Will I be a Beautiful Bride?

I knew that you had to have your hair done for a wedding and have vague
knowledge about makeup, but I am finding this insidious push that if you don't do this and this and this you won't be a beautiful bride.

There have been a few recent articles about brides that plunk down thousands of dollars to get plastic surgery. Assuming that this isn't something they've been thinking about doing for years for personal reasons and it's just because they'll be a princess for a day so they should have a new nose is damn scary.

But even on the less extreme ends are some frightening trends. First off is teeth whitening, we've all seen the adds on TV of people with some nicely bleached teeth telling you unless your teeth are blinding pilots they aren't white enough. Luckily lots of vendors are happy to step in and help out.

Now that your teeth are as white as Snow White and 4 of the dwarves (They're well known for their dentistry) it's time to make you look as dark as possible to show off those chompers. Time for some tanning. If you are going to try and skip the UV from the sun or those tanning beds, there is a myriad of sunless options (and some videos on how to perfect it!). Some people will swear by a home lotion tanning process and will then swear at the smell of it. Others love going into a booth and either having a machine or a human spray paint you.

There is also the issue of hair. Some you want to get rid of (with waxes and threading all over your body) and some you want to add too with extensions and fake eyelashes. For the other extra chitin on your body (your nails) you're gonna for sure want to get yourself a mani and a pedi (possibly also a betti and a jetty). After all you'll have to have lots of pictures taken of that ring finger.

After all this beautification you can't forget the most important part, er um, oh right, your face! Just about every salon seems to offer a bridal package that includes a facial, a must have so you can get that glowing look. It isn't like just being excited about getting married is enough anymore.

What amazes me about all these things is how important they are stressed. So many women seem to worry themselves silly about how to get a not fake tan, or what to do if they get a pimple (I've just accepted the fact and am going to draw a smiley face on it). How come the groom can get away with getting up at noon, showering and getting dressed?

For me, I'm not going to stress on being a beautiful bride. I think instead I'll focus on being a happy bride.

I like shiny stuff

I am not an accessory kind of person. I like to joke with my guy how for a long time he wore more jewelry than me (him: watch, school ring; me: watch). While my engagement ring has tipped the scales it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. But come wedding talk and everyone seems to think I should be decorating myself up all fancy.

Earrings won't happen. I'd had my ears pierced twice in my lifetime and both times they closed up. I have since learned my body does not like holes in it, or I have a healing factor to rival deadpool. And clip ons have always been insanely painful to me. Really, who wants to spend hours getting pinched in their ears? It feels like I did something wrong but I can't figure out what.

So really my only option was a necklace. My mother was dead set on how I had to find something blue to match my ring, so began a long look for a blue brooch (at the time she wanted to replace one that was on my dress). After some hunting and pecking I was directed to etsy.com and found the quite pretty cobalt blue glass piece pictured above (the silver chain I got from Target as everyone I know likes to use gold).

If you're like me and like to add a bit of color for your accessories then it seems DIY is a better approach than just purchasing a bridal set. Some have color but not as much (what is it with all the white, people?) There are a few sites out there to help in deciding what kind of bling you'd like to accentuate your perfect scrumdidilyumptios day. For the more traditional out there, there are the classic pearls. Apparently they can be traced back to those trendsetter english queens again.

If you can't tell by now, I know nothing about jewelry and I never will. This is mostly just me marking time. So I wish you all luck in figuring out your shiny stuff. Later I'll talk about something I understand even less: purses, tiaras, and gloves. Look forward to lots of ums and ahings.

I've been peeking

Ah registries, the best way to tell your guests what you really need (though the porcelain german shepherd is nice too) and also allows brides to know exactly what someone got them and when to expect it. There is almost an art form to peeking at your wedding registry. Some people talk about how it becomes an obsession, right up to the night before the wedding so they can see what they get to look forward to opening.

I am one of those people where I just ruin surprises (usually on accident), I'll be standing in the right place for no good reason when someone brings a present through the door, or outside the door when someone shouts out "Digital Camera" (true story very entertaining, got to the point I had to announce myself so my friends knew I was coming). But I never had this urge to snoop. Hard to explain, but while I like to come up with ideas in my mind of what could be happening (my pastime is Sherlock Holmesing what's gonna happen) I still won't actively look for it.

In comes the intoxicating territory of registry looking. I admit, I did look recently though I had a good reason. When my Future In laws were visiting a weekend back they said that we should pick out something we really wanted, we really needed a kick ass vacuum. Thanks to oodles of construction this place is a dust bowl and my cheap little vacuum had given its two weeks notice.

So we got a nice big one with lots of fire power (it isn't very cuddly though). After getting it out of the box and making head or tail of the special duster attachment I realized we had to take the other vacuum off our registry. Figuring we still had a month til the first shower there was no way anyone had even looked at the thing, I logged on and found that people had in fact already gone nuts and bought us stuff.

We get to look forward to some flatware (thank god, we really need it. Our dishwasher keeps eating forks), some serving bowls, a measuring cup, and the best thing ever a cheese slicer. Now we can have all the cheese we want in the house. Huzzah!

Anyone else becoming a registry peeker? Or become so addicted they can't be pulled away from the monitor with the keyboard stuck to her fingers?

A dress for every season

I have discovered a dichotomy that I cannot make heads or tails of. The trend now is for brides to pick out a dress that their "maids" will wear again, yet if anyone wants to wear said dress that they paid for, had altered to their shape and really like before the wedding they are shot down, rolled up in a carpet, and booted out of town.

First off, I really don't think no matter how hip bridesmaid dresses claim to be that they'll ever really not look like one. Sure it helps that they've moved to tea and cocktail length (sounds like we're all gonna have to pee a lot during this thing) but there is just something about a dress you can only get at a bridal salon that screams wedding party.

My MOH and I looked for some bridesmaid dresses at David's Bridal (by that I mean I sat back and let her go wild, only she knows what looks good on her body so I wasn't gonna offer up any opinions). She managed to find the worst dress ever. It would make anyone above a model sample size look like they're as wide as a truck. We didn't take any pictures of her in it (she'd kill me if I had, it looked so bad I was laughing like crazy) but here's the picture on a slip of a model. In the end all of the dresses there just looked, well, really bad. Nothing looked cute or hip, just sort of dowdy and as though the wearer would rather be swallowed into the bowels of hell.

She lucked out as she found a gorgeous dress at a department store that was in the right color range of blue (I am not a painter, I do not have any swatches for what color everyone should be. I think limiting it to green and blue is enough of a challenge). I would say that if you really do want your girls to wear their dresses again go the department store route. I still feel bad for one who did get her dress at the bridal salon. She says she'd wear it again, and it does look good on her, but I'm still worried about people telling me things to make me happy for fear I'll start breathing fire.

If you are the type of bride who feels like they must stress over every last detail, here's a very thorough article on choosing a bridesmaid dress for all your girls whether they'd like it or not.
I don't get it, this whole matchy matchy thing. The idea that you get final veto for something you aren't paying for or wearing or will have to house in your closet for years to come. I'd much rather they all be comfortable in something they feel sexy in than something I thought would just look perfect on one body type (probably mine) and no one else can pull off.

As for the idea that if they do have a perfect dress that they love the style and color of, but they can't wear it before the wedding I got a few counter arguements. First the idea that you might spill some wine on it (not a major issue as I know neither of my friends drink wine) it's called a dry cleaner, if it rips you happen to know a good seamstress that just altered the dress for you. And as for the bride seeing you in the dress and getting angry I know my MOH is wearing hers for her sisters wedding, I'll be there pulling down guest book duty and I'm excited to see it on her.

I swear we have money

Contrary to all those Oil of Olay commercials it really sucks when you look young. When I was 20 I looked like a teenager and people would watch me like a hawk if I went shopping anywhere without a gaggle of friends around me. Apparently I just scream shoplifter. (I am screwed too, as my mother can fool people into thinking she's just 20 if she's wearing sunglasses.)

Now that I'm almost 25 I can pull off college aged on a good day, but that means doing any wedding shopping is a pain in the ass as all those wonderful sales clerks on commission assume I have no money. I knew it'd be bad so I specifically took my mother with me when we went dress shopping so they wouldn't give us the shaft.

Well today I thought, hey before we head off to a family reunion (I really don't want to go) lets try and get some information on tuxes. A while ago my fiance decided that he wanted to wear a tux, and because his side would all be from Chicago we'd need to make sure we can send in the measurements or that they'd have a store there or something.

Plus he wants to wear green vests, and frankly all the ones I've seen looked like crap in pictures and we wanted to see them in real life.

So around noonish today we wandered into Men's Warehouse where we were greeted with a sign telling us to sign something if we wanted anything to do with a tux. Randomly a man came out and told us that all the tux guys were busy but it would just be 5 minutes so please fill out a super lengthy information sheet so we can stalk you later (I can see why they are affiliated with David's Bridal).

Well we didn't fall for that crap, we weren't going to buy anything that day and just had a few questions. It'd take a minute or two, tops. As we weren't in a big hurry we figured we'd sit down and wait.

Cue the hordes of masses coming and going to pick up tuxes, get fitted for tuxes, and plan their tuxes for weddings. Meanwhile we were completely ignored. After about the third round of this we got fed up and just left.

We stopped to get some paper towels (they have information on them like how to clean out a coffee pot, quite strange really) and heading back caught a smaller shop and stopped in. The women were quite nice, showed us where all their stores were located, gave us some price information, and also showed us the green vest options.

Thanks to my "wonderful" youthful looks I have been able to discern better who is actually nice and helpful and who is just in it for the paycheck. It's a crappy way to live, but I refuse to shop anywhere that treats me like crap just based on my looks.