Just add giant hair flower

Short, simple and sweet.

 

Tocca at Gilt

I'm seeing this at a casual beach wedding, maybe in Mexico, with some sparkly flip-flops and an arm full of bangles.

Or with killer colored heels at the courthouse.

The best part: it's less than $100!

Yours today at Gilt!

I have no official association with Gilt.

Old world elegance

I believe that's what we were aiming for here. It's not a common idiom for us - goofy is more like it - but rediscovering this image among the 944 (!) that Kate Harrison sent us makes me want to frame it.

Having just returned from a two week trip to Italy - Milan, Turin, Venice, Florence - we may now be slightly more in touch with our elegant selves.* Italians are unbelievably stylish and sophisticated. Everywhere we went, I was admiring the elegant ensembles of men and women alike. I never saw anyone looking sloppy or less than put together. California-casual doesn't promote such elegance - if you're not wearing flip flops, you're formal enough to go just about anywhere - but I'd like to absorb a bit of Italian style.

*A perk of academic life is being invited to give lectures in exotic locales, and getting your travel expenses paid! Eric scored a sweet deal when a senior colleague was unavailable for the engagement.

Your wedding dress on Gilt

Filed in If We Did It Again: I'd totally be stalking Gilt* for a cut-price, re-wearable, luscious silk designer gown.

Though I love, love, loved my dress, it is purely polyester organza, not amenable to dying, re-shaping, or re-wearing. The magic is all in the architecture and cut, not so much the fabric.

But these....

Reem Acra

All for far less than a designer gown in a bridal salon, and eminently re-wearable.

Lucky size 4, this one's calling you!

Shimmering silk! Designer elegance! And the beading!

Spectacular Reem Acra

How cool would it be to through a fancy party on your tenth (or first!) anniversary and pull out one of these classically cool gowns. Yeah. That's style.

*Awesome designer fashions on sale, by invitation only. Email me if you need an invitation, and I'll set you up. I've gotten killer deals on a couple super cute summer dresses.

My procratination problem

The bridal salon called 2 days ago to tell me that my dress is in and we need to schedule a fitting.

Why have I yet to call back?

Partly, because I've been busy tasting cakes, looking at rings, celebrating Dr. Cowgirl's bachelorette [post coming soon!], having wedding budget discussions, and catching up on wedding blogs trying to write my dissertation.

And partly because I have a big procrastination problem.

My year of careening crazily

Have you ever had a year when everything changes completely?

A year ago, I was a wandering graduate student in the Himalayas, wearing the same three pairs of hiking pants over and over. I had a lovely boyfriend back in the States, with whom I talked regularly, but my life felt pretty footloose and fancy-free (on a good day; and nauseatingly unmoored, on a bad one.)

Now, everything is changing utterly. I moved back to the States, stopped wandering through villages and subsisting on rice. We bought and moved into a house - our first time living together.

After spending all of this century (!) as a graduate student (yeah, since fall 2000), I am about to move to the other side of the desk, to resume getting a paycheck, to start paying back my student loans.

In the next six months, I will become a professor and a wife. After so long as a student and a singleton, it makes my head spin.

Symbolizing these transitions, I have purchased the two most expensive items of clothing I've ever owned in the past six months.

One, as you would suspect, is a gorgeously flowing white gown, about which I will say nothing else, as Mr. Barefoot turns out to be secretly following my blog.
(Hi ya!)

The other is also flowing and gorgeous, but in navy twill. I looks something like this:

I'll wear it on May 17, exactly 5 months and 1 week, before I wear my other insanely expensive piece of clothing.

How's this for a bridesmaid's look? A number of my friends have, or have worn such gowns, so I'm thinking it could work.

Cowgirl Style

Remember Dr. Cowgirl, on whose dress you voted? She ended up with a lovely halter-tied, bead and lace number from Mori Lee. Very Anthropologie.

In keeping with the Idaho ranch setting of the Aug. wedding - in the shadows of the Tetons, no less - she's going for a look like this. It's gonna be spectacular!



via Bird in Hand Photo

Darling dresses

from Saks

Totally perfect! But at $320, perhaps a little steep for some of my gals.

I'm beginning to have a vision of the Wedding Crew. We've decided to involve a bunch of people, in various roles. I think we'd all look a bit more organized and coordinated if we had similar dresses and colors, so I've been hunting for reasonably priced cocktail dresses that would echo the v-neck and ruffles of my gown, in bright punchy colors.

Calvin Klein, from Bloomingdales. So cute, and only $130! That will make me popular :)



Bloomingdales, my go-to place for party dresses, has Amsale dress I've been looking for. I love the color and flowy-ness of this one.



Another possibility, also from Bloomies.



*******

Eds. update: My BFF thinks that these floaty no-waist dresses will make her look pregnant again, which, after 2 kids, she has no intention of being! Mmmm... yeah, that was my lame-ass way of asking her to be in the wedding: asking her what sort of dress she'd like to wear. We both knew that she'd be standing beside me - we've been friends for more than 20 years (um yeah, I'm that old) - but I wish I'd done something a little more special. There's still time, I suppose. Thank goodness I didn't settle on one of these dresses!

The Quest for the Goldilocks Dress

You know, the one that is not too hot, not too cold, but just right.

In the case of dresses, it's the one that's not too expensive, not too cheap (looking), but (feels and looks) just right.

It may have been a mistake to begin my wedding dress shopping at a Saks sample sale, but I am deadline driven, and knowing the sample sale was going on for a limited amount of time, and that my dear friend and sister bride, Dr. Cowgirl, was in town, got me off my desk chair and into the fray.

Starting out with Vera Wangs - even at half off - had us starting out too hot/ expensive. The dresses were gorgeous, the fit was incredibly flattering, they made us feel like princesses... but it's hard to slap down $2-3K for ONE DRESS for ONE DAY! Especially if the hem is dirty, as was the case with an ivory mermaid style dress that I still dream about. Like this:


(did I make a mistake passing it up???)


Or if there's a lipstick kiss of unknown origin, and uncertain removability, in the middle of the skirt. Who kissed the dress after they tried it on?!?!?!? Yes, it is beautiful, but now it's virtually unwearable: I can't imagine paying $3000 for a dress with lipstick on it, unless I worked in the dry cleaning business and knew for sure that I could remove the stain.

Onward we went, to Jessica McClintock, which turned out to be far too cold. After I had been fondling the lush silks of Vera Wang and Carolina Herrara dresses, the 100% manmade polyester felt rough and unnatural. The colors were just a little too garish - amazing how wrong a white or ivory can be - and the cuts were to unidimenional and unflattering. The prices were nice: $300 and less! A whole rack of $99 sale dresses! But what good is an inexpensive dress if it doesn't flatter.

Before reaching Jessica McClintock, we had an even colder experience, having spontaneously dropped by Priscilla of Boston. Of course, spontaneously dropping by just isn't done, but Dr. Cowgirl and I are bridal newbies. What do we know? We saw some pretty dresses in a second story window, rang up and asked if we could come up, and the sales consultant agreed. If she didn't want us to come up, she certainly could've demurred. Instead, she sneered at us, in our jeans and boots, as we stepped off the elevator. Apparently, we did not present the usual picture of apple cheeked, 20-year-old blushing brides. The consultant seemed further nonplussed that we were accompanied by two more friends. "Are we really going to have four bridal appointments today?!" she sputtered.

Well, no. Leafhopper is already married. And Musical Marathoning Mammalogist (M3), though also engaged, has already gotten her dress and was along for moral support, and a good pair of dancing shoes. Once we learned how much the dresses cost - $1600 and up - Dr. Cowgirl folded as well. I was game to try on dresses, as the ones in the window really caught my fancy.

But, like I said, I am not the typical size 4, 20-something wisp of a bride. I'm darn near middle age, and would be more pleased with my physique if I lost a few pounds. The Bridal Consultant (BC) wasted no time in pointing this out with every dress I tried on.

"Oh, that's so slimming on you!"
"Now look how slimming this dress is. See how the cut draws the eyes down?"
"This one is really slimming - she looks like a size 4 in it."

Ok, I know women are taught to worry about our weight, to complain about it, to always seek to lose it, but I really didn't appreciate having a stranger imply that I am a fat cow.

I also know that plenty of brides go on diets, in an effort to look their very best for their weddings. Already, I have upped the exercise quotient, and I am looking to increase the amount of green vegetables and lean protein in my diet (notwithstanding the half pint of Ben & Jerry's I polished off tonight.) But all that is my own business. That I am buying a fancy dress does not give strangers free rein to comment on my size and looks.

The longer that appointment went on, the more uncomfortable I became. BC asked several questions about my engagement and wedding plans, and her response to each of my responses was "that's really not the way to do it."

Well, guess what? It's my wedding, and I'll do it how I like.