, I believe the goal is to also rush across the Seattle Viaduct as fast as you can in fear there will be a possible earthquake.

La Belle Elaine’s runway

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.