Say Yes to the Dress!

First, an update:

• A block of rooms will be available for the wedding for the nights of June 22nd and 23rd at the Grand Summit Hotel at Sunday River. Since Steve works for SR they are giving everyone a $95 deal! They should be ready for booking by the end of the week.
•  Our registry is up at Target!
• In case you weren't aware, it's officially the year we get married. HAPPY 2012 EVERYONE!

THE DRESS:
 The process of my wedding dress actually began way back in the spring of 2004. (Just to clarify, I have not been planning my wedding for the last 8 years...) I made a deal with my mom that if she could make me the perfect prom dress, I would let her make me the perfect wedding dress for when the time came. Being the VERY talented person that she is, she pulled it off (see photo below)! As a result, I am very lucky to have her make my wedding dress.

In August, I went with my mom, grandmother, and MOH to try on dresses and see what I liked. After watching one too many episodes of "Say Yes to the Dress!" I fully expected to have the "I'm a bride" moment when I put on a white dress for the first time. Sadly, all I saw was me in a really beautiful dress. It wasn't until I tried on a nontraditional dress that I fell in love. However, that emotional "Say Yes to the Dress" moment still did not occur. I figured I just wasn't that type of girl.

From there my mom decided she would try to mimic the dress I loved while adding/changing some things that I liked from other dresses (one added feature is POCKETS!). The fact that she decided to do this without a pattern had me a little bit nervous, but I knew I would have a one-of-a-kind dress. To  make sure I got the dress I wanted, she decided to make a practice dress out of some navy blue fabric she had laying around.

Over Christmas I got to see the complete practice dress. Even though it was navy blue, I finally had that "I'm a bride" moment. Not only did the dress surpass all my expectations, just knowing my mom had spend hours constructing the details and my grandmother was doing the hand sewing meant the world to me. With a few minor tweaks, she will be ready to start the final product! Seeing the dress finally made the wedding real for me.

Since this blog is about a bride on a budget, I figure I should lay out some numbers:
Cost of dresses I liked at David's Bridal = $300-$600
Cost of all materials that are going into my dress = $30 (Jo-Ann fabric sales/teacher discount is key)
Love, meaning, and originality of my dress: PRICELESS (<-- I had to throw that in there)

COMING SOON: Centerpieces and Invitations!