Just wanted to let everyone know that my primary blog home is now on BridalBuds, where I blog as Plumeria Bud. I'll still be posting here from time to time, but if you want more frequent updates, put it in your feed reader.

After sifting through a jillion lovely Etsy listings-- and briefly considering going the Alchemy route-- I finally bit the bullet and bought these:



From seller Lisix26

They are tiny and delicate and I don't think they will compete with the necklace. I still love the pearl and peridot ones-- heck, I love hundreds of earrings that I've browsed through so far. We'll see. I've already sent back one pair of shoes and a reception dress. Yay, I'm an indecisive bride!

I have this gorgeous heirloom necklace to wear on my wedding day. On me it's a little longer than a choker.
( Read more... )


And here is my dress:



I am not going to wear tulle around my neck though! At the hip I will wear a fabric flower-- not the feather, ribbon and brooch combo.

What earrings do you think would work best and not compete with the necklace? At first I thought about pearl studs, but I'm not fond of how they look on my ears. I could do a simple drop earring like these from Perfect Details:



I've also seen some lovely pearl and peridot earrings on Etsy like these from seller heatherberry:



What do y'all think? Obviously since the necklace is vintage, there's no way to get a perfect match and I'm not into matchy-matchy jewelry sets anyhow. I would like something I could wear again, and though I'm more likely to wear silver than gold, I'm sure I could find some use for pearl earrings down the line.

xposted

Because when he sees that I am now a wedding blogger, he posts this on his own blog.

Tim’s really great wedding ideas that are totally sweet!

Part 1: The Proposal

The proposal is probably the most important thing you will ever do in your sad, empty shell of a life. That said, you do not want to over think it. You risk raising the bar much to high. If you get your potential sweetheart’s expectations too high, you’re going to burn yourself out after a few years of marriage. Remember, marriage is forever or until one of you dies. If you are both immortal, you may just want to consider living together for awhile to make sure neither of you is overcome with the urge to behead the other and absorb their power in a process known as the quickening.

There's more where that came from.

Y'all know how much I love a bargain. And how much I love really cute drawings. So I was excited to see that Stinkerpants Designs is offering 10 percent off her design fee throughout the month of January. Her stuff is so adorable, I nearly die from the cute.



How can you not love it? The graphic even goes with my journal!

I was recently selected to be a wedding blogger for the site BridalBuds, and they've just put up my first post! I'm Plumeria Bud over there. The site just launched and they are affiliated with WeddingWire and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. I am super excited to be a part of the site and will be posting regularly over there!

Finally I can reveal the winner of the dress saga! My final stop was at an Atlanta boutique, Kelly's Closet. Way back when I first got engaged and was paging through bridal magazines and scoping out dress lines, it seemed that almost every line I loved was carried there. I wasn't even planning on making an appointment though because I knew most everything was out of my price range. But I had tried on dress after dress at boutique after boutique, and I had yet to find the perfect gown. My mom was in town and she offered to supplement the dress budget. I took her up on the offer and we headed down to Candler Park to check out the Closet.

( And away we go )

So after a few hiccups, I had a great hair trial down in Florida over the weekend! I ended up going to a different salon than I had originally planned but I am pleased with the results. (Here is my inspiration.)

( Check it out )

I should be packing for my trip to Florida right now, but instead I decided to make a collage of potential wedding hairstyles. It's for a good reason, I promise-- I have a hair trial scheduled for Saturday with a stylist down in Islamorada.


Beach wedding hair by maggieplans

I'd like to keep my hair curly and wear a flower in it. Whether I have it all the way up or just halfway will likely depend on the weather; if it's uncomfortably hot or windy, I will wear it up. If we get lucky with the weather, I'll wear it partially down. I also haven't decided whether I want to wear fresh flowers or a fun flower in my hair either. I suppose that will be a post for another day!

I'll make sure to get photos of my hair trial and post the results here. Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

At this boutique they were very generous in letting us take photos. My mom took most of these and I apologize in advance for making funny faces-- I didn't know when she was taking them!

( See below )

Early on in this journal's life I made a bunch of inspiration boards. Sites like Snippet and Ink and Style Me Pretty got me hooked on the process of scouring the 'net for images and tweaking them until they were juuuuust right.

I wanted to make one that was representative of our current palette and ideas for the Islamorada wedding. Here's what I came up with:


Maggie & Tim's wedding by glitzee

I wanted to make it a blend of bright, tropical colors and more muted beachy tones. It's more of a thematic representation than a literal one; that's not my dress, I haven't bought any shoes yet and our invitations are still a work in progress.

Did you ever make an inspiration board (or something similar) for your wedding?

So I continued my search for the perfect gown. At one boutique, which unfortunately did not allow photos, I ran across a few interesting choices. The designer St. Pucchi is known for its fabulously over the top confections. It turns out their Sposa line has some more restrained items. Here was the one I fell in love with:

( Under the cut )

Once I figured out what type of wedding gowns look awful on me, it wasn't too long until I learned what did flatter. It turned out that sweetheart necklines worked best for my decolletage-- mustn't hide my light under a bushel. Gowns that nipped in at the waist and were somewhat hip-hugging-- to my surprise -- also worked well. As a girl with hips, I was always taught to go for full and A-line skirts to disguise my curves, but it turns out that a more fitted silhouette looks better. So I ruled out ballgowns and the poofier of the A-lines.

I visited six boutiques in all (!!) but only a couple would let me take photos, unfortunately. But I'll show you stock photos of some of the ones I remember from the other places. A few of my early favorites were from Sophia Tolli's line:
( Behind the cut )

Looking for a wedding dress was one of the first wedding-related things I did. In fact, I have been eying gowns for years. I love fashion, pretty fabrics and dresses-- what's not to love?

I've always liked vintage styles, from the '50s silhouettes found at Stephanie James or the 1930's recreations at Unique Vintage.

( Some of my favorites beneath the cut )

Now that we've finally hired a DJ-- Liquid DJs which is based in Pompano -- Tim and I are faced with the arduous task of finding a first dance song. This is fraught with difficulty for a number of reasons. Firstly, we don't really have a song that could be classified as "our song," at least not one that's appropriate for a wedding. Secondly, we have wildly divergent tastes in music. Tim likes Metallica; I like hip-hop. He is really into what I call whiny indie (anything Conor Oberst, Ben Gibbard and their ilk do, basically) whereas he likes to mock me for having a gay man's taste in music (show tunes, cheesy pop, Dolly Parton, etc.) I could go on and on. We both worked at college radio stations in school (KTRU for me, WMBC for Tim so that gives us extra snob factor.

( But wait-- there's more! )

No, I haven't joined Alice and her frock-coated friend. My apologies for the blog-absence. I don't really have a good excuse either. Maybe that I'm easily distracted? I hope this slide show of engagement photos will make up for it.

All photos are courtesy the lovely and talented Cara Pastore of F22studio, who shot them in the Atlanta neighborhoods of Castleberry Hill and Cabbagetown in July.

I do have a ton of posts that I need to make, like choosing a first dance song, the whole dress shopping extravaganza, invitation anxiety and the continuing drama: what headpiece shall I wear? I know you're excited!

It's taken me months and months to figure out what I wanted for a wedding ring. Inspired by the Tiffany & Co. Celebration Rings, I vacillated between wanting something like this:


source

and something like this:

source

But I worried that either style of piece would overwhelm my engagement ring. So I thought about something simpler and more classic. Plus there's that part of me that cannot resist a bargain.

( Here's what I chose )

I feel conflicted about engagement rings. I've always wanted one, though I've long been aware of their mixed-up history. As Tim and I got more serious, I started to think about what kind of ring I would like. Twenty-two-year-old me would've said a one-karat Tiffany solitaire in platinum, thank you very much. But then Kanye had to go singing about conflict diamonds. (Only half-kidding there.) And I have a visceral response to most jewelry advertisements. I find them deeply sexist and offensive. Can't buy me love, anyone? Not according to DeBeers.

And yet I love the more positive symbolism a ring offers: commitment, love and the promise of being together forever. Dilemma.

Add to that the fact that we're going into marriage debt-free-- expensive bling was not even on the table. I dropped a few hints about not needing a big rock, that sapphires were nice and there were even some other options like moissanite.

( Here's what he gave me )

I'm not the most crafty bride out there. Outside of an on-again, off-again cross stitch habit, it's not often that I darken the door of a store like Michael's. But I was there today to pick up elements for my Sarah Palin Halloween costume (fixings for an American flag pin and moose earrings, if you must know) and came across the most adorable craft punch.



image source

They make not only an adorable sand dollar shape, but they also punch out a starfish. How cute is that?



Now that's the kind of crafting I can get behind. I am already thinking of ways to use this punch-- thank-you cards, escort cards, programs, favor tags...the list goes on.

They don't seem to be carrying this item online anywhere yet, but there were plenty in the local Michael's today.

What kind of crafting did you do for your wedding?

Though I was officially an English lit major in college, I took a lot of classes in the Study of Women and Gender department and came close to getting a double major. I've identified as a feminist for more than half of my life, so when Tim and I started getting serious, I knew that I would have to approach everything wedding-related with my jaded feminist eye.

There are certain traditional things I'm choosing not to do because I am not a fan of what they represent, either historically, symbolically or literally. Here's a brief listing of how and why:

- I'm not wearing a veil because of the patriarchal history attached to them. Yes, veils are beautiful, present dramatic photo opportunities and are considered the accessory that makes a bride a bride. But I just can't reconcile those with the traditional meaning behind them.

- I'm not being given away by my father. Again, this tradition dates back to when marriages were arrangements between families and women were chattel. I'm planning to walk down the aisle with both my parents. Weddings do represent the joining of families, and there's a way to acknowledge that without harking back to the days when women couldn't own property, vote or get a meaningful education.

- I'm not tossing my bouquet. I find this tradition embarrassing for all parties, frankly, and I've refused to get up for this ceremonial bit of business at every wedding I've attended. Why should single guests be ritually humiliated in front of a crowd?

- We're not having a garter toss either. This is yet another tradition with a sordid past, not to mention one with an equally vulgar present. I'm far from a prude, but the idea of Tim going up my dress in front of all of our guests, with stripper-y music playing in the background, just grosses me out.

I think what a lot of these traditions have in common is that they symbolically enact or reference the consummation of a marriage, and I find that profoundly distasteful on many levels. It's a reminder of the bad old days when virgin brides were prized and families went through elaborate rituals to ensure that their arranged marriages "sealed the deal" as soon as possible. I'd rather rewrite or completely discard these bad old tropes completely, thank you very much.

Did personal or political beliefs affect your wedding planning? How?