Oct
7
Say Yes to the Dress?
Filed Under Wedding, fashion, micaela, shopping | 25 Comments
I am a dress fanatic, so I don’t know how I waited about a month after getting engaged to go dress shopping. I guess part of it is that I for the most part, really do not like wedding dresses except for a select few. This weekend I managed to find a few that I loved and perhaps settled on one.
After finding my dream dress and locating it in a store in Markham, I decided last Saturday was finally the time to go. So I gathered up my entourage - my mom, Erica, Katelyn, my best friend Michelle, my Oma, and Kent’s mom and we headed off to Toronto for the day. The first store we went to was called Pearl Bridal. Katelyn and I picked it out because of it’s adorable website and because we liked the lines that they carry and we were not disappointed. There were two young, fashionable girls there to help me, who listened to every preference I had and added some of their own picks into the mix too. If I told them I liked everything about a particular dress except for one aspect, they would immediately find a dress that was the same minus the one aspect that I didn’t like. One of them worked there and the other had just flown in from New York because she was the sales rep for Platinum by Priscilla of Boston. They were having a trunk sale (showing the dresses that are not out in stores yet) at Pearl Bridal this weekend which was so lucky for me. I loved lots of the dresses, so many of them they were exactly my style - slim, silky, and chiffon-y. I will admit that even their big poufy ones were lovely too. Another lucky thing for me was that some of the Platinum dresses had come straight off the runway and flown here with the sales rep. One thing I was dreading about dress shopping was that I was afraid they would all be huge on me. I didn’t expect that dresses straight off the runway would fit me, but miraculously they did and I loved them for it. I did fall in love with one of them and if I had $6000 to spend on a wedding dress, well this would be the one. Luckily, I do have a mom who can make wedding dresses.
We totally forgot to look at bridesmaid dresses upstairs at Pearl, which was a huge shame because they probably had some rockin’ ones. I may have to go back for that… luckily it’s straight down the road from Kent’s parents house.
After a long drive (thanks to me and Katelyn, sorry everyone!) we headed to our next stop. I won’t tell you the name of it because our experience wasn’t stellar. The whole point, however, visiting this store was for me to try on my all-time favourite dress and this goal was realized. Here’s the dress, if you don’t remember from my last blog post:
The store was PACKED so full of dresses that I could hardly think straight. Before we went upstairs to where the wedding dresses were kept, a group of girls came down the stairs and told us that they just had the worst experience and walked out on the salesperson. Not off to a good start! So I headed upstairs and an older lady came into the room and said “So I like plain dresses. Do you like plain dresses?” thought you were supposed to find out what the bride wanted, not try to tell her what she should want! So then my entourage sat on the couches (okay, the “over 40’s were told to sit on the couches, the young girls sat on the floor), and the lady said to me “take off your pants.” I had to change in front of everyone including Kent’s mom! About ten times since this is how many dresses I tried on! It’s much more fun and much less awkward to walk out of a change room and have everyone tell you lovely you look, rather than having to change right in front of them. Awk-ward. Anyways, I got to try on my favourite dress and I did love it, but not as much as I loved my new favourite dress! It was actually a LOT poufier in person. So that is really good to know and I’m glad I went there for that reason. Katelyn and Michelle had a particular dress (one of the only ones that wasn’t shoved in and that we could actually see!) they wanted me to try on, and it took them about 10 minutes to convince the saleslady to LET me try it on. I think I’ve said enough to give you an idea about this place. All in all, the experience at this store was pretty hilariously awful, but I guess those are the ones you remember and laugh at for years to come. I know we will!
So that’s my dress shopping experience so far! My mom is going to make my dress and I think I’m going to go with the first one, although I need to go dress shopping a couple more times so I know for sure. Katelyn said not trying on enough dresses was one of her regrets about her wedding (maybe her only regret?) and I don’t want to have that regret. It’s the only time I get to try on wedding dresses so I should live it up. I also figure, why stop at one white dress? I’m going to get a cute short one and wear it to events before the wedding, like showers and my bachelorette part! I’m thinking something along the lines of this:
I’m going to stop because I’m going wedding dress craaazy! Must move on to other wedding matters.
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Aug
2
Shoe Shopping!
Filed Under shopping | 10 Comments
I’ve never been much of a shoe girl. At 5′8″, I am pretty tall for most heels out there and my feet and ankles are skinny meaning that most straps don’t fit me and the shoes look silly. When gladiator sandals first became popular they quickly became my best friend, because not only are they flat but with the straps they can be made bigger or, in my case, as small as possible. Plus I just love love love the look of them.
I decided to put an end to my anti-heel feelings because I have an occasion coming up that I want to wear heels for. Another problem is that when I go to the mall I just get distracted by all the dresses! I love dresses and right now is the perfect time to dress shop! So after trying on way too many dresses and not allowing myself to buy any even though they were all perfect and beautiful, I ended up with these:
They are from Nine West and I am very very happy with them. I love the clunkiness of them and they look really good with skinny jeans. The salesgirl and I were trying to decide between nude (which I tried on first) and black but as soon as I tried them on we were both like BLACK! So black it was.
Here are the nude, what do you think? The dress I’m wearing them with is black and white.
I also got these. Just cheap casual gladiatorish sandals from American Eagle.
So… tell me what you think!
Mar
28
Dress Envy
Filed Under shopping | 8 Comments
I currently have dress envy for all of the dresses on shopbop.com. Holy goodness there are nice dresses there, it almost makes me never want to wear pants again and just wear pretty dresses for the rest of my life! (Not possible to do in my part of the world because of cold winters, but if it were possible I might consider it).
I don’t even know where to start to show you my favourites!
Milly Strapless Ruffle Dress - $375.00 (left)
Milly Crossover Strapless Dress - $359 (right)
Alice + Olivia Sequin Ombre Tie Neck Dress - $484.00 (left)
Twinkle -Object of Affection Dress $356.00 (right)
Love Yaya -Dreamland Dress $165.00 (left)
Loeffler Randall -Asymmetrical Dress $415.00 (right)
Tibi -Lily Pad Sleeveless Dress $317.00 (left)
Sunner- Strapless Angelina Dress $451.00 (on sale $225.00) (right)
Catherine Malandrino -Devore Dress $695.00 (left)
Grey Ant -Ruffle Mini Dress $198.00 (right)
..now if only I could convince Scott to let me spend my tax refund money on these pretties… he says we need it to pay for something called our mortgage? What’s that? haha
Jan
9
Wall Decorations
Filed Under decorating, shopping | 4 Comments
Scott and I really badly need decorations for our walls. Since taking down the large Christmas tree and other Christmas decorations in our house the house (mostly livingroom) looks sad and undecorated. This is very unusual for me since through out university I always had the walls covered with pictures, art and things I clipped out of magazines. When I was in Ikea about 6 months ago I found a few things I liked, but didn’t buy them because I didn’t have a house then and didn’t know what colours the house would be. So now that we are settled I think it’s time to get some artwork on our walls! I don’t want anything too expensive but I think I want large prints so I need less… not really sure about that though. Here are a few that I’ve seen that I like:
IKEA - $99.00
IKEA -$99.00
