Jenn Got Married

Hey guys, I'm a married lady now!  It happened in a whirlwind of snow, flurries, ice, and skirts.  In the end, it was amazing and perfect--all of our friends and family pitched in to make it an event I'll never forget.

And without further ado (because I know this is what you really want), photos!

Red room!

Bride and groom!

Me and the bridesmaids, who were awesome.  The flowers we're carrying are made (by all of us) of felt, hot glue, and flower wire (and ribbon).  I'll just take a moment to say I had the BEST bridesmaids.  One journeyed far from the northernlands and faced lots of stupid airline crap just to be here.  One absorbed bad luck (her shoe broke just hours before the wedding, and then when she figured that all out, she ended up burning her hair).  One was bringer of boozes not to mention up early to help decorate.  They were all freakin' awesome.

The groomsmen, not be forgotten, were also fantastic. Two travel far--one from Eastern Europe!!--and they all pitched in and helped get everything going, decorating, driving me/other people all around, and just being super cool.  Our wedding parties are simply a microcosm of our fantastic group of friends.

I made my veil, which was super fun.  The flower is made of silk circles of varying sizes, and I sewed some beads in the middle to give it a little bling (I was looking for some sort of cool piece of jewelry but never found one).  The veil itself was a pain, until I finally figured out how to shape it properly--I'm extremely pleased with how it turned out!

The shoes! So amazing! They were great--though, I think because they are really high, they are why I didn't cry during the ceremony, which was so beautiful and perfect.

My dress twirls! (Advantages of a full skirt).

I never thought I'd say it, but my wedding was perfect.  Even with all the snow crazies, and with some people unable to travel, we still had a great time and partied hard.

Project Wedding Dress

Oh, hi there.  Remember me?  Yeah, I tried to blog a bit more then fell off the face of the earth.  However, I am back because I want to tell you all about the pretty wedding dress I'm making. The pictures will be a bit deceiving because I won't share the finished product until after February 5th, but you can see some of the process up until then.

So: this summer, after Lance proposed and I accepted, and after I tried on a few dresses and decided that most things related to commercial weddings made me twitch and itch a little (I think I'm allergic), I decided to make my own dress.  This Vogue pattern (originally from 1954!) caught my eye and stuck with me.

So very vintage! With a scooped neck, a full skirt, and a low back!  These features drew me toward it.  I bought the pattern, then began the practice dress (to make sure the final version would fit before I attempted it).  Finals occurred, followed by the holidays (and another wedding to attend), so I finally got around to working on after Christmas.  And...it turned out so well:

Well, it would look better if you could see me in it, but you can get the general idea.

So, now that the practice dress is (mostly) done (sans buttons and hemming), I decided to make several modifications to the pattern.  There are buttons on the front, but I am moving those to the back.  I'm also adding lace.  I'm also making the whole dress out of a second-hand dress given to me, so I'm incorporating fun beading into the skirt (that I don't have to do!).  Here's the dress I chopped up for parts:

And a close-up of the skirt/beading:

Gotta love recycling!

I'll go into more detail about the modifications I made (and how I did it), but I'm feeling reasonably confident in my sewing skills as of late.  Luckily, I do have an awesome seamstress to help me hem it because that's my sewing weakness: my hems always look like a home-ec project whereas the rest of the dress usually looks really great.  Guess I'll be working on that skill next!

Next wedding project (after the dress is completed): wedding vests for the boys.

(Party) Dress

I had an engagement party last weekend (so fun!), so I decided to use some of my precious spare time (read: time I should be reading) to make a new dress.  I was at the new fabric store with AW and found a great Burda Style pattern (No. 7517) and some great discount material.  The dress only needed 2 yards!  To make a whole dress!

Anyway, so after deciding it was worth about $15 to buy pattern/dress (though, after zipper and other materials, probably closer to $20 or $25), I went home and made it.  I got quite obsessed with finishing and stayed up until 1 or 2 am, working on it.

It turned out, and it turned out exceedingly well.  You see, I actually took the time to carefully measure and resize the pattern to fit me precisely.  (It turns out that I'm a mix of three sizes, go figure).  The pattern was really good in that it was both easy and had a great size chart so I could figure it all out.  I also carefully sewed everything, so all the seams were in place and the zipper wasn't all crooked.

And when I zipped it up, I was surprised and delighted to discover that it fit me perfectly.  It was lovely.  After the picture was taken, I was able to adjust the front pleats a bit more to lay flatter (no additional sewing required!).  I want to make another out of cotton and maybe three more just for the hell of it.  It was stylish and wonderful, and it was the perfect thing to wear to a party to celebrate our engagement.

Wedding Planning Recommences!

Lance and I have been engaged for three months now, but somehow I think we're a little behind on wedding planning.  Here are things I have done:

• tried on wedding dresses (and ruled out buying one)
• obtained a dress to take apart and make mine out of
• picked wedding cake recipes for my aunt to make
• figured out bridesmaids/groomsmen and officiant

Here are the things we probably should be doing but haven't yet:

• set a date (well, we did this once already, but it fell through)
• register
• figure out a budget
• decide dresses/suits/Lance's suit
• food
• photographer
• engagement photos

 Luckily, thanks to an awesome friend, we may have figured out where the darn thing is going to be.  And now that we've figured out where, we can figure out the when.  And the budget.  For some reason, so much of our planning was hinging on that not-so-minor decision.  Now that we have a where (which I'm really excited about because it's going to be SO COOL. And budget-friendly!), I'm back in wedding planning mode again.  Lance and I have decided we're going to try for the cheap-yet-fun wedding award, and we're excited.  As you can probably tell from my overuse of the italics.

Let the wedding planning excitement continue!  I'm obviously out to make this as much fun as humanly possible instead of aggravating as it too often seems.