Miss Armadillo Returns From a Hiatus…With Updates!

Oh my gosh, Hive!  Upfront I feel the deep need to apologize for my absence around these parts lately.  Simply put, life has gotten crazy busy in Armadillo Land.  Before I knew it, Thanksgiving had come and passed and now we’re on the countdown to Christmas!  Anyone else feel like the last couple of months of this year have gone by at warp speed?  It totally freaks me out.

Anyway, just because I’ve gone MIA on Weddingbee doesn’t mean I haven’t been hard at work on wedding-related activities so I can come back and share some updates with you guys!  A few posts back I shared what we had planned for my lovely bridesmaids to wear down the aisle.  They ranked their favorites on Weddington Way, each chose a different dress from the Alfred Sung line by Dessy, and fabric swatches helped solidify the decision to go with the dupioni fabric in “Dahlia.”  However, I didn’t exactly feel comfortable asking my girls to fork out money for dresses they hadn’t even tried on, so last Tuesday I set up an appointment for me and three of my girls at a bridal boutique in Houston.  Unfortunately, MOH Henna lives in Arizona and couldn’t make the trip with us, but the rest of my girls piled into my car and we made the two hour drive to Weddings by Debbie, which was the closest retailer that carried the Alfred Sung line.  

Weddings by Debbie is a fancy, schmancy “appointment only” salon, and I’ve got to be honest; I had no idea what the place was going to be like when I booked the appointment.  The only reason why I picked Weddings by Debbie in the first place was because it was the closest salon that carried Alfred Sung dresses.  Needless to say, when we walked in and saw the $10,000 couture bridal gowns on the show room floor, we felt a little…erm…out of place.  They also had a few plaques up on the wall displaying their status as a “The Knot Pick of 2010” and “The Knot Pick of 2011.”  We warily told the receptionist at the front that we were there for an appointment in the bridesmaids salon and were pointed in the direction we needed to go.

You guys, Weddings By Debbie is AWESOME.  If four, unassuming small town girls like us could be made comfortable in such an impressive place, I think anyone could.  We were helped by a woman named Jenn, who was the manager of the bridesmaids section.  She asked us what we were interested in trying on, and we gave her the style numbers of the different dresses the girls had chosen online.  Unfortunately, Jenn had NONE of the style numbers we wanted to try on in the store (totally my fault for not calling ahead and asking!) However, she did pull every Alfred Sung dress they had in the salon and my girls each tried on a dress in a similar silhouette and style to the one they chosen.  

I took some pictures with my phone, and I apologize in advance for the terrible quality!  But maybe there are a few bees out there who are curious about the Alfred Sung dresses and want to see them on real bodies, so for your viewing pleasure, here they are!

Here’s Lil Dillo modeling style number D542 in Peau de Soie in the color “mango.” Remember, Lil Dillo’s original pick is Alfred Sung D492!

BM Mascara modeling style number D538 in Peau de Soie, color “pine green.” Her original pick is a similarly shaped strapless number, D445.

BM Dancer wearing D520 in the Peau de Soie color “atlantis.” Her actual pick is D488.

In the last picture there, you see that slight pop of a purple skirt peeking in at the bottom left?  That’s a dress made in the color and fabric we chose for the actual dresses, the Dupioni in “dahlia.”  I took a photo of it on the show room floor to see what the color looked like in the store lighting:

Bah, such a pretty color!!

We were literally in and out of the store in about 20 minutes.  Jenn measured each of the girls and gave us a few tips and words of warning about ordering dresses from other retailers online.  I absolutely loved that she didn’t try to pressure us into placing an order with them that day and she was overall just about as helpful as I could have possibly imagined.  If any of you are in the Houston area and are looking for places to shop for bridal gowns or bridesmaid dresses, I highly recommend Weddings by Debbie!

Anyway, I was originally set on ordering from a website called perfect-bridesmaid-dresses.com since they appeared to be the least expensive, but then Weddington Way held a site-wide 15% off deal during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday madness, which brought the Alfred Sung dresses down to literally the same price, except Weddington Way’s delivery date was two weeks sooner than the other place.  Needless to say, I got my bridesmaids on board and we ordered this past weekend.  The dresses should get here in February, and I seriously can’t wait!

What was your bridesmaid dress shopping experience like?  Did anyone else end up ordering dresses through Weddington Way?  Has anyone else been to Weddings by Debbie and have a kick-ass experience like we did?

Budget Busters (And How We’re Avoiding Them!)

Hey, y’all!

Like I’ve mentioned before in previous posts, Mr. A and I are planning our wedding and putting it on the tab of Mama Dillo and Papa Dillo–that said, spending a ton of my parents’ money on a one day event totally skeeves me out.  We’re sticking to a relatively modest budget and are trying to make smart choices to cut back on things without sacrificing general aesthetics or the comfort of our guests.  But, let’s be honest here.  Even at the most budget-friendly weddings, some aspects of the ceremony/reception are relatively pricey depending on the size of your guest list no matter which way you slice it.  The biggest issue with sticking to our budget remains that our guest list will probably be on the larger size.  We’ll be sending out somewhere around 200 invitations. (Read:  We’re inviting somewhere around 400 people.)  If it was just up to Mr. A and myself, this shindig would probably be much smaller and more intimate, but the general word on the street is when the parents pay, they also have a say.  And I’m actually totally fine with a larger scale reception; it’s not what I originally had in mind, but I know my parents are just as excited about this wedding as I am.  And to be honest, the idea of throwing a huge party with everyone’s friends and family there to dance the night away and celebrate love and marriage and optimism for the future sounds pretty darn sweet to me.

But with a larger guest list comes the added cost of more people to host, more mouths to feed, more tables, more centerpieces, more alcohol, and well, more everything.  If we were going to stick to our budget, something was going to have to give somewhere.  And so, we sat down with my parents and brainstormed on ways we could cut back on costs while still showing our friends and family a good time.  I’ll break things down into four major categories and show where we’re cutting back to accommodate our large guest list on a smaller budget:  Food and Drink, Decor, Entertainment, and Miscellaneous.

Category 1:  Food and Drink

• We’re limiting our choices of entrees, offering our guests the option of either a chicken or meatless dinner.  Like I’ve mentioned previously, we’re dishing out delicious Italian goodness from Johnny Carino’s at our reception, and guests will be able to scarf down hearty helpings of chicken parmigiana or fettuccine Alfredo.
• We’re having an open (but limited) bar.  Beer and two different kinds of sangria will be available to our guests.
• We’re nixing the cocktail hour.  Basically, our budget doesn’t have room for a mini meal before the big meal.  We’ll have some kind of crackers or something for guests to nosh on while we’re finishing up family photos before we arrive at the reception, but it won’t be anything fancy.  To make up for it, we’re having a fun and inexpensive late night snack brought out for guests who stick around to dance the night away! (More on that later!)
• We’re having a smaller wedding cake and will add cupcakes to make up the difference.  We’re also having a groom’s cake, which we’ll be DIYing!  I’m super excited to have fun with my mom in the kitchen on that one.

Category 2:  Decor

• We’re re-purposing centerpieces given to us for free.  We’ve also been collecting glass jars over the past year to incorporate, many of which have been given to us by family friends who’ve been collecting for us!
• We’re buying our table linens.  I feel like that sounds counter-intuitive to saving money, but buying is cheaper than renting.  Bizarre, I know.
• We’re going flower-free at the reception.  No floral centerpieces, here!
• We’re capitalizing on the power of dramatic lighting.  Lights can do marvelous things for those on a strict budget.  We’re waiting until the string lights go on sale after Christmas to swoop in and grab a few armfuls of them to totally transform the reception hall.  Between the string lights and candles in glass jars, I’m hoping we’ll achieve our dreamy winter becomes springtime garden atmosphere!
• Ceremony decor is minimal.  A family friend is generously giving two floral arrangements she’s making herself to flank the front of the sanctuary.  All other ceremony decor will be made by yours truly!

Category 3:  Entertainment

• We’re self-DJing the reception.  I feel like this is the biggest budget saver we’re implementing, but it actually didn’t originally stem from a desire to save funds.  My dad works as a DJ on the side and already has all of the DJ equipment, typical wedding reception playlists, etc.  We’ll designate someone to make reception announcements like cake cutting time and the bouquet toss and whatnot, but mostly we’ll just let the equipment do its thing.  I’m also super excited that Mr. A and I will be able to have total control over what music gets played.
• Most ceremony musicians are family or friends.  We’ll be hiring a pianist to accompany the ceremony, but special music will be provided by my very talented cousin/MOH Henna and the equally talented Bromadillo.

Category 4:  Miscellaneous

• I’m totally DIYing all wedding-related stationery.  That includes invitations, menus, ceremony programs, the whole shebang.  It’s a lot to undertake, but going the DIY route makes our invitations $1.50 per invite INCLUDING postage for both the invitation and RSVP, and our programs turn out to about 30 cents a pop.  You seriously can’t beat that.
• My dress was discontinued, and therefore stoutly discounted.   I went to try on dresses without actually intending to buy one and ended up finding “the one”!  I did kind of break a cardinal rule of dress shopping and didn’t even pay attention to price tags when we were trying them on.  Luckily for me, it ended up working out in my favor in the end!
• I’m wearing my mom’s veil instead of buying a new one.  It needs a little re-working, but I’m super excited at the prospect of both wearing something sentimental AND saving some cash.  It doesn’t get better than that.
• We’re DIYing the bridesmaids’ bouquets and groomsmen’s boutonnieres.  We’ll have a local floral shop make my bouquet and Mr. A’s boutonniere, but the florals for our wedding party will be made ourselves.  We’re doing baby’s breath for both the bridesmaids and the groomsmen, so it should be relatively easy to manage.  I’m excited!

You’ll notice the one big budget item I didn’t mention was photography.  While I do consider our photographer to be a “steal” in terms of current wedding industry prices, our decision to book him was not based on his price, but rather his portfolio and the meetings we had with him.  We stuck to our budget in terms of how much we allotted for photography, but we weren’t out to save as much money as possible when we went searching.  We could have paid much less for photography if we wanted to, but both Mr. A and myself felt that photography was something high up on the wedding priority totem pole.

I guess the point of this post was to just share how Mr. A and I are cutting back on a few things we felt were “unnecessary” for our big day and maybe in the process offer some helpful tips to others on a restrictive wedding budget like we are.  Hopefully someone out there in Internet Land can use these same techniques to help manage their own wedding day budgets.  If so, that makes this obnoxiously long post worth it!

How are you cutting back to save and otherwise stick to your wedding budget?  What wedding related items did you decide to live without, and what were your non-negotiable “must haves”?  Any other suggestions on ways we could slash our budget even more?

The One Where Miss Armadillo Needs Your Advice!!!

Hey there, lovely people!

Okay, so as the title of this post suggests, I could really use your input on something (don’t be scared…it’s nothing serious!)  You see, I have pretty much every aspect of this wedding pictured in my mind, save for one very important thing:  the reception decor.

I’ve got hundreds of mason jars I’ll be putting candles in, I’ll have a dozen or so manzanita branches for some centerpiece variety, and I have a few ideas up my sleeve for what to do on the ceiling in what could only be described as a bland and generally underwhelming reception space.  When we first booked it, I had visions of the space being a clean slate that I could transform in any way I wanted.  Except now that we’re ready to start actually putting down some simoleons for stuff, I’m feeling a little hesitant about making decisions.

This leads me to the current question at hand:  I’m stuck on what to do for our table linens!  First thing you should know:  We’re buying our linens instead of renting them, because (SURPRISE!) buying is cheaper than renting.  (Who woulda thunk it?)  Obviously, I don’t want to be stuck with thirty tablecloths forever after the wedding is over, so we’re going to try and sell them on EBay or something after everything is said and done with.

Right now, I’m stuck between two options:  sage green tablecloths or white ones.

My first instinct was to go with the green because the entire reception space is already white, and I figured bringing a colored tablecloth in would really jazz the space up.  Because, I mean, how good do these look?

Image via Elizabeth Ann Designs / Photo by Danielle Gillett Photography

Image via Southern Weddings / Photo by Barnaby Draper Studios

Totally not realistic, but awesome-looking! As a guest I’d be totally annoyed by the feel of moss on my elbows and arms if I had to sit at this table, though. Haha.
Image via New Hampshire Magazine’s Bride / Photo by Mark Davidson / Design by Kate Parker Designs

I guess I’m worried about two things with the green tablecloth option:  First, I’m worried that 30 tables covered in green might be too overwhelming in an otherwise white room.  Second, I’m not sure if 30 green tablecloths would be as easy to sell as 30 white ones.

This leads me to my second option, which is a white tablecloth with a green table runner on top, kind of like this:

Image via Fiance to Wife

Issues with this option:  Because we’ll be buying both tablecloths and runners, it’ll eat up more of our budget.  Secondly, majority of our centerpieces are mostly neutral (i.e. white or silver) so I’m not sure if the runners are bold enough to stand as the only “colored” item on the tables.

So, hive, this is where I could really use your advice!  Should we go for the green tablecloths, which have more of an impact but are most likely less re-sellable?  Or should we go with white tablecloths and green runners, the more underwhelming but more expensive option?  Do you think green tablecloths would be too overwhelming in our bland, all-white reception space?

It’s Good to Have Good Friends…

…because they give you free stuff for your wedding!

Okay, okay, so friends are good for reasons WAY MORE IMPORTANT than that, but when you’re in the thick of planning a wedding on a fairly modest budget, every little bit helps.  And because of some good, church family friends, we’ve managed to get a big chunk of our reception centerpieces for FREE!

A little while back I mentioned our mostly budget-based decision to not incorporate floral centerpieces into the reception decor.  As you can imagine, throwing a garden-inspired soiree without flowers in the decor felt a little… counter-intuitive, for lack of a better word.  We still wanted to have the feel of bringing the outside in without blowing holes in my parents’ pockets, but we weren’t exactly sure how we would be able to manage that.  But sometimes, problems have funny ways of working themselves out.

We attended a church family friend’s wedding in October of last year (we’ll call the bride Bee).  Bee’s mom and my mom are pretty close, and their whole family is pretty much amazing and super awesome.  Knowing that our wedding would be coming up soon, after the reception was over Bee’s mom handed us all 8 of Bee’s manzanita branch centerpieces (complete with the crystals dripping from them) as well as the huge manzanita branch “wishing tree” she had used for the reception.  She basically told us anything we saw in the reception decor that we wanted was “free game” except for a few items that had either been rented or they were going to try and sell.  That night, the Armadillo family went away with a huge chunk of “the centerpiece debacle” solved.  They’re currently sitting in my parent’s attic waiting for their next wedding appearance:

Yay!

A close-up of the crystals 

We’ll have to add a few more manzanita centerpieces to our collection, but we’ll ultimately end up having alternating high and low centerpieces scattered among the tables at the reception.  I’m thinking we’ll do maybe 12 manzanita centerpieces and 12-16 centerpieces that mostly consist of clusters of votive candles in mason jars.  We’ll add a few mason jar candles around the base of the manzanitas to tie everything together on the big day.

The only semi-issue I’m having with the manzanitas is how to pull our wedding colors into the mix.  Right now I’m pondering the idea of painting the terra-cotta pots silver and filling the top of them with moss.  My mom mentioned the idea of getting some of those small butterflies made out of feathers in the bright purple color and gluing four or five onto each centerpiece.  I kind of like that idea, mostly because it nods to our “winter becomes springtime” concept.  I also really like the religious undertones of the butterfly symbol in the Christian faith.  And plus, butterflies speak to new beginnings and change, which perfectly complements the institution of marriage and the promises that Mr. A and I will make to each other to begin our new lives as husband and wife.

Image via Floral Trims

So, what do you lovely people think?  Did budget restrictions and/or generosity of loved ones help dictate any aspect of the reception decor for you?  Any other ways I could incorporate our wedding colors into the manzanita centerpieces?

Who Is That Beardless Man????.

Hey, Hive.  Anyone familiar with no-shave November?  Well, as much as Mr. A would have loved to participate this year, his new-found position as a security officer pretty much made that decision for him.  You see, after probably 7 years of having a beard (his school system actually allowed full beards in their dress code and he was able grow one starting in 9th grade!), Mr. A had to shave that adorable baby face of his for work.

Now I know what you’re thinking:  So what?  No big deal, Miss A!  And you would be right, of course.  The fact that Mr. A is now a clean-shaven dude of the working world really isn’t a big deal at all, in retrospect.  But for Mr. A, shaving his face was a HUGE DEAL.  He doesn’t feel like himself without facial hair, and to be honest, after being with him for three years and only knowing him with facial hair, the change was definitely something I had to get used to, too.  When he first did it, I’ll just be honest:  he looked WEIRD.  Maybe because his skin was crazy white underneath that beard, or maybe because it looked like a child’s head had been Frankensteined on a grown man’s body after the hair came off.  Whatever the case, I would constantly find myself staring at him while we were watching TV or in the car together.  It just didn’t look like “him” without the beard.  For comparison, here’s a side-by-side photo:

On the left, Mr. A getting ready for the annual charity ball / On the right, Mr. A and I this weekend at a USO 1940’s benefit dance

He was mostly worried that he wouldn’t look like himself in our wedding photos, and I totally get that.  I would equate it to me having to chop all my hair off for a job and then be short-haired for the wedding, in which case I definitely wouldn’t feel like I was “me” at my absolute best.  But I think now that he’s been clean-shaven for awhile, he’s gotten used to the beardless dude staring back at him in the mirror.  I know I have!  And really, Mr. A looks pretty adorable whether he’s rocking the beard or not.  The only slight wedding-related inconvenience I’ve run into with the whole non-beard situation is this:

Noooooooooooo….!!!

For his own peace of mind, we’ve discussed the possibility of him asking for permission at work to start growing a beard a week before the wedding (he gets pretty substantial growth in that amount of time). But if that plan fails, I have no doubt it will still look like Mr. A up there at the altar on our wedding day.  And to be completely honest, he’s perfect to me whether he has facial hair or not.  It just might take a little convincing for Mr. A to believe it!

Did you or your significant other have to alter your physical appearance in some way prior to the wedding?  (And SUPER IMPORTANT QUESTION:  Should I paint over the beard on the peg people version of Mr. A for our cake topper, or leave it as-is for posterity’s sake?)

The Obligatory Dress Post

**Warning:  Superfluous pictures of myself in bridal gowns are ahead.  I promise I’m not a narcissist.

Here’s the deal, people:  Searching for “the dress” was toward the absolute, very bottom of the wedding priority list for me.

I guess I’ve just never been the type of girl who daydreamed about “the dress.”  Even after getting engaged I was more concerned with paper products and reception decor than what I would be wearing on my wedding day.  And that’s cool.  Our guests are getting mailed some pretty kick-ass DIY invites (at least I think they’re awesome!)  I’m a plus-sized bride with a pretty distinct pear shape so I figured my options would be fairly limited, anyway.  The only stipulations I had on whatever gown I ended up getting were 1) it must have straps, 2) it must be pure white (at Mr. A’s request) and 3) it must have some kind of train.  Secretly I hoped to find a gown with some kind of lace on it, and considering my body shape I figured I’d play it safe with an A-line silhouette.

With these ideas in mind, my very first plan was to get a replica gown made from Jasmine’s Bridal Shop.  These guys do BEAUTIFUL work, particularly with lace gowns, and with a limited budget of around $500 for my dress, I knew there was no way I would be able to get my dream of a lace gown without going the replica route.  However, just for the sake of the dress shopping “experience,” Mama Dillo took me and Lil Dillo to a few local bridal shops for a fun girls’ day out, just to try dresses on and, you know, figure out what I wanted when it came to ordering the replica.

We started our dress shopping adventure in the good ol’ small town of El Campo, Texas, about 45 minutes away from home.  We stopped first at a small bridal boutique called “Cupid’s Corner.”  The woman who owns the place is in her 70’s and is very sweet, but it was clear that she had a lot of outdated dresses in stock, and not a whole lot of plus-sized samples to try on.  I did get to slip on a couple, and just the feeling of putting on a wedding dress for the FIRST TIME EVER was pretty exciting.

The first dress I put on was this little number:  a dropped waist, ivory satin gown with ruching around the waist and lacy cap sleeves.  This was a big moment for me, because I suddenly realized something very important:

I’m a baaaaad blogger bride and have no idea what designer this gown is.

Straps make me look like a linebacker.  (Cue stink face.)

I also realized that ivory dresses look really nice against my skin tone, so although Mr. A requested a pure white dress (“because we earned it!” he said, haha) I was open to the idea of maybe getting an ivory or off-white dress, instead.

With my hopes of wearing straps going completely out the window, we also tried on this strapless, dropped waist number with a sweetheart neckline:

Again, I have no idea who this dress is by. Sorry!

It was nice, but didn’t quite give me the hourglass figure I was hoping.  It was also INCREDIBLY HEAVY.

Since those were the only two plus-sized samples the lady had in the store, we took our search elsewhere and stopped in at another bridal boutique in town called “New Beginnings.”  You guys, for a small town dress shop, this place was HUGE.  And they literally had like 30 dresses in my size to try on.  It was amazing!  To top it off, the owner, Michele, was super helpful and attentive without being overbearing.  She let us pull however many dresses we wanted and my mom helped me into each one.  Michele and the other owner, Ruby, gave feedback on each dress I came out in, which I thought was awesome considering many of the ones they liked were actually some of the more inexpensive ones I had pulled.  It made me feel like they weren’t as concerned with making money as they were with making sure I left with something I looked good in.

However, some of these dresses looked pretty awful on me.  Observe:

Boo. Once again, no idea who this dress is by.

Yuck. Haha!

However, with the bad also came the good.  Here are a couple we all really liked:

The five year-old in me totally loved this dress. There were subtle feathers all over the skirt!

A bit more simple, more on the traditional side. The one strap was cool.

Here’s the deal:  There was one dress at this store that EVERYONE had an incredibly positive, strong reaction to.  In fact, Lil Dillo started crying when I walked out of the dressing room with it on!  It made my waist look super tiny, it had beautiful buttons down the back, and had a gorgeous, simple train.  The issue was, we didn’t go into the store on that day with the intent to purchase; rather, we wanted to try things on to help me decide what I would be ordering via Jasmine’s Bridal Shop!  I left the store feeling incredibly conflicted, and mostly just confused.

For some reason, I couldn’t get the “cry” dress (which is what we appropriately called it) out of my mind.  The weird thing was, it had hardly any of the specifications I originally set out to find:  it was an ivory/off-white color, it was strapless, and there was no lace on it, whatsoever.  What made matters worse was that the gown (which is a Bonny Bridal gown, btw) was discontinued, which meant if I wanted it I would have to buy the sample I tried on at the store (which was no big deal, because it fit like a glove.)  Michele, the store owner, agreed to hold it in the back for one week so I could think it over.  I was kind of concerned because even though I really liked it, I didn’t have that “oh my gosh, this is the one!” moment.  (Brides are supposed to have that when they find the dress, right?)

In the meantime, we went back home and stopped at one last bridal shop on the way, called “A Promise and a Kiss.”  I told myself if I couldn’t find anything better in this store that I would go ahead and get the “cry” dress.  Turns out they only had two plus-sized samples for me to try on, and neither was an a-line silhouette.

Here’s the weird part, though–I tried on two fit and flares, and ladies, I was SURPRISED by how I looked!  Not only did they flatter my figure, they accentuated my curves in a way I never thought possible.  See for yourself:

Va-va-VOOM!

It was clearly a bit too large, but you get the picture.

A figure! I see it!

Honky tonk badonkadonk?

To save you all the suspense, in the end I called the lady back at “New Beginnings” in El Campo and officially made the Bonny Bridal gown mine.  And the more I look at it, the more confident I am in my decision.  It’s simple, but has some intricacy along the bodice that I love.  The buttons down the back are infinitely romantic, and it’s super flattering to my figure.  It’s not a true, pure white but I seriously doubt Mr. A will care once I’m walking down the aisle in it.  Most importantly, I feel great in it, AND it comes in at my budget.  Success!

I don’t want to share pictures of my dress because I want to keep things a surprise, but maybe a little teaser photo would be okay?

I promise, it’s beautiful!

Although I didn’t have that overwhelming, joyful, “SYTTD” moment, I’m confident I made the right decision.  Now I just have to wait four and a half more months before I can wear it!

What was your dress search like?  Was finding the dress high on your priority list or near the bottom?  Did you have “the moment”?  For my fellow plus-sized brides out there, was finding plus-sized samples to try on an issue for you?