Veil Variations

You may remember my veil tutorial. I've been getting some questions about variations lately, so I thought I'd post a conceptual tutorial-- i.e., one that I have not actually done myself, but should work in theory. Please excuse the lovely Microsoft Paint images (some of the text may be too small-- I will translate).

Let's start with a veil with a blusher. You'll need to work out the measurements for what length of veil you want based on your height. Here's a handy chart explaining the various lengths and some pointers on picking the best one for you.

You'll also need to decide how long you want your blusher. You can play with the length by pinching the tulle in your fist and holding your fist on top of your head, then adjust to the ideal length and mark the tulle for sewing.

Once you've worked out the right length for you and cut the tulle to match, lay out your tulle:

You'll want to eyeball a straight line where you marked for the blusher. For the purposes of this tutorial, I'm assuming about 2/3 of the length of the tulle will be the actual veil, and 1/3 will be the blusher.

Fold your tulle back along the line.

And once it's flat and lined up so it's relatively straight, put in your running stitch.

Pull the stitch to gather and continue as per my first tutorial. The only difference would be to make sure that the blusher is on the top, so when you sew the tulle to the top of the comb make sure the blusher is the uppermost layer.

Now, if you want a veil with a rounded edge and a blusher, you may want to round the edges first. Lay out your tulle on a flat surface and fold in half lengthwise. You can use some pins to hold the tulle together so the corners stay lined up.

Using a round table or other gradual curve, trim both ends of the veil like this:

Unfold, and now you're ready to fold the blusher over and sew in the running stitch.

Edging is a whole other story-- I may or may not experiment with it on my own. I will, however, be tea-dying my veil to match my dress soon, so stay tuned for that!

Do you have any DIY veil pointers to share?

(All images belong to me).

Lookie What We Got!

Our first wedding gift arrived yesterday! I came home from work to find this on the porch:


What could be inside?



It appears to be full of plastic-wrapped air.



Little Girl Kittie thought this part was fascinating. I felt like I was doing a magic trick-- I kept pulling and pulling and the little air pillows just kept coming and coming.



But wait! There are gifts to be had! YAY!



And here they are, new, beautiful, and ready for cookin'. Two Calphalon pans and an eight-cup Pyrex measuring cup. Thanks S.'s aunt and uncle!

However, this leaves us with a dilemma-- help me out! Should we send a thank-you card now, or wait until after the wedding?

As if you aren't sick enough of hearing about our wedding bands...

I found my second band! On eBay!

See, after my original post about my bands, I learned about palladium. Palladium is in the same family of metals as platinum, in that it's hypo-allergenic, but it's about the same price as white gold. Boy how I wish I had known this earlier.

Armed with a new goal, I went searching for my spare band. If you remember correctly, I was interested in bands like these, from www.applesofgold.com:

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(This one wasn't actually on my original post as it's too expensive, but just look at it! Gorgeous!)

Except these all only come in gold or platinum.

Finding a palladium ring online carved with a floral or paisley design and under my budget of $400 seemed hopeless. I searched everywhere I could think of-- even Etsy. It appears very few jewelers work with palladium yet, and therefore the options for a more intricate design were limited.

But then-- then!-- I got the brilliant idea to check eBay. And there she was, in all her glory, just a few rings down in the search results.

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The ring was $380, but the seller had a "Make an Offer" button. I figured it couldn't hurt so I did-- and he accepted my offer!

Now, to be completely honest, I usually stay away from eBay. I've heard too many horror stories about things not being what they appear, or as advertised. But this was a completely wonderful experience, and I couldn't be happier with the results. Once my offer was accepted (the same day), I received an email from the seller stating that it would take about two weeks to make my ring and then another week to ship it to me.

It was in my hands twelve days later. Check it out!

It came in this cute little box. I untied the ribbon and. . .

Found another box! My little ring was nestled within (sorry no picture of that step, I was too excited!)

And here it is! (On my index finger as the fit is a little tight since it's so hot right now, and I'm paranoid of getting it stuck).

Aaaaaand once more, all together with feeling! I'm so glad our little collection is complete and I'm all set for rings for the next century or so. I think.

Kidding.

Mostly.

Was it a trial to find your wedding ring?

*All unsourced photos belong to me.

Licensed, and Getting A Little Serious

Today S. and I took long lunches and headed downtown to the county recorder's office to get our marriage license!

The building is right on the bay, so after we checked in and were told to go wait by the windows, we were pleasantly surprised to see cute little two-person benches, and a gorgeous view to watch as we waited for our turn.



(Dark, crappy cell phone pic but I think you get the idea)

We spent the time giggling about various inside jokes and the "Wedding Packages" offered on a little laminated sign at the empty station in front of us. We joked that we should buy the available $10 sterling silver wedding bands and go freak out all of our co-workers.

The lady called our name after about ten minutes, and another ten minutes after that we handed over $50.00 and were on our way. Super, super easy and so quick that we had time to grab a bite to eat in the building's cafeteria:


(Our shared caesar wrap, which had rice in it and was warm. I thought this was odd but it was tasty, so whatever. Also a white chocolate macadamia nut cookie for dessert, and our brand spankin' new marriage license in its pretty envelope in the background!)

Painless, easy, and quick, and all it took was a form, an hour, $50.00, and a government-issued photo I.D.

Which brings me to the serious part.

It's ridiculous to me that just because I'm straight, I can walk into the county building and walk out forty minutes later with the California government's permission to marry. However, if my soul mate happened to be a woman, forget it. I won't get into the semantics here, because I don't feel qualified to, but I do know that Miss Stripes had a lovely post putting her feelings into words better than I ever could, and I do know that denying any human the rights available to another is just plain wrong, no matter what your belief system or orientation.

Here's hoping that someday soon, all those who wish to marry can do so as easily as me and my fiance, without great strife, struggle or heartbreak.

The One Ring (For Now)

S. and I have very different opinions about our wedding rings. Obviously, I'm a little neurotic about mine, whereas for him, the decision was pretty simple. For me, the ring(s) that S. puts on my finger on our wedding day are the ring(s) that I want to wear for the rest of my life. For him, a cheap, durable, easily-replaceable ring was a must, in case of an accident or loss.

So the hunt was on.

At first, we both really liked this titanium ring, with a carbon fiber inlay, from Zales (though quite frankly, you can find it quite a bit cheaper elsewhere online):

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I'll be honest, I liked this ring a lot (and still do) because of the carbon fiber. S. and I share a passion for cars, after all, so it seemed like a solid contender. But my fiance is nothing if not diligent (I leave it up to him to research all major purchases because he's so good at it!), and his searching turned up the fact that the carbon fiber in these rings is softer than the metal and can scratch or fray. So, this one was out.

After visiting Zales in person a couple of times, and looking around online, the mister decided he wanted either titanium or tungsten, which he then narrowed down to tungsten carbide. Tungsten carbide is extremely damage resistant, and will still look new for many years to come. The only real downside is that it can't be re-sized.

With the metal selected, he just needed to find a ring. Enter www.sparklecartel.com, which features a new piece of jewelry at a discounted price until it sells out (usually about one per day). S. watched the website for a few days until a tungsten ring came up that he liked and that was it! Easy as pie. The best part? It was only $26.00, so if he does need to get another one someday, no big deal.

So are you ready to see his ring? It's very shiny, and we all know how I feel about shiny things!


(Personal photo)

Aww, our rings are so cute together!

How does your fiance feel about his wedding band?

A Fairytale (Pumpkin) Wedding

This project is very dear to my heart, so I hope you'll forgive the length of this post!

In early May, S. and I were at a local nursery picking up some hanging flowers for my mom for Mother's Day. I always get a little excited around plants; I love greenery and lush growth and have regular fantasies of working in my own garden, making dinner with vegetables I grew myself, and just being all-around horticulturally-capable.

Except that my past is rather checkered when it comes to plant life. As a child, my mom made several attempts to get me to respect and appreciate plants by giving me my very own to care for. It started with a pack of marigold seeds that I planted behind our house in Michigan. They sprouted, grew, blossomed-- and then our dog dug them up.

After we moved to California, I had an interest in the new, unusual-looking desert plants that are so common out here, specifically cacti. So one day I picked one out at a nursery and we brought it home. I named it Junior because it was so tiny, and I put him in the windowsill of my room and watched him slowly expand in size.

Junior-- a cactus, remember-- acquired a severe sunburn and died.

Thus it was with well-earned trepidation that I had long ago decided to stay away from plants requiring more than the occasional dusting. Except that last year, we bought a house with a yard. A blank canvas. And I had already slipped up and let myself buy three queen palms and a hibiscus plant.

Our palms, while still alive a year later, do not appear to have grown an inch.

So when we made the trek to the nursery, I frolicked among the rows upon rows of little seedlings, lush ground covers, and potted trees, and visions of sugar snap peas and strawberries danced in my head.

I thank my stars every day that S. puts up with me, because by the time we'd picked out my mom's hanging plants, I had a plan. A plan that was only exacerbated by the large number of seed packets covering an entire wall in the nursery's office. Including pumpkin seeds.

One of the big troubles I'd been having with planning our wedding up until that point was that I'd been doing all my planning in the spring. Which meant that all of my inspiration was for a spring wedding. When my eyes lit on that little tiny seed packet full of pumpkin potential, a light bulb went off. Of course! A fall wedding has to have pumpkins! Why not grow them myself?

Looking back now, this was absolutely insane to try.

But we picked up some seeds and some compost along with my mom's plants, and went on our way. (I also couldn't resist buying eighteen strawberry plant seedlings). I did some calculations and as far as I could tell, we needed to get these babies in the ground in order to have pumpkins in time for the wedding! So that weekend, we tore up a corner of our yard, and mulched, and composted, and planted, and watered. And waited.

It took a couple weeks of daily watering-but-not-overwatering, and holding my breath, but then magic started to happen:

The first two rows are white pumpkin vines, the back two are fairytale pumpkin vines, and waaaay in the back you can see my two rows of strawberry plants.

Flowers grew, then bloomed and closed all in one day. I spent many an early morning with a bamboo skewer, going from flower to flower trying to pollinate them all. Yeah.

Then the bases of the flowers bulged out and baby pumpkins started to form! The flowers wilted and shrunk, and the ball settled down on the vine until it touched the ground. At this point, I put pine shavings (the kind that I use for my horse) under each one to minimize the amount of scratches and dirt they would suffer while they grew.

A couple weeks ago, my oldest vines started dying, even though my pumpkins aren't fully mature yet. But they're big enough, and orange enough, that I will still use them for my wedding. Now to just find someplace cool and dry to store them until October!

This hasn't been a total success. As I said, mine are still sort of small, and this is what a fairytale pumpkin is supposed to look like:

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These are the three biggest fairytale pumpkins I have:

The middle one is still growing, so it might get the signature color the other two are missing.

And this is my largest white pumpkin:

All told, I hope to have at least 8-10 pumpkins for our wedding that I've grown myself. I've already decided I'm not going to cry if it doesn't work out, because at least I tried. And the fact that I've come this far has been not only amazingly rewarding, but really fun, too!

Are you home-growing anything for your wedding?

(All photos not sourced belong to me)

Dancin' Shoes, or, How A Total Stranger Made Me Cry Over My Wedding For The First Time

So... remember why I'm wearing cowboy boots under my wedding dress? These cowboy boots, in fact?

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Yeah. My lovely, gorgeous boots. They go with NOTHING else about my wedding day, but as I approach the one-year anniversary of the day I lost my little girl, I am even more determined to wear them.

Except there's a problem. Since it's getting closer to the wedding, I decided that I would start wearing them to break them in. So, last Wednesday evening, I did. They rubbed a little bit on the inside of my ankles, but nothing major, I thought. Until I got home and got in the shower.

Then the burning started-- the horrible, awful burning! It felt like someone was holding a torch to the insides of my ankles as the water streamed down them, and I hadn't even touched the soap yet. I distinctly remember some very un-lady-like obscenities coming out in surprise. Luckily, the only one around to hear was my cat.

Today, a week later, I still have bright red scabs on both ankles, and I only had the boots on for about an hour. Clearly, these boots aren't going to work for the whole wedding night. I refuse to not wear them for the ceremony, but I'll need something else for the reception, when I most certainly will be dancing it up and moving around a lot.

What's a girl to do then? Why, buy a second pair of shoes, of course!

I have to admit-- I am in love with shoes like these:


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But I can never wear these teetering, towering heels thanks to a weak right knee. And my wedding day is definitely NOT the day I want to re-injure it. So, I have to play it safe with wider heels (which is reason #2,694 that my boots were perfect. Sigh).

I went shopping Monday night with my hand clenched around my wallet (because money is starting to get really tight as we get closer to the wedding, and my spending has been a little out of control lately). Ultimately, I wanted a cheap, comfortable pair of cute shoes with a wide heel (heel required so my dress is the right length, since we measured it with my cowboy boots). Preferably in white. I headed to the usual contenders: Payless Shoe Source, Famous Footwear, even Target and Wal-Mart. No luck.

In between all of these stores in the mall is a dance wear store. The thought passed through my mind that since I'm looking for shoes I can dance in, why not try dancing shoes? I ventured into the dance store after my first failed foray into Payless (ha! How's that for an alliteration?), only to discover that they had a pair of practice ballroom shoes (read: wide heels and comfy) on sale for $23.99. Except they were black, they ONLY came in black, and they were really kind of ugly.

There was a pair of white shoes on the wall, but they were $62.00, which was a little too steep for my budget.

So I kept looking, weaving in and out of every shoe store in the mall, wringing my metaphorical hands. I dipped back into the dance store to stare at the nice expensive leather shoes and the poor, ugly practice shoes no less than twice, asking each time if the white ones were going to be on sale, or if the black ones really didn't come in any other color, before going to sit outside and call S. in meltdown mode. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: I like the white ones, but they're not on sale, and I don't want to wear black shoes on my wedding day!

Him (thinking: why are you calling me?): I don't really know what to say, honey. Might be worth it just to get the white ones.

Me (after hemming and hawing for another five minutes): Okay, then. See you soon.

I went back into the dance store (again), where the sales girl probably thought I was nuts. I stared at the wall for another minute, then finally turned and asked if the white ones came in an 8.5. Luckily, they did, or I might have blown a gasket.

I tried them on, asked some questions about the fit and explained what I needed them for, eyed the super-flashy Latin ballroom shoes out of the corner of my eye for a minute, then said, "I'll take them."

I decided to wear them out, since I wanted to see how comfortable they really were and I still had to walk all the way back across the mall. The girl started to write up my purchase and said, "Okay, I'll give them to you for the sale price [of the black shoes], since it's for your wedding."

!!!!

I about had a heart attack of joy right then and there! I was floating for that whole walk back across the mall, and let me tell you-- these are the most comfortable heels I have EVER worn! I can walk completely normally in them, which means dancing should be a breeze, too. I was so happy, in fact, that I teared up as I called S. to tell him that the problem had solved itself.

And that's how a stranger made my cry about my wedding, but they were tears of joy.

Want to see my perfect new shoes? They are just plain white leather, and I'm thinking that depending on my project load as the wedding gets closer, I may want to fancy them up a little. But here they are!

(In case you're wondering what the heck I'm standing on, I actually have my feet up on the wall-- my previous attempts against the dark carpet made my feet indistinguishable from the shoes. Thanks, skin. Thanks).




(All un-sourced photos are personal pictures)

Have you had any good luck and kindness from strangers because of your wedding?