The wedding: Bridal Attire

To my faithful readers: I am sorry I haven't posted in so long! We packed up our car last weekend and, after the midnight showing of Harry Potter, headed up to Missouri to spend a couple of weeks with Nick's family and to talk to people about supporting us in Providence. So far, it's been a great time.

And now, for the actual subject of this blog post: What I wore in our wedding! The attire portion of the wedding can be so expensive! It really can be disheartening for a newly engaged bride or her bridesmaids to sift through all of the possibilities and know that it is very likely that a bunch of money is going to be spent... Especially if you don't have that kind of money.
So, I wanted to try to be sure that I, my hubby, and my wedding party looked good but weren't stressed out about it. I will also post about the wedding party and my hubby at a later time.

The Dress:
I had decided even before getting engaged that I wanted my mom and grandmothers to make my dress. My Grammy had made my mom and aunt's dresses, so I knew it was a realistic dream. But, even though I knew where I wanted the dress to come from, I still needed to figure out what I wanted it to look like. So, I perused many bridal magazines and tried on multiple dresses at David's Bridal. It was kind of awkward going into David's Bridal, knowing that I wasn't going to buy a dress there. The sales women are very persistent and really want to make sales, so it's kind of hard to like something but refuse to buy it.

 My favorite style dress was strapless and A-line, with lots of ivory tulle. I fell in love with a dress on the cover of the current "The Knot" magazine. Unfortunately, it was Vera Wang and $6,000. Not quite in my price range. But what I loved about it was the simplicity of just tulle. There was no train and no added embellishments. Just a black sash tied into a soft bow around her waste.  I just couldn't get that out of my head. So, we decided to replicate it.
The making of the dress was a little more time consuming than picking out the style. My grandmother found a pattern she thought would work for the shell and measured me from head to toe. Then, we headed to the fabric store and bought thicker fabric for the underneath part and a ton of tulle for the top. Then, my Grammy got to sewing. And there were multiple sizing meetings. I probably would have had a total meltdown if she had finished and it didn't fit. But it did.

(Photo by Meredith Bacon)

The Veil:
It took me a while to settle on an idea for a veil. I found a picture online of something I wanted, but never found it anywhere else. So, the week before the wedding, Nick and I made my veil. Nick should be credited with most of it. I had the idea, he made it reality.
For the veil, we took leftover tulle from my dress and stitched it to elastic in the back. We added a little bit more tulle to cover the elastic. Then, we stitched on a piece of lace that came from my mom's wedding dress. I love how it turned out.

(Photos by Meredith Bacon and Bryce Hamilton, respectively)

The Shoes:
Since I bought my first pair of TOMS back in 2008, I have known I wanted to wear a pair of them in my wedding. I am not a huge shoe person, and I wanted to be comfortable. Nick is also a TOMS lover, so that worked out well. His first gift to me was actually a pair of TOMS that he splatter painted himself. 
After a lot of online perusing, Nick and I both decided to order Cordones to wear for the wedding.

(Photo by Meredith Bacon)

That's about it for my attire! Stay tuned for more wedding reflections!