I think I’ve mentioned ad nauseum the fact that I’ve spent a good chunk of my life dreaming about wedding dresses. It’s what got me into wedding blogs in the first place. And then I spent so much time reading the blogs that my opinions on weddings changed. At various points I have fallen in love with a certain dress, or a certain design feature that I decided I was definitely going to have when I got married, and then a year later my ideal would change. I always wondered what would be the one that would stick, that would go down in history as my wedding dress, to be looked at one day when I am old. And now I’m pretty close to knowing. At this point, I’m very clear on the vibe I’m shooting for, but not yet 100% clear on its execution.
A big part of this has been determined by the context of the reception, and the fact my philosophy on style is always Context is Everything. My wedding is going to be a fun beach party. So I’m going to look like I’m at a fun beach party.
Let’s start with hair. It’s hot, so my hair needs to be up. Because the wedding is low budget, I won’t have a professional hair person coming, so it needs to be something I can do myself. And because I’m doing it myself, it needs to be something that doesn’t stress me out by taking three hours and/or being difficult to execute. So I’m thinking something like this:
Bonus: When, not if, the humidity turns my hair into a thicket, it will look intentional (that’s the plan anyway).
For jewellery, I like the exuberant, natural, a bit chunky, kind of free spirit look. I dig this kind of stuff:
Fiance: “You’re so African at heart. You’d wear a necklace of mini elephant tusks”
Me: *considers* “Not if they were ivory”
While I’m a huge fan of both multistrand necklaces and biggish dangling earrings, they’re probably too much to wear at once, so I’m leaning towards just the earrings. Something like these, perchance:
Ay, there’s the rub.
Now for shoes. Considering the facts of beach sand, my five foot ten height, and the evilness of heels, I’ll either go straight up barefoot, or where some invisible haurache style sandals. Check it out, you can make them yourself and customize them with different tying patterns, beading and such:
Like this, except not like this.
Now for the dress. What I have at this point is inspiration, and the knowledge that I want it short, in a weather-friendly material, with a bikini underneath and the ability to take it on and off quickly. (We’re encouraging swimming at our reception. The groom is wearing board shorts. Long pants in this weather = insane.) As a nod to my bridalhood, I’d like it in a fairly light color, but not white or ivory because I can’t pull either of those off. These things hit the right note, except for colour and length:
Also without the evil heels.
And that’s about where I sit folks! Now, back to the regularly scheduled words-only programming.
Frugal Wedding 