advice please

So I met this girl 8 months ago or so and we hit it off right a way. We hung out all the time and got along really well. I was super excited because she was the first real friend i'd made since moving here two years ago (know i'm lame just keep reading). When i got engaged she was super excited for me and everything was wonderful. She has since gotten a job (and moved) about half an hour away. I'm not a big talking-on-the-phone-type person so I've been reaching out to her via email. She doesn't respond. I sent her a save the date and she emailed me telling me how excited she was for the wedding and how I should call her. I sent her several more emails but again, she never responded. At this point (several months later) I'm not sure I really want her at the wedding. I haven't spoken to her since September and she won't return my emails. I guess I could be at fault for not calling her, but i don't think anyone really understands how much i hate talking on the phone! so how would i go about "uninviting her"? i haven't really sent out invitations but it's implied that you're going to be invited if i send you a save the date. I feel like i'm stuck. How would you handle this?

Bridesmaid dresses

So we decided on this one because the girls liked it the best, and when I looked at it again last night the price had gone down to $36.99!!! you can't be that! so the girls have ordered them and will take pictures when they arrive. I hope they aren't a crazy bright blue!

Preception Dress

I got this dress from One Stop Plus. I love the dress, but I wouldn't order from them again because I had issues shipping with them.

The dress fits around the waist but I'm a bit smaller on top than the dress so it will need some tailoring, which turns out to be a blessing. Because I'm ordering my handmade dress from far far away, it will need to be altered once it's here and this will be a good way to find someone that I will be confident in before I risk them working on my wedding dress!

wedding shoes

I found these shoes over a year ago on somewhere on the world wide web and I can't for the life of me find them again! I absolutely love them and I'm convinced that no shoe could possibly out shine these cuties. I'll keep looking, but I'm afraid at this point that they've aren't making/selling them anymore.

Beyond the perfect green polka-dot sling back flats that I'll never be able to find, I haven't thought of much other than the fact that my wedding shoes need to be flats.

We're having the "reception" the night before the actual wedding so I figure I can wear amazingly tall beautiful shoes then... ie when i'm sitting down for the majority of the night.

I can't seem to find a picture of the dress I bought for the pre-ception right now. So when I come home from work I'll put it up on my dress form and snap some photos.

Save the Dates

I designed them in InDesign using a picture of the Chicago skyline, and uploaded them to Vista Print where we ordered the min 100 (even though we only needed aprox 35) because it was still the cheapest option I could find. I hand wrote all the addresses (I only needed 35 remember?), slapped on a stamp and thew them in the mail. So far I haven't received any back via wrong address return mail so we should be good for the invites that we'll send out in Feb. Our return address was under the sky line on the back side, but I edited it out for this post. The whole thing ended up costing $37 including postage! Which worked out to about $1 a card. If we would have used all 100 of them (plus postage) it would have worked out to be 52 cents a card so it's definitely a cheap way to go either way (small or large wedding). The quality was good. The stock might have been a bit light weight, but we didn't have anyone complain that their card got ripped up in the mail so I guess they worked. The color was a bit more purple than blue but that's not a big deal. Over all I am very happy with them!

another bridesmaid dress

So just after I posted that last one, I found another contender for my bridesmaid dresses!
Found here
It's on sale for $79.99 and they're having a deal where any purchase over $75 has an additional 20% off so it will end up being $63.99. What a deal! I thought they'd get free shipping too, but no luck. It's made out of a cotton silk blend which sounds nice and soft. I think it looks nice, but it's not really my favorite. The maids on the other hand all love it, so I guess this is the dress for us! I'm thinking of getting them all little crop sweaters to go over the top in case they get cold. What do you think about the dress?

the bridesmaid dresses

I've been looking for bridesmaid dresses for a long time, but it's been hard to find anything i like that's within budget. My original plan was to buy them for the bridesmaids (there are three by the way), so I needed them to be less than $50 a person... impossible I know, but because we're not having a formal wedding I figured I could find something. So I started looking at forever21 and oldnavy. My biggest problem is that my maids are far flung (Utah, Louisiana, & Ohio... I'm in Wisconsin). So it was impossible for everyone to just get together and go shopping. On top of that, they were all completely different body types (one's sexy hourglass, one's broad shoulders, big boobs with no butt, and one's small on top with amazing birthing hips) so I was really afraid to pick something without having seen them in it. After a slew of emails to the three of them with pictures and links we decided that there was nothing in that price range that they felt comfortable wearing/buying so we changed plans and agreed that they should buy the dresses. Everyone is comfortable spending $100 but is willing to spend up to $200 if need be. That opened up A LOT of options. I started looking at Anthropologie, j.crew, banana republic etc. I eventually settled on two from j.crew.
found here
found here

the first is $99.99 in that color, and the second is $180. A big difference. My biggest hesitation about the first one is that it looks very similar to my wedding dress, which shouldn't be a surprise because my wedding dress is from j.crew as well. I can't decide if that would be an issue or not. I've asked a lot of people and I've gotten mixed opinions. Some people say that it would be a good thing because it would reinforce the "theme" and others think that my dress should be special and unique to the bridesmaid dresses. The first dress is silk taffeta which gives is a shiny stiff quality while the other is silk chiffon which gives it a light airy quality. The bridesmaids are happy with either one so it's on me to decide and I'm having a hard time. Which one do you like?

Fantastic Giveaway!

I have been mesmerized by iDIY weddings. They are hosting an amazing give away that I am absolutely giddy over. I could use it for everything! check it out.

the ring

I completely forgot to tell you about the ring! When boy proposed it wasn't really a surprise. He told me that he wanted to go drive down by the lake after work. It's easily a 30 minute drive and when I asked what we'd be doing, he said, "I dunno, i just thought it'd be nice." Not his usual response about anything. He always has a reason. When I came home from work he seemed normal enough and I kept looking in his pockets for an abnormal bulges, but I couldn't see any. We ended up sitting on a bench looking out on lake Michigan and after a few minutes boy gets up. I have a feeling it's coming so I stay seated (I always thought it looked awkward when the guys get down on their knees when the girls are standing up. It's too much ground to cover when she bursts into tears and they just have to hug). He looks behind us and says something stupid about the weather and then he looks at me and says, "can I ask you a question?" This is when I KNEW it was coming and I just sat back and said, "yeah." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a ring, "will you marry me?" I smile and say, "yeah." and take the ring. We hug and that was that. Apparently he was nervous enough that he "forgot" to get down on one knee, which I think is adorable. I always thought that I would cry, and I'm not sure why I didn't. After all, I cry a lot. I cry about hard things like money, about mean people, about how cute puppies are, and about how the pizza place cut our pie into square pieces instead of triangles (seriously? who does that?!), but I just couldn't bring myself to cry when he proposed even though I was truly happy and I really really really want to marry the boy.

Apparently he'd had the ring for two months. He'd originally wanted to propose on our 2nd anniversary the first week of June, but it was raining so he put it off. Then, about a month later, he threw out a spontaneous suggestion to go down to Chicago for the day. He told me that he wanted to check out Graham Elliot's resaurant (he was on top chef masters) and if I wanted, we could check out Promontory Point (he'd known that I wanted to get married at PP for a while, but neither one of us had seen it in person). At the time I thought it would be super cute if he e proposed at PP and then we ended up getting married there, but we didn't really get to stay very long because security "kicked" us out of the building (which was wide open by the way). We had a fabulous lunch (Thanks Graham!) and then we started walking back to our car that we had parked downtown. Boy stopped me and asked if I wanted to see the botanical garden. I thought this was odd because he hadn't mentioned it before, and I'm not a huge fan of gardens or flowers really. He'd been complaining about his feet hurting and I had been super cranky because I started my period and had to stop at a pharmacy on Michigan ave to buy some tampons, so I told him that I just wanted to go home. Little did I know that if we had wound up at the garden he would have proposed!

Oh yeah! the ring! So it's a emerald cut green quartz set in sterling silver. I had told him that if/when he proposed that I wanted a non-diamond ring and that I would prefer a green quartz. So I got exactly what I wanted. It's a little bigger than is really practical, but I'm getting used to it.
For the last month we've been looking at wedding bands on etsy. The boy is one of those people who has the image of the perfect thing in his head and will search tirelessly trying to find it. Just yesterday he looked at 1400 rings on etsy. I saw this ring and new instantly that it was going to be my wedding band. The boy ordered it last night and it will be here in a few weeks. I'm super excited about it. So excited that I think I'm going to ask him to keep it from me so that I don't start wearing it around before the wedding, which is still so far away! I'm going to have 8 months to wait!

Meanwhile, the boy is still looking for the perfect band. I'll let you know when he finds one.

the dress

I have always LOVED wedding dresses, so i've been looking at wedding dresses for years and years and years. The second i saw the Daphne dress i fell madly, deeply in love. The thing i love the most is that it's not strapless. It seems like 98% of all wedding dresses are strapless. I don't mind the look of strapless, but i can't stand wearing a strapless bra! they are by far the most uncomfortable thing i've ever worn. And i refuse to be uncomfortable on my wedding day. The dress was made by jcrew in 2007 and sold out almost instantaneously. I've heard rumor that they're going to produce it again for the fall 2009 collection. Being plus size, it doesn't really matter if they're going to make it again because they won't make it in my size. So i did some research and found a seamstress who has actually made a version of this dress before. I contacted her and her rate is in my budget! so i've started looking for fabric. I want to have it made out of swiss dot cotton so that i can dye the dress and wear it again!