Wedding Dress

When I was little I always wanted a Vera Wang wedding dress - but since it was a bit out of my price range, I can still say I wore Vera Wang on my wedding day, I just don't have to say that it was my flipflops for my reception. I wore really pretty latte colored heels from Kohls for the wedding, and then these cute flipflops from Kohl's for the reception.

I have a post below talking about the wedding dress, here are some pictures. I absolutely loved this dress, it was amazing! To view this dress online, click here. I ordered the dress from Mary Carol's in Chebanse.

Flowers - Orchids and roses

So my florist ended up having the worst service ever, but her flowers were gorgeous. So I suggest not using her service, but I'll list the flowers so you can mix and match if you wish:

Bride's bouquet: lavender and white roses, blue orchids
Bridesmaids: Blue Orchids
Groomsmen: Silk ivory roses (my husband is allergic to roses)

Mothers: Red and ivory roses

Grandmothers: Ivory roses

Flower Girl - David's Bridal

The flowergirl definitely has the most choices - she doesn't have to worry about hips, waist size, or anything - we had all the options in the world and knew this could last a while because there were so many fun options. Luckily my flowergirl likes dressing up and didn't mind shopping around. We went to David's Bridal first because my maitron of honor had to get her dress too. We tried on a whole bunch of dresses, and the found the perfect one. We ordered it in Champagne and it was just beautiful.

I bought the shoes at Payless (cute gold slippers), the jewerly & purse from Mary Carol's, and the head piece from David's Bridal.

The Girls Dresses: Serene and Style

First attempt - these dresses were gorgeous, but a bit too much - but the candy apple dress color was so gorgeous!

We liked the strapless, but one of the ladies is a mom and would be bending down a lot all night to pick-up her girls and didn't want to be showing everything. The lady on the left ended up staying with the strapless (she looked amazing, it fit her body really well).

This dress fit amazing on my lady on the far left, although she ended up altering it by making two straps out of it and it looked really great (plus then she could wear a bra). This dress is hard to wear with a bra. The lady on the right with the pink dress had a hard time getting her size D girls into the dress - it is really fit for more like B or C size cups.

This was almost perfect - the lady on the left altered her straps, the lady with the black dress looked amazing and didn't change a thing, the lady on the right with the pink chose a different dress with a sweetheart neckline, and the lady on the right went for the illusion alter dress instead so she could bend down. My younger sister was also in the wedding (as you will see below, and she went for the regular halter top dress without alterations).

The end result:

The girls dresses (left to right); Halter, Strapless, Illusion Halter, Sweetheart, Halter turned to Strap

I took me only one trip to one bridal store to find my dress (more on that next), but for the girls dresses we looked at a bunch of different websites and stores. My girls are from three different states (Ohio, Virginia, and Illinois), so we had to do our research before our only weekend shopping together. We bought our dresses at the end of March and mid-April, and the wedding was in September, which was really good timing. All the dresses were in by mid-July.

David's Bridal had the best prices, and with being a national company it was easy to find local David's Bridals for my girls to order near their home.

Originally I really wanted Horizon for my color, but it was way too bright (would've been great for a summer, outdoor wedding though). One of my girls was trying on a dress and the only color in her size was Serene and we didn't like the dress, but we loved the color so much that we changed it.

As a photographer of many weddings, there is nothing I hate more than when brides fit the dresses around one girl (usually the one with this amazing body), and the rest of the girls have to squeeze into the same dress style that looks horrible on them. I couldn't do that to my girls - so they got to choose whatever style they wanted. The only compromise was that they wear the same color, and we choose all short/tea-length/or long.

Now I must say my girls have amazing figures, but the above pictures give you an idea of what the dresses look like on girls with different cup sizes, waist sizes and hips. The biggest thing was actually not the waist size (David's Bridal is great about hiding tummies and hips and not being too clingy), but the bra size - a lot of the dresses were made for B and C cups.

Men's Warehouse - Photos of the guys

All the photographs below are by S1 Photography in Chicago, IL.

For anyone out there trying to match their Serene bridesmaids dresses to a Men's Warehouse vest and tux, here are some pictures:Here is one of the groomsman in a Men's Warehouse midnight vest & tie, and my bridesmaid in a gorgeous David's Bridal Serene dress (it was originally haltered, and she had it altered to be two-strapped).My husband really wanted a platinum vest, but with his fair skin, red hair, and myself in a champagne dress, after trying on a different vest from Men's Warehouse we loved the Latte vest and tie! It was perfect with a light skin tone and looked great against my champagne/ivory dress. For the Dads we did the classic black and it looked amazing!

The big bridal stores vs. the private stores

As a bride I observed the big bridal stores vs. the much smaller, private ones and it was really interesting.

I had heard from many brides to avoid David's Bridal for my wedding gown - mainly to their dresses not accommodating tall girls well and being very expensive to alter to add length.

Therefore, I went to a much smaller bridal store south of where I live. It only had two dressing rooms, one being so small I actually didn't even know it was there until it was pointed out to me later. There weren't a huge selection - but they had enough where I got a good idea of what looked good on me, and what didn't.

Most of all, the customer service was exceptional - although it helped that I was the only bride in the store and you had to have an appointment. The lady that owned the store was the only one there at the time (she also had an assistant), and it was fabulous. My bridesmaid and I were definitely treated like royalty.

At that cute, little dress boutique I found my dream dress.

However, I could not imagine all my bridesmaids fitting into the little dress shop and there definitely weren't enough dresses for everyone to try on.

Therefore, for the bridesmaids dresses we ventured to two places: David's Bridal and a popular local boutique. The local boutique was more expensive and most sizes were 6-8 (which would fit some, but not all the girls).

So, we ventured to David's Bridal and had the most fabulous experience. I have heard many not-so-great things about David's but I must say we went there twice, once on Friday and another time on Saturday, and had awesome service! It's not that they weren't busy - they definitely were - but they still cared about us. They had a ton of different sizes (between 2 - 24) and lots of colors.

We said yes to those dresses.

Serene dresses and Midnight vests

So another "problem" with the gorgeous serene dresses is that although they came from David's Bridal, they did not have exact coordinating tuxes at their "brother" company, Men's Warehouse.

Therefore we opted for the Midnight at Men's Warehouse. My fiance and I personally went and looked at all the vests, and this was by far the best match (aside from just silver, gold, champagne, or black).

I would definitely recommend these vests.