Wedding Dress Introduction

The Wedding Planning Week has come to an end, just about. D and I leave tomorrow for Columbia and the rest of the semester and are feeling pretty good about what we've done so far. The only real problem is that I'm worried everything isn't as nailed down as I'd like it to be, but is it ever? 

Anyhow...here's more of a recap for you! Friday got up bright and early again and wandered over to the Atlanta Bread Company to meet Cathy Evangelista in person. Cathy is our videographer and we'd never met her in person before yesterday morning. I have to say, the videography wasn't my biggest concern. D and Mom did most of the research, interviewing (on the phone/email) and requests while I kept records and info (we've unknowingly fallen into various roles...as you can probably guess. I'm the one who has all the information and does all the follow-up work and keeping everyone straight and updated work-meaning vendors. We all make the decisions, especially based on what's most important to us regarding the wedding). I totally trusted their choice of videographer, but knew there needed to be a formal meet and talk session with me present. When we did finally sit down over some coffee Friday morning, D and I fell into our usual pattern of asking more about the person's life and, in Cathy's case, very musically inclined sons than asking questions about their work. I think this happens because we already chose them based on what they can do, now we want to have a relationship with them and know who they are and what's important to them. If any of our vendors seemed like ass holes or selfish, money-driven jerks, I think we wouldn't have stuck with them. We are all about having a group of vendors and people on our wedding team that feel like friends rather than just some people we hired and Cathy fell right into that category.

Afterwards, we headed over to the Big Bamboo so D could get a tee-shirt. While we were there, we had lunch at the fabulous seafood place, Steamer's, that I used to work at back in 2002. We mainly go for the amazing She-Crab soup, but their tuna bites are pretty incredible and so is just about everything else. While we had lunch out on the patio, we spotted Dustin's old colleague from the Hilton Head Airport, Austin. I don't really know Austin, but we seem to literally run into him every time we're home.

BUT...the MOST exciting part of yesterday, as wonderful as each moment was, was going to Bleu Belle Bridal to look for a veil. Mom and I entered, wandered around when I saw one of my three dress choices hanging in the samples rack and said, "This is one of the ones, Mom..." to which the salesgirl said: "Yeah, we just love her!" I found two veils I liked and they suggested I try on the sample of my dress with it (cus up until now they'd said my dress hadn't come in yet)...so I headed toward the dressing room and they quick covered my eyes, led me in and said: "Neesha, we'd like you to meet your wedding gown!" Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let me just tell you right now...it was AWESOME! I was so excited and my Mom cried a little, one of the salesgirls got "chills" and I couldn't wait to get that sucker on. It was so amazing. Even more amazing in person than I remember it being. Mom helped me into the dress, we tried the veil I liked most on with it and voila! The wedding day attire is complete. I even had the crazy idea to bring my shoes with me for whatever weird reason...and the only gown, shoes, veil...went together so well and I was so happy. What made me even HAPPIER was that the dress was a little too big on me so it needs to be taken in. Back in November when I tried that size on it was a perfect fit. Literally. Almost like they melted me and poured me into the gown, but this time...too big! Not huge, but too big and in need of adjusting. This is nice to know.

I stood in the dress for quite some time while Tammy, the seamstress, tried to figure out the best way to bustle it without losing any of the beautiful details of the gown. She played with it for about thirty minutes and my right foot started to get totally numb from standing in the new shoes with the heavy gown on...but, really, I would've stood their forever if they'd let me. There aren't many days I'm going to get to put on a wedding gown like that...I love it and I can't wait for you guys to see just why when you come to the wedding!

Before we left, I picked out some cute hair jewelry (who ever thought I would one day be thinking about hair jewelry!?!) and thanked the women profusely. I also dreamed about this Bronwin dress by Melissa Sweet and how much I'd love to wear it to the rehearsal dinner. I read somewhere that it's good luck to wear green to the rehearsal and, although I really want to wear white, think I'll make sure I've got some green shoes or something (I'm totally superstitious...I think it runs in the family). I figure I can find something like this Bronwin dress, though, and throw on some green heels. I saw a pair in some wedding magazine that were ridiculously adorable. If only this dress weren't so freaken ridiculously expensive. Damn Melissa Sweet. I will have to find a more reasonable dress that looks similar.

In other news, my bridesmaid Carrie dropped out, which wasn't all together unexpected. A lot has happened in the world and in families since D and I got engaged...for example, two or three of his groomsmen just had a new baby or are about to have a new baby. We're crossing our fingers they'll all be able to attend still! But, if not, we get it...and love them just the same.

Other than that, the week was a total success. I started this entry the other day and am finishing it now-back in Columbia, after our intensely long ride back yesterday. Still working on details from home...but it feels fabulous to have so much taken care of...thanks to Mom and Dustin this process has really been enjoyable.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend/spring break!

xoxo

N