Five for under 500!

After saying out loud(wait is the Internet out loud?)that my budget for a dress was 500 bills I got busy browsing discount bridal sites looking for some dresses that I could see myself trying on for size. So here are 5 dresses that are all UNDER 500! Coming in under budget means extra for the finishing touches!

This DaVinci dress comes in at 386. I would take off the ribbon and add something like one of these

Left:Twigs and Honey

Right:8 Jones Street

From left to right:

A stunning lace Maggie Sottero Destinations dress that comes in at 414. It reminds me of a Monique Lhuillier number except for without the added zero on the end!

The Goddess in the middle is OC by Oleg Cassini which will cost you a jaw dropping 299 dollars at House of Brides. Just add a laurel crown and some strappy flat sandals and you can be Aphrodite for the day.

This last one was the most "traditional" one I could find. I think if your on a budget and you want something more traditional it's best to go the very simple, less is more route and make it unique with outstanding accessories. This dress from Forever Yours can be yours for just 399. That works out to about 4 dollars per button down the back!

In my opinion I saved the best for last. It's another Maggie Sottero Destinations dress I think the bottom lace peaking out is really something and the sleek silhouette although not for everyone is so classic.

I really think it's stunning and proves that you don't need to spend over a grand for a wedding dress.

Blogs I heart!

I stumbled upon Creature Comforts a while ago when I was obsessed with decor and crafting blogs. Ez always has something wondrous, beautiful and often ethereal to inspire me!

It's blogs like this that make my life so much easier when I can just show The Mister what on earth I am babbling about when it comes to design ideas I want to make out with.

Seriously here are two randomly picked photos from the site...it's like the best most beautiful design potluck ever!

All images from Creature Comforts

I know Montreal!

For a brief moment today I entertained the idea of having our wedding in Montreal. Montreal is very special to both of us as we go there at least once a year together and if I had to live in any other city in Canada it would be there. We heart Montreal.


I even IM'd The Mister and said "What would you think of getting married in Montreal?" and he replied "Ohhhhh!"


Then I started researching it a bit. If we got married in Montreal it would be at city hall I mean look at it!!
It's beautiful! Compared to Toronto's city hall....Yeah and the wedding chambers? blech.

So I got more and more excited, we could go for a couple of days and do things with our friends and family and have our reception at one of our favorite restaurants! I started thinking about going to the flower market in the morning.

I IM'd my another friend and asked "Would you come to my wedding if it was in Montreal?" of course he said yes but then added that although it would probably cut down on guest numbers it would also be a pretty expensive wedding for those that did come. He figured a minimum of 500 dollars. I realised he was right. I couldn't do that to my friends and family.

It wasn't a big dream or anything just a whim that I thought might be fun. I've also thought about renting out a cottage for a week in the fall but the price of that was pretty hilarious. I've thought about the restaurant option but the bar tab for that would be so much more than renting a place for a grand and bringing in our own beer and wine that we love and not beer and wine we can afford at restaurant markups.

So I'm back where I started which is fine with me.

Wedding trends of 2009.

There has been a recent trend in wedding blogging that seems to reflect the current economic state. That trend? We all seem to want nice weddings for less money.

Here's a fun exercise to do. Call up a limo rental place, ask how much a limo would be for your wedding day, I'm willing to bet it's well over a few hundred dollars. Then a couple of days later call up and ask how much a limo would be for a pick up to go to a sporting event or something of the sort, was it a less? Probably.

It's incredibly frustrating that as soon as you throw the word "wedding" into the mix suddenly that gives vendors the right/ability to jack up the prices. Is it because they know that there is a breed of bride that will not even blink when they are told their bouquet of calla lilies will cost 200 dollars? If I sent my sick aunt the same amount of callas but not wrapped in a silk ribbon I bet it would be more like 50-75 dollars.


Now I know that there is extra time and detail and not to mention talent spent on wedding items such as cakes and flowers but if your even the tiniest bit resourceful or know someone who is (and we all seem to know one person at the very least who is skilled and crafty like that!) then why are we paying top dollar for the same-ish end result? I know that vendors fees are also based on talent and there are some really awesomely talented vendors out there, but if all I want is a simple white buttercream icing cake with some flowers on top why am I being charged hundreds of dollars just because it doesn't say Happy Birthday?

Image from Martha Stewart

Seriously take the flowers off this cake...how much do you think it would be? Add a really awesome topper or some flowers on top and instantly it goes from birthday to wedding.

So strange.

I used to buy and arrange flowers for an office I worked at. For 80 dollars tops in winter I would buy enough flowers for two GIANT arrangements. I'm planning on doing a DIY photo series on this blog because frankly ladies I've had it up to here with paying more because we want to have the weddings we want.

As well I think there is a lot of pressure to use conventional vendors. When planning a wedding think about the weddings you've been to. Do you really remember the organza overlay on the table? The ornate 5 tiered wedding cake? I'll admit I only remember ONE wedding cake from all the weddings I've been to and I was in the wedding party so I actually was more involved in the wedding than a guest. Favors? Same thing. I remember a couple of them but more often than not I can't. The ones I do remember were always the most cost effective..cd's, homemade cookies, homemade soaps.

What I do remember is the ceremony, the food(good and bad.), the music, the love and the fun. Everything else? I'm not going to say it's a waste of money but I think there are ways we can all be cutting costs without cutting style. We just all have to start thinking outside the prettily wrapped wedding industry box.

So tired. So, so tired.

Ladies and gentlemen(like men read wedding planning blogs! At least mine doesn't which is why he thinks I'm a bit nuts probably!) I am exhausted. More exhausted than I have been in a long time! I was ready to hit the pillow at about 9pm! Today we walked around the city for about 6 hours. The weather was unseasonably warm and it felt good to be outside without worrying about extremities freezing if they weren't covered.

It was probably one of the best days all winter.

Today we got beer brewing supplies and ended up carrying them the rest of the day. We went from one end of the city to another to buy exotic honey and taste about 10 different honeys before settling on one! I never realised how different honeys can taste some of them were woody and some of them incredibly floral and the different colours! I can see it becoming a new culinary obsession with us. Similar outings have turned us into beer nerds, cheese nerds, chocolate nerds, mustard nerds..oh gosh at one time we counted the different mustards in our fridge and we had 20 different types and flavors and not one of them just plain! I probably shouldn't even be admitting such things! We all have something I guess! Some people really love shoes or art..we love random food items!

Anymustardfreak....after the honey tasting we hoofed it up to get a tour of a venue I dig. The tree house one. We couldn't really go outside to the tree house but we saw the inside area that we were interested in. Even with out 55 max people it would still be too big and the guy who gave me the tour wasn't the guy who I'd been dealing with in email and he was really nice but he also never stopped talking and name dropping. I don't know if it's an event thrower thing or a city thing but name dropping always seems to irk me with some people. So we get the tour and finally it's time to talk dollar signs. He asked what our budget was and I said
"We're having 55 people at most so our budget is 6500-7000"
I swear his eyes rolled into the back of his head at that very moment.
"Well...the rental fee is 3500." Although it included tables, chairs etc, etc. They do have a new space off site that is smaller and about half that price so were going to look at it this week. So we'll see.

I'm starting to wonder if a restaurant would be the way to go. I think that the bar tab alone would be more than a rental fee...but it could be an option.

Champagne tastes on a bottled water budget.

The other day I wrote down every name of every person we would invite to our wedding.

The number only came to 52. The number would raise a bit if I invited some of my mother's relatives that still live in her hometown but I haven't seen some of them since I was 14 and as for my mother's mother...well I doubt she would come even if I did invite her. Ahh family.

Based on the theory(whoever came up with this theory obviously did so a very long time ago in a very small town!!) that you should budget for about 100 dollars per person for your wedding that brings me in at 5200. I stare at that number and know that I with some mad skills I could probably add an extra 800 dollars to that and bring the whole thing in at 6000.

Six thousand. Six, zero, zero, zero. 6-0-0-0.

6000

Sounds like a lot when you just say "oh I'll have 6000 pancakes" or "The lady that lives in that house has 6000 cats" I mean it's a lot of dough in a normal world but in the wacky world of weddings I might as well be saying "I'm having 13 people and my budget is 666."

In a world where people don't seem to blink at paying 2000 dollar on a dress that they will wear once, get filthy and then pay more money to have it put in a box to be shoved into storage!

6000 is basically spare change. It's the money that the wedding industry found while looking for the remote control in the sofa cushions!


I've read that you should budget 50% of your budget for the venue and food. Ka-ching! 3000(and that is a laughably low number in these parts. A number some places just charge you to walk in the door!)

After that the next big thing for me is photography...I might luck out on this part because one of my bridesmaids (who knows she's one but hasn't been "officially" asked yet) somehow knows about a million people who all adore her and she might be asked to send out a notice asking for a favor or two. Fingers crossed. But lets say that doesn't pan out...2000 for that.


That leaves me with....1000 for every thing else. Not much for invites, flowers, decor, outfits, officiant, wedding license, music, favors, cake and the million other things I'm totally blanking on because my brain is swiss cheese...melted swiss cheese at that! mmm...cheese.

I've already checked out invites, since there are so few people invited I might even go the handmade route...but honestly on our budget I might want to save the time and most likely pain in the ass that I would undoubtedly make it due to my serious paper addiction and my bizarre ocd compulsiveness. Plus on this budget every thing is going to be done DIY handmade crafter styles.

So lets say I have to find a dress for 500, preferably under and only slightly over if I throw in some over time because "oh my god this is the dress!" gut reaction.

My parents whole wedding in the 70's cost 500 dollars. THEIR WHOLE WEDDING!!!
This is a fact that my mother just loves to bring up.

I have been entering online contests daily in hopes that some luck is sprinkled on me and I win something! I have never been particularly lucky though so unless some sort of universal shift happens I think my best bet will be online, a sample sale, going across the border to Filene's or pre-owned. My wonderful former boss also told me that if I wanted I could borrow her dress.

I will tell you a secret though. I'm going to do something incredibly dangerous. Something a bit childish and selfish and probably it will land me with a broken heart and a maxed out credit card.

I'm going to try on dresses that are far beyond my budget. I am going to go into the fanciest wedding boutiques and try on dresses that have price tags higher than my whole budget. Even though I know that even if I fell madly hopelessly in love with a 10 grand Oscar de La Renta(which even at a 7 grand discount I could not afford!) I could not and would not put myself into more debt for a dress. Even if it was the most lovely dress that ever lived and I would totally wear it grocery shopping and to friends houses for parties once I got it shortened! TOTALLY!

Image Source

Le sigh.

There are some really great dresses out there to be found. I just have to figure out what I want because I seem to have champagne tastes on a bottled water budget.

I got all kinds of fancy this weekend!

This weekend was all kinds of magical.



I met up with two of my lady friends for some shopping in the area of Toronto called Yorkville. My one friend is getting married this June. It's her second marriage and she's just having a small intimate family dinner at their favorite restaurant. She had decided that she wanted an outfit that she would be able to wear again and again but also something incredibly beautiful and stylish. Looking for her dress was not on the agenda, we were just going to walk around and go into the boutiques. Typical ladies day out.

Until we entered Chanel.

This was my first time in Chanel, I'm not sure why because it's not like I have "CANNOT AFFORD ANYTHING HERE!" tattooed on my forehead. But it's the sort of store I feel scared to enter on my own, to me it's like a gallery filled with wonderful things that I'm allowed to touch and I was certain that I would somehow touch a jacket and a button would fall off in my hand and I would get arrested for vandalism or some such thing. Yes I have a very active imagination.

Any hoo...we headed up to the area where they keep clothes which really does feel sort of like a gallery, there is only one of each piece on display and they are displayed beautifully. There were vases stuffed with white roses and it was incredibly calm and incredibly quiet! My friend decided to try on two outfits, the first a black woolly number that was beautiful but far too heavy for her June nuptials. The next outfit was a classic white Chanel suit with silver running through it. The size they gave her to try on was miles too big for her tiny frame and it looked stunning but it's hard not to in a suit that costs as much as a car! She felt it just wasn't right and suddenly on a whim asked to try on a dress she had shunned earlier as being too casual. It was a white shift style dress with a matching sporty zip up jacket. As soon as she walked out you could tell her heart was skipping a beat. They say when you know, you know, and she knew. We could tell.
I cannot find the actual dress online, but it is from the Spring Summer 09 collection. It's so her and so perfectly the combo of beautiful, classy, fun and versatile. She can dress it up or dress it down so easily it boggles my mind!

After finding a jacket that was the right size from a room that seemed to be behind a hidden wall panel a seamstress was brought out and the dress was pinned for alterations. She paid for it as we acted like we'd been given a hit of drugs in our clapping of hands and squeals of joy at being there while she found her wedding dress! Fresh from our Chanel high we headed over to a cheese and wine bar and proceeded to eat cheese and go over the details of what just happened!

I suggested she get a fascinator for her hair..here are a couple I found on etsy! So pretty!

Gilda by SmittenXOXO who Carly featured on A Disney Bride a few weeks back.
This Birdcage veil with giant rose by Satanica is making me reach for the smelling salts!
Getting a bit Sex and The City there is the GIANT flower option from madebymadeleine.
Another stunning birdcage veil this time from Artikalnyc.

With so many accessory options to brides these days how does anyone ever get married? My search for just four fascinators was so hard there are so many that I wanted to link to! I had to limit my love to just four and it feels so wrong!

I'm so honored and happy to have been there while my friend found her dress, plus I got to live vicariously through her purchase which kept me on a Chanel induced high well into the next day! It's not every day that you meet up for coffee and end the day with a wedding dress!