The honour of your presence

Bride is in the throes of ordering the wedding invitations, and I got the final print proofs yesterday afternoon. I had a few changes to the first set she sent out last week, but, changes made, these look beautiful. I can't wait to see the end result on ecru card stock with dark slate print and the blue embellishment.

Notice we didn't put all the parents' names on the invitation. Please. The parents and step-parents list would've taken up one whole page. I think Bride and Groom sensibly put their names, followed by "Together with their families," which simplified the whole thing.

We went back and forth about whether to hire a calligrapher to address the invitations, but my feeling is that wedding invitations should be hand-addressed in neat handwriting, but not calligraphy - makes it more personal, I think. I'm sure the Bride can gather enough warm bodies with legible writing skills to do the honors. When a friend of mine was planning her wedding some years back, she knew which of her acquaintences had good handwriting, so she threw an invitation-addressing party (we didn't get the wine until we'd finished, though). We all sat around the dining table and addressed hundreds of invitations. It was a good system. And we did finally get our wine!

On another invitation issue: after posting about anyone not receiving a save-the-date not being invited to the wedding, well, I'm eating those words. Seems Big Bro read the blog, didn't receive a save-the-date, and wondered if he, indeed, was invited. Well, of course he's invited! But now I wonder who else didn't get their save-the-dates. Hm. There's no accounting for the US Mail. Wonder if we should hand-deliver the invites?

Dress Found!

No sooner had I posted about my dress dilemma, than fashion-tenacious Bride zapped me a photo of a perfect dress she'd found at Nordstrom's. It really is just what I'm looking for. And within my price range! Yea! I won't show you the dress now (I have to order it, and what if it looks awful once I get it?), but my hopes are high. It's a lovely sapphire taffeta, short with 3/4 sleeves. I'll let you know how it works out.

That Most Dreaded Subject

That's right. I'm talking about the Mother of the Bride dress. Finding a ready-made one is becoming hopeless as the days fly by. I've been to many of the NY stores, to no avail - and if I can't find it in New York, I can't find it anywhere.

I have three "must-haves" for the dress: blue (a flattering blue), short (knee-length), 3/4 sleeves. Well, see, right off the bat, I've set myself up for failure.
It's impossible to find a fancy dress in a color other than beige, black, or white (or some hideous shade of green). Cocktail-length dresses are mostly sleeveless or strappy numbers, and while my bat-wings aren't too bad at this point, I won't be wearing sleeveless to Bride's wedding. I look best in a 3/4-length sleeve - long sleeves are too hot, and above-the-elbow sleeves are old-lady-ish.

So, my dilemma. Add to those factors the problem that I already have in my head the kind of dress I want, and, well, you see it's just an impossible task. As the days pass it's becoming clearer that the only thing to do is to find a seamstress and have a dress made for me. I've found a couple of Vogue patterns that I could live with, given the right fabric. Fortunately, I do have a few seamstress contacts here in New York, so I'm hoping it won't be too much of a struggle.

In the end, it's the only way to get what I want, I reckon. I've already talked with one potential dress-maker who's willing to look at the patterns and help me select fabric. I haven't heard her price yet, though. I promise to get serious about this in August. Really.

By the way, the dresses shown are all things I simply hate. Ugh! As I've said before, Google the word "ugly," and Mother of the Bride dresses come up.