Ever wonder how in the world you are going figure out what colors go together? Or maybe you need to find another color to complement what you've already picked out.
Well, wait no longer. Enter: kuler.adobe.com!
This is a really cool site where you can search for color combinations. You can even search fun names like "mango" or "ice cream" or "island" or "wave". Almost anything will generate some sort of a result.
My venue needs a little gold pop. The walls are a peachy and yellow color and my color scheme is chocolate brown and ocean blue. So my venue coordinator suggested that I tie in come gold accents so that I don't have to order chair covers. The chairs aren't that ugly, so I think we can work with the gold.
Thanks to my daily read, Elizabeth Anne Designs, I found this fabulous DIY project for decorations. The full instructions can be found here.
So after a positive experience at the first bridal salon, we were off to lunch and driving down to the next appointment.
The next appointment was booked at Kay's Bridal in Castro Valley. I remembered passing it every now and then driving through. I looked them up online and booked an appointment. Kay's Bridal had very friendly staff and a huge inventory. The difference was that the dresses were in plastic bags on the racks so for me, it was hard to see what the dressed would look like in full form. This, however, did prevent the serious eye wattering that I experienced at the other bridal salon.
My attendant, Nicole, was very helpful. She asked me what my price range was and what style I thought I wanted. Again, I was a little weary about giving "too low" of a price range, thinking that it would seriously limit my possibilities. I told her that I was interested in A-line gowns, nothing too poufy, with some lace, but not overkill. She found some dresses that she thought fit the description and I picked out some dresses, trying to peer into the plastic sheath.
I tried on about ten dreses I think. I tried on the same dress that I did at the first boutique. I loved it all the same. I checked the price to see if there were any advantages on waiting a few more months or buying it then. I saw that the pricetag was higher than the other salon, but Kay's was also running a special on Maggie Sottero gowns, for I believe $200 off the tag price. Then, I took into account that the other store was having a Trunk Show Sale on Maggie Sottero dresses.
So I'm not one to hem and haw over things like this. In my mind, it's another bullet point on my Wedding To-Do List. It seemed straightforward to me. I would go to the other store and take advantage of the Maggie Sottero Trunk Show Sale and be done with it. Which is what I did!
Here's my dress, the Carissa:
Ack! I keep making excuses about how I'm a bad blogger. Well, there it is, I just am. At the beginning I just wrote a bunch of posts and scheduled them to publish. That was fab. Then I started to slack on it and those scheduled posts ran out, the ones queued up were never written and well... yeah.
On a separate note, we booked our DJ! This was one thing that the fiance really wanted to have a hand in it. I was totally cool with that, since there are the grooms out there who are just uninvolved. I knew that the music aspect of our wedding day would be really important to him, so I researched the companies and then scheduled some face time.
Having a fiance who is in a different state makes wedding planning a little tricky, but totally doable. Unlike brides who are planning destination weddings, I'm here in the area of our wedding. It's just when things arise that he needs to be here for that require some extra planning. The last time that he was out here we went to interview the DJ company. I also took him to see the reception venue which he had never seen in person, only through photos and verbal description. Next time, we'll have to meet up with my priest to go over some particulars and other stuff.
Our DJ company is awesome and if you are in the San Francisco Bay Area, I'll highly recommend them. They are Denon & Doyle based out of Pleasant Hill, servicing the entire Bay Area. I attended a wedding this summer where they were the DJ company. Everything ran smoothly and everyone gravitated to the dance floor. The flow was great and I felt like it was so professional and just awesome! They know tons of venues and vendors and are so easy and great to work with. They've gotten rave reviews from the Knot and local papers. We met with one of the senior DJs, my fiance got a good vibe from him, and he was hired. Done and done. Now if only all the other wedding stuff was that easy!
