shiny shiny

I'd love to hire Artfool to do our wedding flowers, but there are two little problems with that.
One, they're in New York. Two, I think they're worth whatever they might charge, which is undoubtedly more than I would or could spend on flowers.
My flowers in silver things won't be anywhere near this artistic or elegant. But I still say you can't make pretty flowers look ugly, especially in pretty containers like these.

Two more silver things came in the mail today... this is so much fun!

effortless, but hardly

Today Brooklyn Bride had pictures from a wedding (taken by Jennifer Causey) that I like so hard. First, the bride's name is Julia. It's a good name, you know. She's an illustrator. Check out those table numbers-

I'm not going to re-do Vane's whole post, but I want to. I'd happily reprise that whole wedding for myself. The green and aqua and ivory, and mismatched bridesmaids (hers are green!) and wonderful invitations, and her veil, and teacups and potted plants on the tables...I wonder why I've never been to a wedding like this. Have I just known all the wrong people? Do I live in the wrong place? I've been to some lovely ballroom weddings. Quite a few lovely ballroom weddings. The last one was DJ's brother, and it was so fun that I worried ours would be pale by comparison. (I got over that, it was just one of those moments where you're afraid it will never be this good ever again. It was really good.)

I've never been to a wedding like this. If you are having one, invite me? Please? I give good gifts.

hey lady, your dress is interesting

I first saw this photo on Snippet and Ink, and thought it was cute. You can tell those girls are bridesmaids, but it looks like they found their own gray dresses.

Then Heather at We Met In a Bar posted her take. She's worried about what could happen if her bridesmaids chose dresses that didn't quite go together. I see her point, but I think I'm a step further gone than she is on the mismatched dresses - I kind of like that they don't "go" together, and that I'd never wear the winged one. Now I'm even more interested to see what her bridesmaids wear, especially if it's a collaborative effort.

you got the silver

DJ and I did a little thrifting last weekend, and I did a little auction sniping, and what do you know. I found some silver things. They are not all very nice, because I am being very cheap. Most of them need polishing. I feel like a magpie, building my shiny nest of castoffs.

garden roses

While flipping through old photos tonight I found this one. Somewhat more than a year ago, DJ brought home a dozen roses for our anniversary. I clipped the stems and put them in a bubbled aqua glass jar, leaves and all. Here are the colors of everything eventual-wedding-related: ivory, dark green, and aqua. Add a metallic, any metallic. Silver, bronze, pewter - they'll all be there.

With all the lovely flowers out there, what I like the best are ivory roses. Big, blown-out ivory garden roses. With the leaves on, tossed in a vase. This sort of thing gives me (false?) confidence that I can arrange my own wedding flowers. Because I like these, just like this.

unacceptable folding chairs

Now that we have a new place and a new date, there are new things to consider. Like those metal folding chairs.

When DJ and I first looked at the barn, we liked the rustic, homey look. One of the selling points for me was the idea of staggering their cool antique chairs with chivari chairs. But when it came time to sign the contract, we were told no. No to using the antique chairs on the main level, and no to renting chairs at all. Our only option was to use the chairs they provide, which look like this:

Yuck. I, um, pitched a fit. Until right then I had no idea how much I disliked those chairs. And maybe my feelings on this issue are part of the magazine industry wedding machine - but especially for a wedding. Especially when perfectly acceptable rentals are available, and affordable. But no. If we wanted that place, it was those chairs or... well, those chairs.

No replacing the chairs - but covering them is allowed. Hmmm. Still, banquet chair covers seemed too fancy. Too shiny and white, or shiny and whatever. Too fancy for the rest of the barny-ness of the barn. Still, that got me thinking.

And sewing. The ribbon here is all wrong, it was just what I had at hand at the moment. Forest green would be better.
That could work, right? With matching table runners? I mean, I hope so. I have 21 of them finished already.

sources and resources

Elizabeth Anne Designs added me to their blogroll today, which is very exciting for me - they have one of the prettiest blogs out there. I'm kind of excited about their Library of wedding-related people, all vetted by actual brides. I keep meaning to ask my photographer if she minds my nominating her for inclusion.

dressing the lady squad

If you're reading this then you're either a bride, a bridesmaid, or someone who knows me. And is possibly a bride and/or a bridesmaid. We are so alike, all reading Domino and shopping at Anthropologie like a big happy party of strangers.



So, you know about the bridesmaid dresses. How 90% of them are horrible, most are polyester, and they are more expensive than you would ever expect a polyester bag to be. Except for the really lovely silk ones which are more expensive than a car payment, and just as unlikely to be worn to a cocktail party.



Oh, I considered a few. But after an exhausting (really, exhausting) search, I decided against the whole idea. The thing is, I have three lovely bridesmaids. All very different, all very good at dressing themselves. Here are two of them during an epic shoe hunting trip:

These ladies have opinions. They have full closets. They have more than enough bridesmaids' dresses. You could say I'm taking a risk, or you could say I'm taking the easy way. I've asked them to find their own dresses and their own shoes. Within a range of colors, but it's a pretty wide range.

This isn't for everyone, I know that. But I'm not a matchy kind of girl. My pillowcases match each other, but only loosely relate to my sheets. My wine glasses are party-ready - break one, buy a better one. More than once I've debated leopard shoes with a hunter plaid jacket.

This is going to be so much more interesting for me, to look at the pictures later and see them.

rainy day music

lacy luminaria: fastest project to date

I couldn't wait. I had this urgency to work on these. Maybe because they seemed like an instant gratification sort of project. It's good to balance out the long-term effortfests with a little fluff now and then.

So, just like Martha says, all you have to do is slice and dice some gold paper doilies and gluestick them to the insides of some lunch bags. I chose petite bags, mostly because they were there. But larger bags would be nice for variety.

The candle inside is one of a 12-pack of pre-filled votives I bought on sale at Michael's - they were cheap, and I wanted to test burn times. Mine burned about 2/3 in six hours and probably could have gone to eight or nine, easily.

I'm imagining that these will be so pretty lighting the walk up to the barn, and dotted around the courtyard below. Of course, watch. It will rain housepets that day and I'll end up using these for Christmas decorations for years to come.