16-in-1 Bridesmaid Dress

All the bridal media seems to be raving about this one bridesmaid dress company: Two Birds. Two Birds sells these dresses that are stylable in 16 different fashions. They come in two lengths, and two sizes, and 20 colors; there are a few different styles of hemline too. The top part of the dress consists of two strands of fabric that can be tied and twisted to create all these different looks.

It's a really cool idea, I agree. Ingenious from an engineering standpoint. But--and maybe it's because the company is based out of New York City and LA--no one has yet pointed out that most of these 16 styles are backless (or close enough). Several of the designs have a little comment that says "bra friendly!" and I'm thinking, What kind of bra are they talking about? Do they have some magical contraption in LA and NYC that we don't have in Detroit? Or maybe the girls in those cities are just so skinny that they don't really need more than two band-aids. Of the 16 styles, there's really only one you could wear with a regular bra, and one with a strapless bra--see for yourself.

To be honest, though, I'd like to see how they work. It should be noted that you can buy a $30 "bandeau" to make the styles a little more modest (and not backless). Maybe I'll get another bridesmaid gig soon and I can talk the bride into letting us make use of their through-the-mail try-on program.

The dresses are $270 for the tea-length styles, and $290 for the full-length. Size A fits sizes 0-14 and Size B fits sizes 16-24 and costs an additional $20.

I think it's a little pricey for a dress made of a nylon/jersey/spandex blend that you have to put together yourself, but maybe that's just me. Perhaps when the novelty wears off, they'll go down in price. Dessy makes competitors for $140 (tea-length) and $180 (full length).

Andrea's Wedding

Photos from Andrea's beautiful wedding are up! Andrea and Liam had a gorgeous wedding right in the middle of the fall colors in Hartford, Connecticut. Derek and I had a great time at the ceremony (St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Farmington, a lovely old stone church) and the reception (the Town & County Club in Hartford).

The wedding colors were red and orange, mimicking the autumn foliage in New England. Andrea's dress is made by Cymbeline USA. You can see my bridesmaid dress again at the right. Andrea's and our bouquets were made of red roses, orange callas, orange spray roses, and little red berries, created by Devars-Phillips. My favorite unique detail is that they incorporated Liam's desire for pumpkins in the decorations by using little, decorative pumpkin-shaped gourds, although I can't seem to find a picture of it.

Below is a small taste of the festivities. More photos can be viewed at the photographer's website. Victoria Souza Photography did a great job of capturing the color and movement in the day, didn't they?

Bridesmaid updos

Andrea's wedding last weekend was just beautiful, but, as a bridesmaid, I didn't have time to take pictures of the wedding! Right now, the best I can do is show you our hairstyles, by stylists from Oggi Hair Salon in West Hartford, CT.

A short hair updo: Claire has pretty short hair, which was just long enough for this updo. Her hair is held in place with two french braids and finished off with a couple stylish clips. I messed it up accidentally during a hug, but Kristy was able to easily fix it with a bobby pin or two.


Half updo: Jamie's hair was curled and then pinned out of her face.


A braided updo: My hair was french braided, then tucked under. The stylist left a few strands of hair on either side of my face and curled them. I really liked it.


Traditional updo: Kristy's hair is tucked and pinned, looking very elegant and classy.

As soon as I can get more photos of the wedding, I will post or link you to them. You're going to LOVE Andrea's dress, and the gorgeous red and orange color scheme.

Bridesmaid dress for Andrea's wedding

Hi everyone! Andrea's wedding is in 11 days! A few weeks ago I got my bridesmaid dress back from alterations, and I wanted to share with you how it turned out, which I think is pretty well.

The dress is from the Jasmine Bridal Belsoie line and cost $194, although I believe that was with the 15% discount we got because Andrea's mom ordered all the dresses through the same store in Minneapolis. The color is called "berry." Derek thinks the dress makes me look tall, which I don't often hear!

Alterations came to a total of $70, which, while it sounds expensive, I actually think is pretty reasonable (remember, at David's Bridal, my alterations came to $65, and I think these alterations were more complicated). I had the alterations done at a place called "Expert Tailoring" in Troy, Michigan on Maple Road. The reason the price is so high is that the dress has three layers of skirts, and all of them needed to be hemmed. The dress also had to be tightened in the bust and the straps needed to be shortened.

When I tried my dress on in the shop after it was done, there were a bunch of other customers there, and they all commented on how pretty I looked! I'll probably go back to that shop in the future for other alterations.

The bridesmaids are wearing black shoes--I'm wearing the same Caparros shoes I wore for Theresa's wedding. I'm finding that Caparros makes really comfortable evening shoes, and 2.5" heels is just the right balance for style and comfort.

I'm wondering if I should invest in a nice black shawl to ward off the Connecticut fall weather?

Candace's Wedding

The loveliness that was Candace's wedding, for your viewing pleasure:


Things to note:

• The wedding ceremony and reception were both held at Waters Mill, in Dahlonega, GA, an all-inclusive facility that was built with weddings in mind. The ceremony was outside, and afterward we all headed to the reception building only a few yards away. About 100 guests were in attendance.
• The bridesmaid dresses had pockets!
  
• When it was time for the bride and groom to leave, the staff at Waters Mill handed each guest a sparkler, and we held them up and lined up on the sidewalk as the newly married couple ran underneath an archway of fireworks to their get-away vehicle. What a cute idea in lieu of rice/bubbles for when it's dark out!

All in all, it was a great wedding. Congratulations to Candace and Todd!

More Shoes!

Continuing with our recent theme of footwear, I wanted to share with you all Andrea's revelation. She was having trouble finding a shoe she was comfortable wearing--she wanted a heel, but not something too high; she wanted it to be closed-toe (October wedding, possibility of outdoor photos) but still cute. This morning I got an email with her solution:

Dance shoes!

Of course, we're not talking ballet slippers here (although that could be a fun option). Andrea scoured the internet looking for ballroom-style dance shoes and this is one of the pairs she found:
The advantages are obvious--they're going to be comfortable because they're made for dancing! These are made by Aris Allen as a reproduction of a 1930s dress pump and complement Andrea's dress quite well in my opinion (the dress has a vintage feel to it, with a boat neckline and a triple tiered lace skirt). They are $74.95 and available at dancestore.com, a site which specializes in swing dance shoes. They are "vegan" shoes, but neither Andrea nor I knows what that means!

Some other websites that sell dance shoes are Best Ballroom Shoes and DiscountBallroom.com, but a simple Google search will turn up many other options.

Happy Accidents

Lily, you inspired me. Admittedly, my wedding shoes are not colorful, nor detailed, but I'd had them bookmarked on Zappos.com, and I decided now was the time to buy them, because, well, I didn't want to keep reading patent law cases.
I selected these shoes from Zappos.com because they were everything I had in mind--simple, white, tall, peep-toed--for my wedding shoes. Now, I know it does not sound ideal to be buying shoes from the internet without being able to try them on. But here's the real advantage of shopping on Zappos or any online shoe retailer, which I think outweighs the risk of purchasing something without trying on--they have customer reviews!

The reviews for this shoe--Cora by Calvin Klein--were almost all from women who had bought the same shoes for their weddings. And the comfort ratings by these ladies were all positive, even though the shoes have 4.5" heels.

Alas, when I went to buy them today, they were out of my size!! Oh no!! In a panic (for God knows what reason, I mean, I've got more than nine months to go here), I Googled the designer and style name, and found a site called ShopWiki. ShopWiki lists all the online retailers with that product, including Piperlime, a retailer selling my shoe--in my size!--for $40 less! With tax (shipping was free!), the total came to about $63. What a deal! And what a happy shoe ending!