I think I found a wedding preservation box!

I found it on an Archival and Preservation site and it’s called a Textile Storage Kit. It’s normally used for stuff like crocheted blankets or other museum-type pieces. But I think it might be perfect for my dress.

The entire kit is about $65 including shipping – no returns or exchanges.

What do you all think? Should I get it?

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Technorati Tags: storage kit, wedding dress preservation, wedding preservation

Top o’ the morning ladies! I’ve got some good news!

This morning when going through my normal routine of checking my available Groupons and Living Social deals, I was pleased to find that Roma Sposa in Birmngham, MI. has a deal on Groupon today.

The deal applies to their big upcoming sample sale and goes like this:

• For $100, you get $500 toward a sample evening gown
• For $250, you get $1,000 toward a sample bridal gown

Clearly I’m super psyched about this. For all of you keeping to a strict budget like I was, this is the perfect way to get your hands on a gorgeous, good quality gown at a fraction of the price.

And keep in mind that it doesn’t have to be perfect right off the rack, just close enough. You can always take it to a seamstress to get the perfect fit and look just for you.

Get your Groupon

Happy Shopping!

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Technorati Tags: Bridal Gown, roma sposa, sample sale, Wedding Dress

It’s one of those commonly overlooked details.

You pack everything up the night before nice and neat, labeled and organized. Your dress is steamed and bagged and ready to go.

Your wedding comes and goes and it’s time to look through your pictures.

But what is that awful metal and plastic contraption supporting your gorgeous dress?!

It’s the hanger that you grabbed last minute and didn’t even imagine would rear its ugly head. But it did.

Now all of your wedding pictures are super perfect and everything you imagined – except of course for the hanger.

Thankfully, our photographer was thoughtful enough to mention to me beforehand to bring a nice hanger for dress pictures. I happen to have a dress form that I used, but there’s no way I would’ve thought to bring it on my own.

So here’s my nudge to you, my fellow brides. Take a few minutes and spend a few dollars if you have to. Find yourself a hanger that you won’t mind looking at over and over again when you’re taking a trip down wedding memories lane.

A friend of mine recently attended a bridal shower and instead of just mentioning it to the bride, she went all the way and gave her a custom hanger as a gift. Both practical and thoughtful. It’s perfect.

My friend found her personalized hanger at the Etsy Shop, The Painted House and More. There are a bunch of different options. You can have a common word bent in the wire like love or Mrs., but you can also take it a step further and order a custom name, like Mrs. Williams, for instance.

So do yourself a favor and remember the little details like this one. Believe me you’ll be glad you did.

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Technorati Tags: Bridal Gown, Bride, Dress, Hanger, Pictures, Wedding Gown

****something happened with wordpress on 1/19 when I originally drafted this and it was never published.. so here it is.****

I totally intended to post something on January 11th – Marking the 5 month mark and the beginning of – “Our Wedding Year!” But life totally got in the way.. While I was ahead with everything on my list from Designing and ordering the STDs (back in September), Making a preliminary guest list (back in August), Creating the Website (back in October) – those three things are basically stagnant now. I had wholly planned on sending out the STDs on December 11th – the 6 months mark. Then I pushed it back to January 11th – to give our parents a little while longer to get their friends addresses to us.. and now – it’s January 19th and I haven’t addressed a single envelope.
I keep saying – “this weekend” – but our weekends are JAM packed with things to do… speaking of – we attended a friend’s wedding this past Saturday. AWESOME! It was at the Inn at St. John.. It’s a beautiful space. On Sunday we attended a Sip N Scan at Macy’s to begin our registry – something I wanted done before I sent out the STDS.. (CHECK!) and Monday we found the groomsmen’s suits for a STEAL and the future Hubby Purchased his. He also bought my jewelry.. Originally – I wanted to wear crystals.. but this simple pearl set caught my eye and my heart. I’m so excited to wear it.. next to my shoes and veil – it’s my favorite wedding day addition.

The genuine fresh water pearl set includes: Studs, a single strand pearl bracelet and a single strand pearl necklace. I tried it on when I got home… I got misty.. Everything is coming together.. Now – if I could just get my life together and mail off these STDs.

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Technorati Tags: countdown, Inn at St. John, Wedding Jewelry

I don’t know if I mentioned this.. but finding a shoe has been VERY serious business for me. I set a goal to have my shoes picked out and on my feet by September 30th. I found the perfect shoe on September 3rd.. WELL ahead of schedule.. Good thing too – because it turned out that they weren’t so perfect. This designer has some funky narrowing of the toe going on so my my 4th and 5th toe slid right off. Here is a pic of shoe 1.

The second shoe was MUCH better… more in line with the style I like – peep-toe pump. I guess I had just gotten too fancy with the first shoe. Here is a picture of shoe 2. I fell in love with this one the minute I slipped it on. Yes – that is a 4.25inch heel.

While I absolutely LOVED shoe 2… I kept checking back on the zappo’s site for new Badgley Mischka inventory.. That’s when I found shoe 3! I’m keeping shoe #3 a secret until the wedding.. but just know that it’s the most fabulous shoe of them all!

Stay tuned! only 201 more days until you get to see what shoe 3 looks like.

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Technorati Tags: badgley mischka, heel, Shoes

I have been searching for something to compliment my e-ring for FOREVER!!!! Like – FOR EVER EVER! I have tried on over 50 wedding bands.. yes – OVER 50!

On Saturday, after picking up my newly buffed and polished e-ring.. I happened to come across a band I hadn’t seen before.. It’s very non-traditional.. but just like I like them – dainty and sparkly.

It also didn’t hurt that it was 40% off.

Here is a sneak peak at my band – alone and with my e-ring.. of course the band hasn’t been sized yet – but you get the idea.

I can’t wait to see our ring pics on wedding day.. gonna be lots of sparkle.

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Technorati Tags: rings, sparkle, wedding band

So.. a little back story about my dress. I’ve had this dress since early 2008 when I bought it for my friend’s wedding.. She wanted it as her bridesmaids’ dress. I ended up not being in the wedding and despite several futile attempts to sell and give away this dress -it was still hanging in my closet when it came time to write up my wedding budget.

Let’s just say that already having a perfectly good dress and spending $1000 on another dress (I think I want – because I haven’t actually gone to try it on) – seemed silly to me.. And with a great seamstress – I can totally look JUST the way I want to look – fabulously chic and elegant.

So… I have a perfectly good J. Crew Dress:

Which will look totally different once my seamstress (FMIL) is done with it. We’re adding crystals to the waist, a very beautiful and sparkly lace train and matching veil and dropping the shoulders. I also have one more surprise planned that I’m going to keep secret until the reception (of course I’ll be sure to post pics after the BIG DAY).

And let’s just say that I paid more for the fabric (at 50% off than I paid for the dress) because evidently J. Crew wasn’t impressed with this dress and put it on clearance way back at the end of 2007 and then brought it back at full price about a year ago.

So – discounted dress WINS over $1000 dress and TOTALLY helps keep us close to our 12K goal.

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Technorati Tags: Bridal Gown, DIY, Dress

I took a MUCH needed break from wedding planning this past August. We just had too much going on: 4 weddings (including one in Vegas), enjoying the last days of summer and gearing up for the fall. Just a few days shy of my Sept. 1st return to planning – I went out with the FMIL (future mother in law) to check out fabric stores. I have my dress but it’s a little plain. So she offered to revamp it for me and make it FABULOUS. We were able to pick up the crystals she’ll be adding, fabric for my train and fabric for my veil. I absolutely LOVE the fabric and I was able to get it 50% off at Joann’s. I’ve never been so excited about a textile in my life!

I have ONE goal for the month of September – FIND SHOES. For some reason it has been very difficult for me to make any types of decisions when it comes to the style of footwear I want on the BIG DAY. I can’t even narrow down color and style. I’ve actually been online browsing the last 4 months.. but I decided that it’s time to BUCKLE down – especially since it’s the end of the season and I’ll have to wait until next spring if I want a chance to snag a summer shoe.. and that’s a NO-GO because we need to start my dress soon and we can’t hem it without my shoe. So – every weekend in September will be devoted to finding THAT shoe. I’ll keep you posted on my shoe journey.

~DetroitGyrl

(PS. Joann’s has a magazine on sale for $2.99 – it includes 6 coupons (including 2 50% coupons) – totally worth the $2.99)

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The future hubby and I got all snazzy to hit the town for a hip hop concert in downtown Detroit on Saturday. I was lucky enough to win two tickets to see Jay Electronica and Slum Village from Public Media Group at St. Andrew’s Hall (or so I thought). I was the first person to respond that I wanted two free tickets. COOL!! Can’t turn down a ANYTHING free – especially during WEDDING BUDGET season. So.. I’m given the option of picking up the tickets or having my name on the list at the door. I love to have paper tickets in hand – but picking them up from Royal Oak when I live way out 94 – doesn’t seem like an option – so I opt to have my name +1 added to the list.

We get there just after 8pm, see our friends in line, have a couple laughs – The future Hubby and I haven’t been on a date in a while and haven’t been to a hip hop concert inside of the city since…. since… We looked forward to the night out. He hadn’t heard of Jay Electronica – so I hoped this would restore his faith in hip hop.

Anyway.. long story short.. get up to the window and hand the woman my license only to be told that my name is not on the list and that it was probably removed because the list was so long.. HUNH? How does that make sense?

So – I get home and e-mail Jeremy D (the guy that told me I won in the first place) about the bogusness (yes – I said bogusness) of the situation and he gives some tidbits that don’t help me: 1. the promoter swears my name is on the list 2. I need to return to the window and get my tix (yeah – that’s cute – I’m 40 minutes away now)…

Then he tells me that basically it was my fault – because I didn’t e-mail him right away from the ticket window. I’m sorry – I don’t make it a habit to carry my laptop around with me to hip hop concerts. Epic FAIL on his part for trying to blame ME in this situation. So – I suggested that from now on he leave paper tickets for winners at the door – since he knows this type of thing is an issue (another tidbit he shared with me – thanks Jeremy) :-/

Whatever… in the end – The future Hubby and I took a nice stroll through Greektown, stopped for some coldstone and thought about how nice it would be to get some wedding shots on the steps of Old St. Mary’s Church.

In other news… I went paper shopping in Royal Oak yesterday with one of my Bridesmaids who happens to be the BOMB graphic designer.. We wanted to check out Envelopments paper for my invitations and programs, etc.

I LOVE Envelopments paper – but what I DON’T love is Write Impressions. They have TONS of great paper goods and fun little gift ideas.. but customer service they do NOT! They were down right rude and inconsiderate. Which is crazy – because there weren’t that many people in the store and it was a good 20 minutes before we even asked for help. Something as small as a quote seemed to be too much for the salesgirl to handle. She didn’t even say – “I’ll be right back” when she got up to give her co-worker money for lunch.. despite the fact that I was mid sentence with a question. And she argued with me for a good minute about envelopes even when I told her to go ahead and put them on the quote – despite my lack of desire to purchase them. And then… she randomly got up to check the weather on the internet.. so we just took the half finished quote and waved goodbye while she chatted on the phone with a friend about the weather.

Needless to say – we’ll be be trying to find the Envelopments paper somewhere else.

Seriously – what is it with people?

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Technorati Tags: Envelopments, Jay Electronica, Old St. Mary's, Public Media Group, Write Impressions

So a little birdie (Twitter, of course), told me that Anthropologie is going to start offering wedding gowns. I’ve only discovered Anthropologie myself in the last couple years, but I loooove their stuff. It’s always so girly and feminine. Sometimes a little too vintage-y for me, but overall, very nice stuff.

Now, all you brides getting married this summer, don’t get your hopes up. The line of bridal gowns isn’t set to debut until next spring.

Check out the full story at InStyle.

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Technorati Tags: Anthropologie, Bridal Dress, Bridal Gown, Urban Outfitters, Wedding Dress, Wedding Gown