The Maids Pose for the Camera...

Since B was opposed to a “first look” opportunity before the wedding ceremony, there was much juggling to be done before the show started to make sure that he got his wish. He’s a bit old-fashioned about it, and I argued against it before the wedding, but I have to admit that it was well worth seeing the look on his face when he saw me for the first time in my dress...well worth any juggling that we did before-hand.

We also had a bit of a time crunch, as we were starting our ceremony at 5:30 in the evening...one week before the time changed out of Daylight Savings Time...so I wasn’t really sure how much natural light we would have to work with after the ceremony. All of this meant that we did our individual pictures with our Guys and Maids before the ceremony started. I had originally thought (I don’t know WHAT I was thinking) that since there would be two photographers, that one would go with the Guys and one with the Girls and we would be taking our pictures at the same time. But seeing how much work went into getting these pictures...I know realize how foolish that thought really was. And how little I know about photography...

Even though we had plenty of light to work with on our BEAUTIFUL wedding day, it still took the second photographer working with a light shield thingy to get the most light in the most flattering spot on us for the best pictures. I’ll be honest and admit that there were possibly a few curse words spoken as she BLINDED me with the light screen to catch the glare right in my eyes, but the quality of the pictures was MORE than worth not being able to see for several minutes as my eyes readjusted to normal levels of sunlight...

First up, went the girls. Yes, we’re pickier...we actually LIKE to pose for the camera...and there were just tons of things that we could do. I had my Mom and little J on standby as our bouquet girls...along with some water as it was kinda hot outside. Don’t they look excited to be at our beck and call?
I think that J was just a "little" excited, huh?Christina loved Redbud Hall best because of the large field that is behind the hall. There’s a dirt road (sort of) that leads back to a fence line and you can just see for miles and miles...a great backdrop for pictures, I have to admit. And I love the way that she was right – getting out in the middle of the field and catching the blowing grasses really made the pictures that much more beautiful. Even if we had to deal with bugs, itchy grass and the possibility of ants.

By the way, there were a zillion pictures to choose from, and I just tried to choose and show off my favorites...

First, just the Maids and I...
Then we added the flower girl...Then we changed up the grouping a little...I wanted a single shot with each bridesmaid individually...first up, MOH...Then Maid Momma...And last, but not least, Maid Britney...These girls were SUCH a help to me during the wedding and the days leading up to the wedding. OK, I’ll be honest...it was the MONTHS up to the wedding! They still love me, so hopefully I wasn’t too bad of a bride-to-be!

Before we left the field, I wanted to grab a few pictures with J and I alone...I really LOVE this one where she leans in to “hug” me...so cute!And the last request that I had was a "generations picture" with my Mom, myself and J in it. I have to say, even though I’m talking about myself, that we are some good-looking women! Do you remember when my Mom called me and described her dress as being black and white paint drizzles? I talked about it somewhere and can't find it now...and was sort of worried...but she looked GREAT!

After we left the field – and got all the grasshoppers off of my dress – we headed to the hall next door, Tejas Hall to use their outdoor benches. There were too many guests arriving for us to use Redbud Hall, and I was sort of worried about going into someone else’s territory as Tejas Hall was rented and being used that same day. Luckily, their wedding started after ours, so no one but the groomsmen really saw us or anything.

Here we are trying so hard to follow Christina’s instructions to look serious, laugh, pose like Vogue or whatever...I think that these shots turned out great! Here’s my favorite one...After we finished these shots, I was getting anxious about the time and knew that Christina still needed to go and do pictures with the boys, so I shooed her off to do that while the girls put me back in my room...

**All photos courtesy of Christina Carroll Photography

Need to catch up? Here’s some links:
Girls’ Spa Day
Bachelor/Bachelorette Party
Setting Up the Venue…
Practice Makes Perfect…
Rehearsal Dinner
5 Minutes is All that I Need
A “Quick” Stop at the Hair Salon
A Sneak Peek at the Venue...
Arriving at the Venue...to Stay!
Getting Dressed

Flower Girl Dress #2

So that was flower girl dress contender #1…nice (and DEFINITELY within The Budget!) but not exactly what I was looking for the more and more I thought about it. You see several things occurred to me after the purchase of that dress.

#1 – she would be in all black. Not that she wouldn’t look cute in all black (she DOES bear a striking resemblance to her good-looking mom!) but when I started to think about the formal pictures of the day, I could see how she wouldn’t really stand out. Yes, in the pictures that I wanted to capture of her and I, she would really stand out as I’ll be all in ivory and she would be in black. VERY cute. But if we take (and I know that we will) group shots of all of the girls and she’s part of those shots, she will blend in with everyone else, since they’ll all be in black too.

Hmmm…a good point. Yeah, I think so too.

#2 – the “fancy-ness” of the dress was really bugging me. Right after I bought that dress was when I did the posts regarding my dress and the more that I looked at those pictures, the more I realized what a difference there was between the glamour of my dress and the not so glamorous flower girl dress. I didn’t want that. And since she hasn’t seen me in my dress yet or even a picture of it (no six year-old can keep a secret!), I was worried that once she saw mine she would feel not as dressed up, you know? I want her to feel just as much of a princess as I do on this special day…

#3 – I would have to do some work to make the current dress work for what I’m thinking in my head. And it’s not that I’m not capable of the work I had in mind. I could totally make a sash and little bolero jacket. But the thought of taking on another project was just overwhelming that week.

Ok, I’m convinced. Back to the drawing board it is.

I spent one of my desk lunches surfing online looking for better flower girl dress choices. You know, something that looked a little more like a flower girl dress. I came up with some winners, and one website that I could cost-effectively order some dresses, try them on her, let her pick one and return the others. The other thing that I noticed was that Dillard’s seem to have a LOT of choices. Hmmm…that same night that we all went to Macy’s to try on their sale dresses, I remember asking Mr. CC if we could just “run” down to Dillard’s to see what they had…nope – shot down. Maybe we should have gone by there after all…

Oh well, this just means that my daughter and I can have a date night at the mall! Fun, fun. So that evening we headed off to the mall for shopping, hair cuts and dinner. And of course, a ride on the escalator – no trip to the mall with a six-year-old is complete without that! We got to Dillard’s and found 5 or 6 dresses that we could try on in her size, and we even tried on a few in the next size up. I know that 8 months is a long time for a kiddo, and she could do some growing between now and then. But since she’s such a munchkin, even the dresses in her current size were pretty big on her…so I settled on her current size.

Since I am a cool mom, I had told her that she could choose her flower girl dress. I wanted her to like what she wore just as much as I like mine, and it was important to me that she be allowed to make this choice. Of course, as fate would have it, I fell in love with one dress, and she loved another. Oh well, what are you gonna do? Go back on your word? No way. Luckily for me, I really liked both dresses so I wasn’t too disappointed in her choice. And I think that the look on her face says it all…this is her princess dress. Here is the flower girl dress that she chose:














And since it was Dillard’s, it was still under my original budget of $100-150 for the flower girl dress. I paid a whopping $70 for it, and feel good about it. The other dress will just become a nice church dress for the fall, since I did get it in the size above what she’s wearing now and she’ll need to grow a little to fit into it. I feel really good about the fact that this one is ready to go and she LOVES it…she even loves the little jacket that comes with it (not pictured).

Flower girl dress…CHECK!


And with the help of my co-worker and her free stuff the other day, if the shoes fit, then I’ve also got flower girl shoes, necklace, bracelet and basket – all ready to go! I’m loving it!

Have you ever made the decision that you thought you wanted (like my original idea of flower girl dress) and then found something else that you love even more (the NEW flower girl dress)? Is it ok when plans change? Don't you find that sometimes that change is for the better?

Flower Girl Dress #1

Yesterday I wrote about how cool it is to get free things…and I think that we can all agree on that point. But I teased you about the flower girls dress(es) that I had already found and bought, so I figured that today I should write about that. actually, just to be mean, I thought about waiting another week before I wrote about it, you know make it a “real” teaser. But I’m just not that mean, contrary to popular belief…

So early on, I had something in mind for my flower girl dresses. Knowing kinda what I wanted for the bridesmaid dresses helped, and with the colors of the ceremony being mainly just black and ivory, it was a simple choice. Having a late October wedding means all kinds of things could happen with the Texas weather, but it’s probably not too early for velvet. In my head, I had conjured up something that had a black velvet top and an ivory or ivory/black skirt that was fuller and some shiny black patent leather shoes. Cute, huh? Yeah, I thought so.

I was at work one day when a co-worker mentioned to me that Macy’s was having a sale. (Now, I have to be honest here, and I’ve never been really impressed with Macy’s. I LOVED Foley’s and the whole store has just gone WAY down hill since Macy’s acquired the chain.) She went on to tell me that they were deeply discounting their winter dresses to make room for Easter dresses and she thought that she remembered seeing black and ivory dresses. Score!

Now me being the procrastinator that I can sometimes be, I waited almost a week before finding time to make it over to Macy’s. I don’t remember what exactly was going on that week, but there were things keeping me from trotting myself over to Macy’s that very night. So by the time that I have my daughter and talked Mr. CC into accompanying us to the dreaded mall for a “quick” shopping trip, it was nearly a week after I had heard about the sale. And of course, by that time there wasn’t much left of the sale. There definitely wasn’t anything in black and ivory, but we did find one dresses that had potential.

It was a simple black velvet sleeveless dress, with a high waist and a small, built-in petty coat to give the skirt some volume. The bad thing? There was a sash on the dress that was god-awful ugly. No, make that U…G….L…Y. The good news? Well, there were two pieces of good news in my opinion. #1 – the sash is removable, so I could easily envision the dress with a different sash (maybe ivory satin or something fancy like that) and could see how that would be easy to make, and fairly cheap. #2 – the dress was on sale. How much you ask?

$17. A whopping $18.40 after sales tax. Sold, ladies and gentlemen.

But to be frank, I wasn’t sold right away. Mr. CC was the one who encouraged me to go ahead and get it, just in case. You see, the velvet isn’t the type of velvet that I had pictured in my head. I was envisioning a lush, very fancy or formal velvet. This dress was velvet, but it was a cheaper, stiffer, not quite as fancy of a velvet as the one in my head. That was pretty much the only thing that I didn’t like about the dress. Well, and that UGLY sash!

But like I said, in my head I could totally see this dress on my daughter the day of the wedding with a fancier ivory sash and possibly a small bolero style fancy jacket to further dress things up a little bit. VERY cute.

And at that price, Mr. CC had a good point. Even if I wanted to keep looking for something else for my daughter to wear, it was a good deal and could be worn just as a regular church dress any given Sunday. Yes, thank you, I would like to keep that hanging!

One flower girl dress down…possibly more to find? Should I keep looking or try to make this one work?

Free IS Better!

I love it when you find things that are discounted, cheaper or…FREE!!!

Nothing makes me happier.

And finding it where you least expect it is also a bonus. That’s exactly what happened to me last week regarding my flower girl. You see, my daughter is going to my flower girl. From the very beginning of all of our wedding talks, one thing that was and has still remained a constant is the fact that we want our children involved in our wedding.

In some form or fashion.

In talking about this with family members and friends, you get all sorts of differing opinions on what our kids should do in our wedding. Some think that they’d be perfect as junior attendants, but others think that they’re too young. Some think that they’d be the perfect flower girl and ring bearer, but others think that they’re too old. You following along here with me? And since we all know that you can’t please everyone, we’ve chosen to please ourselves and our kids.

They’ve been involved in this whole thing since the very beginning, and it’s only right to continue that tradition. So I’m leaving it up to them. If “Snookums” wants to be a ring boy, then he’ll be a ring bearer, but if he wants to be a junior groomsman, then that’s what he’ll be. And the same goes for my daughter.

Yep, you guessed it. She wants to be the flower girl. So I have a ready-made flower girl just antsy to start practicing her walk and tossing flower petals. It’s REALLY cute!

And since she’s been so involved in the whole process, I felt it only right that she should be able to pick out her own flower girl dress. I didn’t take her with me when I was shopping for my bridal dress, so she has no idea what it looks like or anything. In fact, she just gets a little confused when we talk about the wedding in general. You see, I have a confession. Not a confession really…more like a funny. My daughter doesn’t talk about our wedding, she asks me when the “ball” is going to be…to her in her little 6 year-old eyes, Mr. CC and I are already married. To her, we were married the moment that he slipped the ring on my hand. I tried once or twice to explain that we weren’t actually married yet, but after just one of those conversations I stopped trying and just let her call it the “ball.” It doesn’t hurt anything.

So when we tell her that we’re going to the mall to look for her wedding dress, she gets all excited, thinking that she gets to wear it that night to the wedding. Yeah, I know. October is just too far away for her little 1st grade brain to wrap around. Relax. I’m not calling her slow, just being honest about how 6 year-olds see the world. She can barley think about something being next week, much less in October. We do good to think ahead to her birthday in June…so shopping for flower girl dresses has been a lot of fun!

The first dress that we bought was cute. (Yeah I said the first one…more on that later.) But the second dress (yes, yes…more on that LATER!) was the winner. We had SO much fun shopping for it, that when we finally got home it was late and her bedtime, so I rushed her inside and into bed before she could realize that she hadn’t gotten any real TV time that night. In my haste, I left the dress in my trunk. So the next day at work, I was looking at the pictures that I had taken of her and realized that I had left it in my trunk. I went out and got it so that I could hang it up and keep it wrinkle-free.

One of my co-workers (well, almost all of them to be honest) stopped to comment on the dress. And there was a woman there who has two granddaughters that were just in a wedding in December. She was telling me all about their dresses when she scolded me for not checking with her first before I went out and bought a dress for Jenna to wear. Apparently she’s got two perfectly good dresses with all of the trimmings that I could have borrowed. Oops! Oh well. But let’s talk about those trimmings…

Yep, I scored BIG time on the “trimmings” that she had to offer. Today, she brought me the cutest little flower girl basket that I think I’ve ever seen. I was thinking of making a basket for our wedding, but to be honest, I couldn’t make something cuter than this one, and it’s free for the taking. My co-worker also brought me a pearl necklace and bracelet that my daughter can wear and a pair of shoes to try on. SO CUTE! Check them out in the pictures below.

All of these things are things that I would have bought for my daughter (or tried to make in the case of the basket) and now I don’t have to! And one of my BM pointed out to me that now my daughter has something new (her dress) and something borrowed (all this stuff) so she only needs something old and something blue to be just like mommy. What a cute thought!

I was touched by my co-workers generosity and use of the items…so a big thanks to you! Isn’t it neat to find a little bit of treasure when you’re least expecting it?