Okay ladies, remember last month when I blogged about the dress I purchased for our wedding?  And how I wasn’t having an over-the-top moment about it because it wasn’t a “wow” dress?  How I just wanted a pretty dress that was comfortable enough for me to wear for the whole day?

Well guess what?  That was a load of crap because I changed my mind, ha!

I tried to suppress my feelings by telling myself that everyone felt that way and that I was going to get over it.  But even a couple of weeks later, I couldn’t stop thinking about the dress I really wanted.

Sooo… I called up the bridal salon where I purchased my original dress and asked them if I could exchange it for a dress I found at another store.  I explained that I would be willing to buy it at their salon because they carried the designer’s collection but didn’t have an actual sample for me to try on in-store.

I guess being a smaller boutique allowed them a little bit of leeway because they let me exchange the dress for a very small cancellation fee AND matched the price of the new dress to the old dress because the original one was less expensive.  The boutique ladies know the importance of how special brides want to look on their wedding day and wanted to try and do everything they could to accommodate, yay!

So now I have my real dress for the wedding, I love it so much I haven’t had any regrets, or bride’s buyers remorse, about it all since I exchanged it last week. 

Former brides and brides-to-be, did you have second thoughts about your wedding gown after you bought it?  I hope I wasn’t alone in this!

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Everyone told us that one of their favorite wedding planning tasks is picking out the cake.  I wasn’t really into it since we are not really dessert people with cravings for sweet.

And when we started tasting cakes around the city, we came across a couple of just okay and even one not-so-yummy option. How does one think that a cake mealy in texture and bland in flavor would be fun to eat?  Was this really what everyone was so excited about? Because getting a choice of chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry and lemon wasn’t what I would categorize as a favorite past time.

After a few tastings at different bakeries, I was starting to lose hope that we’d find a delicious, yet affordable, option to serve to our guests.  And it wasn’t until I got a cancellation for a cake tasting appointment that we had made weeks in advance while I was sitting at the airport waiting to fly up to SF that tipped me over the edge.

I was still living in Orange County at the time and felt that the bakery planned poorly by not notifying us ahead of time that they couldn’t accommodate.  We could have looked for another baker to meet with in order to maximize my limited time for wedding appointments.

When I called The Fiancé while I was at the airport about to board a flight to SF and he heard how distraught I was over the phone, he called another baker (one that his sister was going to use for her May nuptials) and booked a last minute appointment for us – over Thanksgiving weekend nonetheless!

Christian from Krumbs Cake has been nothing but accommodating from the start.  Aside from taking an appointment for us over Thanksgiving weekend at the last minute, his personality was laid back while giving us tips on good and bad cakes.  To make it even better, his cakes were the best of the ones we had tasted up to that point; we tried a couple of combinations that were classic as well as trendy and up and coming.

Even though we were excited at the quality of his product (just look at his presentation of the sample platter above compared to the top two), we couldn’t book him right away because his prices were out of the range we wanted to pay.  But he graciously worked with us, giving us options to lower the price per slice.

We told him that we wanted a fairly clean cake without any frills and over-the-top embellishments.  Based on that (and the fact that we were referral business from the Fiancé’s sister), he cut us a deal.

We still aren’t cake people, but now we are very excited to serve our guests two flavor choices – YUM!  Now I see what people mean when they say how much this love this part of the planning, the cakes actually have to be good!    Can’t wait to share our cake with you after the big day!

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Flowers, that is.

February has proven to be a busy month for the Fiance and I on the wedding front.  I managed to find my dress as well as spend lots more of our cold, hard cash on wedding deposits.  One of those deposits happened to be to our wedding florist.

Originally, we didn’t plan on hiring a floral designer; my aunt is a florist with her own boutique in Orange County.  She wanted to help us on our big day, but unfortunately over the holidays she threw out her back (badly) and worried that taking on a project so far away from our home base would have been too much for her – even eight months down the road.

Thankfully she told us sooner rather than later so that we would have time to start our search for a florist.  The first thing I did was reach out to our day of coordinator, Kristina Veronesi.  She’s been super awesome so far and recommended Nicole Ha Designs.  Not only did she make the recommendation, she personally reached out to the floral vendor and set up an appointment for us all to meet.

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During our meeting, we talked about our vision for the wedding.  All I knew was that I wanted white.  I wanted airy yet still lush.  I wanted modern.  I wanted everything based off these gorgeous white centerpieces that I saw in an issue of The Knot magazine.  I was so excited when my aunt said she could do these for me for a fraction of the price since we knew these tall centerpieces would be more expensive.

But when we found out that we’d have to contract an outside vendor to do this, my heart sank a little bit to think that these pretty clouds of white would be beyond our means.

Before meeting with Nicole Ha, we met with another florist who sent  back an estimate that was almost three times what our set budget was.  Because of this, I didn’t have high expectations that Nicole would be able to do it either, but was still hopeful.  After meeting with her, the Fiance and I both had a good feeling and started Google-ing past events that she did.

We were surprised to learn that she’s worked with our (ah-mazing) photographer before AND I was even more delighted to see that they worked together on a wedding featured on Style Me Pretty!  This particular wedding is one that I actually took inspiration from early on in our planning process, being that it was a modern affair but still warm and romantic.

As we flipped through her portfolio, we really loved all the arrangements she had done.  During our meeting she caught on quickly to the look we wanted to go for and even made suggestions that I thought fit our style.  Needless to say, when Nicole sent back her estimate for our ceremony and reception florals, and it came in just a couple of hundred over our budget, I was giddy and we booked her pretty much immediately.

Thanks to our awesome coordinator’s suggestion, I think that our wedding florist was one of the easiest vendors we’ve booked to date!  I can’t wait to see how it will all unfold on our big day!

Ladies, during your wedding planning process did you get hit with an unforeseen expense for something as big as flowers and how did you get through it?

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After months (and months, and months) of dress shopping and trying on a few dozen dresses, I finally found one that I want to wear for the big day.

Now, I’ve said it before – I don’t think I’m one of those brides that ever needed “the dress”.  Of course I want to look beautiful and radiant, but more importantly, I wanted to be comfortable.  Let’s face it, I’m going to be in this dress for the better part of 12 hours.

Before I decided on my gown, I considered a gorgeous dress that was elegant and classic.  However, it was a little too form-fitting which made me a little self conscious.  I didn’t want to constantly ask my friends if I looked fat throughout the day.  That could get a little.. okay, a lot, annoying.

My second runner-up was a beautiful ball gown.  A “tulle delight” as I lovingly like to refer to it.  :)  I loved it a lot, but knew myself well enough to know that three hours into wearing it, I would likely rip away the tulle layers from annoyance.

The gown I finally decided on had everything I wanted – a flattering neckline on an organza dress.  It had a little bit of structure to give my body some shape while staying soft enough for me to run around in all. day. long.  Perfection.

The only downside is, it’s not particularly a “wow” dress that will drop jaws like the other two.  I’m just hoping that since it’s our day, I will “wow” our family and friends anyway

All you recent brides, and brides-to-be, did you pick out a dress that you considered more practical than fairy tale?