Turquoise...or Teal... Flats... or Heels

Well, actually living up to the name of this little blog here is certainly proving to be a bit difficult. In an effort to stay true to my vision of my something blue being my shoes, I've been searching high and low for the perfect footwear for our big day (in other words - googling every possible combination of "turquoise" or "teal" and "heels" or "flats" imaginable).

I've always said I would wear flats for my wedding, but my seamstress has (mostly) talked me into heels at least for the ceremony and pictures. Which would be all fine and good if 95% of heels out there didn't leave me taller than my fiance, who I can assure you does not like to be the shorter one of our pair. It would also probably be a lot easier if I wasn't dead-set on having my shoes match my girls' dresses - there's a million and one pairs of gorgeous white heels out there... but I want turquoise. Or teal, which I'm learning is considered a closer match to what I want than lighter, less intense shades of turquoise.

Although I kind of figured anything with a 4 inch heel would be FAR too tall for Dan's liking (and let's be honest, I probably wouldn't be able to walk in them anyways), I went ahead and ordered two pairs of shoes last week because they were barely $25 each and completely returnable.

As suspected, both pairs are incredibly tall, and unfortunately neither of them fits me all that well in the first place. (That hasn't stopped me from staring lovingly at the first pair though - they are definitely up there on my list of favorite shoes. Ever. Not to mention a near perfect color match. Sigh.)

My searching has led me to believe that had I gotten married a year or 2 ago it would have been a breeze to find shoes in the perfect color, as there are some a.ma.zing. images of teal heels out there on the world wide web that are nowhere to be found for actual purchasing.

So, I am officially on the hunt for not one, but 2 pairs of wedding shoes... both in an apparently unpopular footwear color. I'm not too panicked on the heels as I know I can get a pair of dyeables from David's Bridal in an EXACT color match if it comes down to it, but so far I haven't been thrilled with their selection. The flats however, are proving to be much more difficult to track down. If you happen to see any beauties out there just screaming my name, please do let me know :).

P.S. - Easter Sunday marked just FIVE months until our wedding day. Cue the panic attacks friends, in my world that means it's just about crunch time!

Soaked

Although Dan doesn't seem to "get" my thoughts about how fun it would be to jump in the fountain or creek at our reception space when the party is winding down, he's been open to my ideas as a whole and isn't trying to stop me. In preparation for soaking my wedding dress, and then planning to continue the party at the hotel bar, it was important that I find a fun little after party dress to change into! Considering my wedding dress was a minimal $200, I definitely didn't want to spend a lot on another dress, so you can imagine how excited I was when I spotted this little number in the window at H&M last weekend when shopping with my mom and Manda.

At $50 and a perfect fit, I didn't hesitate a bit to buy it right then and there! So, although I will admit an after party dress wasn't necessarily a top priority on the planning front, I'm excited to check something off my ever-growing list.

Aww

Pretty sure I have to have this necklace.

I'm also pretty sure that I will cry if I don't find time to do some REAL wedding projects and post a REAL update soon. Having a job is really cramping my blogging ;).

Exactly

Oh, hello EXACTLY what I want my wedding day hair to look like. Nice to finally find you somewhere other than my dreams.

Max

During a particularly late night at work yesterday, a coworker and I were chatting about her brother's upcoming wedding and she mentioned in conversation that he just happens to be good friends with Max Wagner - one of the many insanely talented photographers I follow on a regular basis. Somehow, I managed to miss the post on Max's OWN wedding last summer, but we quickly found it and spent the next few minutes drooling over the perfect details and saying a lot of "of course his wife is gorgeous" (and let's be honest here, Max isn't so bad on the eyes either).

Since it's from his own wedding it's clearly not Max's work, but I jumped back online this morning to swipe the below photo as it is one of those ones I want to print out and tape to my computer at home as a reminder that no matter how panicked I may get about the details of our wedding, it's going to be perfect in every way simply because regardless of what happens, I will be married to my soulmate at the end of the day.

The unconditional love between these two is so apparent in this image that it evokes a feeling of comfort even for someone that doesn't know them. I'm also completely hooked on the bride's hairpiece and chunky bracelet, and I've been straining my eyes on the photos trying to figure out what Max's teeny boutonniere is made of.

From Max's post I gathered that his photography was done by The Flashdance. I'm not certain of that, but I'm linking to them anyways just to be safe :).

Flattered again!

I used to work with a girl named Brooke, who is one of those girls I imagine could wake up in the morning, spin around her closet and put on the first shirt she landed on, and then spin around again and put on the first skirt she landed on, and then pair it all with funky accessories and shoes and end up looking great. I, on the other hand, could put on an identical outfit and look like a total moron, so I stick with my jeans and a thermal look and settled for just seeing Brooke in her awesome getups on a day to day basis. She has since moved on to a new job, but I continue to keep up with her via her awesome Chicago Now blog - Always a Bridesmaid.

Well, Brooke also checked out my blog, saw my save the dates, and emailed me to see if she could feature them on AAB. Um, yes please! She posted a few of my pictures right away this afternoon, along with some swoon-worthy (I totally got that phrase from Style Me Pretty) mood boards from Anthro's BHLDN line. I suppose people with insanely popular blogs probably don't even think twice about someone else featuring them, but for me I could not possibly be more flattered that friends like Brooke and Lauren want to put my project up on their little virtual corner of the world for others to see! So, thanks to both of you ladies for making me feel special this week!

Perhaps

Since my mom seems to be bummed about my thoughts of having no cake topper, I thought I'd look for some non-traditional and non-cheesy ways to do something simple to make us both happy. Because I love that so far, outside of the measly cake topper, she hasn't disagreed with a single thing I've said - she didn't flinch when I said I likely won't wear a veil, she didn't care when I said we're not doing a bouquet and garter toss, she embraced my ebay wedding dress, and she has expressed nothing but excitement over every other abnormal idea I've had for my big day. So, if she wants me to have a cake topper and that's her biggest request thus far, I figured at the very least I can put some thought in to it!

And then I saw this...

...And I decided that having something on top of my cake might not be so bad after all.

Thanks for making me think twice about it mom.

I feel special

My sister from another mister, Lauren, blogged about my little save the date project! Besides being giddy with excitement that I have a way to stalk Lauren on an almost daily basis via her bog, I'm also super flattered that she wanted to write about my first wedding DIY project.

On the planning front, I had a somewhat productive weekend as far as hearing back from vendors and ironing out a bunch of the reception space details I was starting to panic about (me? panic? shocking). I also took an early afternoon trip out to Ikea with Bridget yesterday and was thrilled to see even more turquoise items in store than the last time I was there. I told Dan that if we had gotten married 2-3 years ago when I was first hooked on this color I would have had a terribly difficult time finding little decor items, but now that the color is insanely popular it's been a breeze to find things to dress up my event spaces.

One of these will likely be housing a pillar candle in memory of our friends and family members who will not be there with us on our wedding day -

And a couple of these will be making an appearance somewhere, just not sure where yet -