The dresses are from Monsoon- a company out of London (which just happens to be where my dress was made) that I think basically channels an Anthropology-type style for kids.  Since we are having a 1920s inspired wedding, I was NOT looking for a white dress with a sash and big bow in the back.  What I WAS looking for was exactly what I found at Monsoon, in fact there are so many that could be perfect I can’t pick.  I mean seriously, it’s like these dresses were made for 5 year old flapper girls!  Pics below are of my favorites, I think you’ll agree in their overall fabulousness, but which one do you like best?

Monsoon Neva Dress

Monsoon Jasmine Dress

Monsoon Mia Sunray Dress

Monsoon Vintage Beaded Dress

The best part, among many, is that we’ve exclusively booked the inn for the entire weekend, so we’ll be able to spend time with friends and family and literally have the complete attention of the staff.  So basically, not only do I get “my day,” but I get “my weekend” as well <insert bridezilla comment here, go ahead>.  Equally the best part is that we are able to use the venue however we want, since we are the only ones there.  I’m thinking I’ll utilize this to the fullest by a 3AM dance party on the front lawn, and cap the night off by a celebratory dip in the lake (probably not on the latter, but definitely so on the former)!

I’ll stop rambling on, but I will leave you with some more gorgeous pictures

Croquet lawn- where our ceremony will take place

Clifton Gardens

More of the gardens

Back terrace

The Carriage House- where I'll be staying and getting ready!

The wine cellar

Below are a few that I’ve found that are similar to the ones Jenny Packham used in her Spring 2009 runway show. I can’t seem to find any info on the actual ones featured with her dresses. I really like Maria Elena‘s designs. They’re hand-made out of Miami, but sold in a few places in the DC area. Kleinfeld‘s in NYC carries the entire line- but I’m not sure if I want to make the trip and venture into the kind of bridal madness that is 25,000 wedding dresses under one roof.

Maria Elena Headpieces

I also really like the idea of using feathers in my headpiece. We’re going to use a lot of feathers in the wedding to tie into the 1920s theme, so incorporating them into my look would be a fun way to bring everything together. Sara Gabriel has some beautiful headpiece designs using feathers and silk flowers. I’ve included a few below that I think would go with my dress. Let me be clear, this is an either/or thing. I certainly don’t want to look like a busted version of Jean Harlow after a pillow fight….with bling and feathers all over the place.

Sara Gabriel Headpieces

And finally, the veil. Really, I don’t even want to wear one. However, the fiance has mastered the “grin and bear it” routine in dealing with every non-traditional bridal decision I’ve made- so I’m doing this one for him- MAYBE. So, if I do choose to wear one, below are two Sara Gabriel styles that I, myself, could grin and bear.

Sara Gabriel "Collette" veil

Sara Gabriel “Drew” veil

After much deliberation, I’m going against my instincts on this one. If I had my way, I’d be walking down the isle in the brightest, flashiest, highest and consequently most fabulous pair of heels I could find. Maybe something like these:

Miu Miu

Louboutin

Dior

Louboutin

However, I have really been struggling with my inner Jackie-O for this wedding and am constantly reminding myself to be CLASSIC. This is not something I’m known for, and really not something I particularly enjoy, but I’m giving it a try.

I do have a beautiful vintage-looking (that can translate into classic, right?) dress, so I began to look for shoes that might go with it.

I thought about it for a while, and I really don’t want a plain white pair of shoes, mainly because I don’t know where I would ever wear them again, and if I’m going to spend time/effort/money on purchasing a pair of shoes for my wedding, I want to be sure that I’ll be able to get some use out of them. PLUS, I would not buy an ugly or boring pair of white shoes- even if they are hidden under my dress- so they would most likely be some level of amazing and I would be some level of sad having to put them into a box after the wedding with no excuse to wear them ever again.

Thus, the search is on for a unique, yet classic pair of bridal shoes. I’ve included a few I like below.

No decisions yet though, but maybe you can guess which one I like the best…

Manolo Blahnik

Christian Louboutin

Bourne Wedding Shoes

Jenny Packham for Emmy London Shoes

We were lucky enough to stop by Mervis on a day that Jeanne was working.  Jeanne worked with the fiance to design my engagement ring, and was so wonderful that we referred another family member to her to purchase a ring as well.  She has moved on to a marketing position in the company, but was filling in last Saturday when we were there.  I really trust her opinion, and she’s been working with us every step of the way so I was happy to have her help us in choosing our bands.

The biggest challenge for me was finding a band that will go with my engagement ring, which has an interesting shape to it.  Most of the bands I looked didn’t go with the design of my engagement ring, and most that did were so detailed and, well, ornate for lack of a better word that they were way out of my price range, sadly.  I looked at the one above, which is a Martin Flyer micro-pave band, about .7 carats total.  It matches the pave style on my engagement ring.  I decided, after MUCH deliberation (cue my sarcasm here and add in a dirty look from the fiance) to get two bands, one to go on the bottom of my engagement ring, and one for the top.    When I go back to try it on, I’ll add a picture.  It looks great, and I certainly can’t complain about adding some more bling (I hate that word) to my finger.

Since I can hear my parents lecturing me about spending too much money from 100 miles away, I’ll add that I got the band in white gold rather than platinum.  I was able to get both bands in white gold for the same price as ONE in platinum, so I choose to view my decision to buy two wedding bands as thrifty and economical.  Nothing lost, but .7 more carats gained!

Now on to his ring, not nearly as exciting I know, but I’ll include it so the fiance gets some more air time on this blog.  This isn’t the exact ring, I can’t seem to find a picture of it online.  But, it is a medium-width, brushed white gold ring.  Again, we looked at platinum, but were able to get it in white gold at more than half the price of the platinum.  The fiance isn’t a ring person (and I will attest that I am not a fan of rings on him) but this one looks really nice.  Its not too flashy, but will still do the job of sending the message of “step off, my bank account (and heart of course) is spoken for,” to women trolling the bars, grocery stores, etc looking for baby-faced lawyers-to-be to take home.

Before I get into the dresses I’ve chosen, I’ll share a few tips I learned from my growing stash of bridal books, experiences of other bridesmaids (me included), and just, well common (fashion) sense that went into picking (or not picking) the dresses for my girls:

• Please pick something semi-attractive. I don’t care if orange floor length dresses with pink bows match your colors. These girls are giving you the spotlight, so the least you can do is make them feel pretty by putting them in a dress that may get them some action later. Plus, no one wants to spend $200+ on a dress they hate/will never wear again.
• Consider the time of season/time of day/overall theme and feel of your wedding. Your girls may look strange in short party dresses at a formal winter wedding, may want to kill you if you put them in floor length taffeta gowns for an afternoon wedding in July and etc etc etc.
• Think about the sizes/shapes of your girls. One dress style may not look good on all of them (think strapless on a friend who could put Selma Hayek‘s chest to shame, or a silk pencil dress on, well, anyone) so maybe pick a color scheme and let them buy their dresses or go with several styles by the same designer so everyone will look good and be happy.

So onto my dresses. I have 7 bridesmaids (ridiculous I know). I’ve chosen 1 dress for the maid of honor that will complement both my dress and the other bridesmaid’s dresses. For the other 6 girls, I picked 7 styles that they can choose from. After talking to the bridal consultant at Priscilla, she suggested the best way to do it is to have each girl try on the styles and pick their top 2, and I match everyone up with their dress. This way I can make sure everyone has a different style, and its one that they like too. The dresses are all by Melissa Sweet, fabric is silk chiffon (perfect for a summer wedding since its lightweight) and in a blush color- which would not be my first pick but it goes well with the theme (as I said I’ll get into in later posts).

Maid of Honor Dress

Bridesmaid’s Dress Options

Funny side story. I hadn’t told my maid of honor that she was my maid of honor yet when we went in to try on the dresses. After trying on all of the styles, the bridal consultant asked her to pick her top 2. Of course, she would be wearing the dress I had picked already for the maid of honor, so I was trying to change the subject. Bridal lady was persistent, because, well, that is her job, so when my girlfriend picked her styles, I had to tell her that she would be wearing the maid of honor dress in lieu of the ones that she had picked. Needless to say, my girlfriend was really excited, but when the bridal consultant realized what she had done, she was really upset! So upset, in fact, that she gave me 10% off my entire dress order! Something lost, something gained!

Really though, we want to have a weekend wedding so that we can really spend time with our family and friends. I’ve been to some really beautiful weddings, and it seems a shame to spend so much money on a few hours only to have people go home the same night. For us, this means a few things:

• No DC venues. I have mixed feelings about this one. There’s a lot of really beautiful places in this city to get married, and the convenience of having a lot of vendors serving the area is great as well. But, we knew if we have the wedding here, a lot of our friends, and almost all of his family- since they’re all local- would come for the wedding and leave. Also, we want our wedding to have a special, unique feeling for the two of us- and something tells me if I’m sitting in traffic on Wisconsin looking at the same guy playing the drums on the corner that I see every weekend- it might not have that feeling for me.
• Venue/location needs to be able to keep people busy. Definitely don’t want to bring people in for a weekend wedding then have them sitting in their room the whole time. Also don’t want the only “activities” to be sitting at the pool, or sitting in a sauna (although that does sound like a good time to me right now).
• Consequently, no “generic” hotel weddings. I don’t mean to offend anyone by the use of the word “generic.”I’ve been to some beautiful hotel weddings, it’s just not my style, and most likely won’t provide us with the amenities we want for a weekend wedding. Plus, if you know me, or have been reading this blog in its entirety, you should know that, well, I’m not so concerned with whether I’m offending anyone.
• Sadly, no “real” destination wedding. We want it to be far enough away the people will stay, but not so far that they won’t come. This is a bummer, because there are some amazing places down south where I would love to get married. But let’s be honest, if you’re gonna do it, then you might as well REALLY do it, and I just can’t foresee 200 of our closest family and friends flying to Mexico/the Caribbean/etc to see us make it official.

Funnily enough, the above criteria actually doesn’t leave us with many semi-local options. Here’s where we’ve looked so far:

Keswick Hall at Monticello in Charlottesville, VA

The Oaks in St.Michaels, MD

Inn At Perry Cabin in St. Michaels, MD

Gramercy Mansion in Baltimore, MD

So that’s it, and I think from what we’ve seen we’re able to make a decision, but I won’t tell yet! While I’m on the subject of venues, below are a few I would see fit to host my wedding if I were, say, Oprah, and the fiance was, say, Bill Gates. Oh well, a girl can dream…

Evermay Mansion in Georgetown

Sagamore in Adirondacks, NY

21 Club in NY, NY

Sea Island Resort in Georgia