A weekend of wedding planning

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Calla lilies are bursting out all over our backyard right now. I think they'd make an awesome bouquet - apparently very trendy right now. Just one of the many ideas floating around my mind...

Since Friday, my brain has been occupied by all things wedding, all the time. Friday night, after a day of dress shopping, I dreamed of wedding dresses all night. I kid you not! A slideshow of poufy white dresses danced in front of my head all night, making it very hard to sleep. It was like those drawings that accompany "The Night Before Christmas" in which kids are dreaming of sugar plums... visions of wedding dresses danced through my head.

I guess it was some sort of strange catharsis after buying my dress. My poor tired brain had to release all the images that it had been analyzing and storing for so many weeks. It turns out that what they say about finding YOUR dress and knowing that it is YOUR dress is true. I'd been stalking this dress on line for a while. Independently, my fabulously stylish Spanish sister-in-law pointed out the dress to me online. Though there are only a few bridal salons that carry Pronovias dresses in the San Francisco area, one of them had a trunk show last week. I walked in with the style name, tried on the dress and saw that it was indeed the one. It was even within range of my budget (which I feared would not accommodate the style of dress I was seeking.)

I am thrilled with this dress: it's sophisticated, dramatic, and yet light and flowy enough to look great outdoors, at the beach where the ceremony will be.

However, I do have a bit of angst about the extravagant use of resources and (most likely) poor labor conditions that go into creating a dress like this. I was hoping to find a second-hand or sample dress to minimize the amount of additional labor and resources going into our wedding. We're trying to be as environmentally and socially conscious as possible, since both of us work on such issues professionally. To my mind, the one use wedding dress is one of the most extravagant use of resources at the wedding. Most of the other things are consumed (food, alcohol) or can be re-used (chairs, sound equipment, etc.) Decorations and invitations can be made of recycled materials. But the dress.... all new materials, worn once! I'm planning to donate it to Brides Against Breast Cancer afterward, so they can use it in their fund-raising efforts. At least it can have second life that way. And I will post some of my other green wedding ideas in an effort to decrease consumption and increase sustainability....

The dress is dramatic enough that it doesn't need a veil or even much jewelry - which is perfect, since I don't own much jewelry. I'm thinking a white flower/ feather would look suitable sophisticated.

Something like this













Or this















Or this

So many fun things to shop for...

And, so many things to check off the list:

• Dress ordered - CHECK
• Shoes - CHECK
• Save the Date list - CHECK
• Mailing addresses - CHECK
• Location - CHECK
• Caterer - CHECK
• Decision about attendants - CHECK
• Reserved hair stylist - CHECK

Making progress on:

• Photographer
• Music

Now maybe I can focus on writing my dissertation...