Posts Tagged ‘Attire’

Organizing mismatched bridal party attire

Posted on February 3rd, 2011 by Nicole. 2 Comments

Nicole
Wedding Date: TBD
Bio: Blogger and bride-to-be. I married my wife, Rose, in an intimate courthouse ceremony shortly after it became legal in DC. Now we are planning a fabulous budget wedding in Baltimore, MD for next Fall to celebrate our love of art, games, wine and of course… each other!

Our bridal parties are a combination of lots of different styles, sizes, skin colors, ages and sexes. So instead of shoving everyone into cookie-cutter bridesmaid dresses, we decided to go the mismatching route. I’m sure the male members of our parties are especially thankful for that! Here’s the breakdown: Rose’s bridal party consists of her 4 older sisters and brother. They are all Samoan with gorgeous dark skin and various builds and personal preferences. My “marital minions” (as I so lovingly call them) are made up of my dearest friends. After all… Friends are the family we choose for ourselves… right?

Friend love sandwich!

I adore when bridal parties wear dresses that are completely different in fabric and style, but all seem to flow together because of color and length. It really allows for each person to express themselves but still look like they are cheering for the same wedding team! There is a great gallery of all kinds of ways it has been done on this Wedding Bee Forum. I really am in love with the ecclectic and personalized look!

I do have a few minor concerns:

What if the dresses are too mismatchy?

What if someone can’t find a dress in the color scheme that fits their body or their budget?

How do I tie everything together? Matching shoes? Bouquets? Hair pieces?

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Re-Designing a Wedding Outfit

Posted on December 9th, 2010 by Erica. 3 Comments

Erica
Wedding Date: 17 April 2010 and 16 October 2010
Bio: My wife Alex is the medic, the Brit, the music & book lover, and the most compassionate woman I've ever known. I'm the writer, the pancake maker, the American living with her in London, and completely smitten with her. With the help of much family and friends, we've already thrown one amazing wedding in Cornwall, England, and now we're gearing up for a 'country kitsch' ceremony & party in Northern California--we can't wait for October!

Photo by Wyatt Olson Photography

So now that you’ve seen the sneak peak of our epic country kitsch wedding and while I’m waiting for more glorious photos, I’m gonna give at little look back to all the thought and stuff and consideration and debate that went into our glorious California wedding cause, really, the planning went by so fast–6 months! SIX months!!–that I’ve hardly had time to take it all in, let alone maybe you. And since the whole point of the wedding was to get to marry my wife, I thought I’d start with her–and her epic outfit.

If you’ve been around SYE for a while, you may remember back in the spring that Alex opted for a gorgeous, three-piece suit made by Gresham Blake in Brighton (by gorgeous, I mean gorgeous, and worth every penny–her suit cost more than both my dresses combined. I’m sorry, who’s the bride here?! Oh, right, we both are…) and she picked out two well-tailored button-ups from Hawes & Curtis.

Here:

The ‘romantic’ shirt for the ceremony

Image by Cornish Wedding Photography

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Why I Wore a Red Wedding Dress

Posted on November 22nd, 2010 by Erica. 5 Comments

Erica
Wedding Date: 17 April 2010 and 16 October 2010
Bio: My wife Alex is the medic, the Brit, the music & book lover, and the most compassionate woman I've ever known. I'm the writer, the pancake maker, the American living with her in London, and completely smitten with her. With the help of much family and friends, we've already thrown one amazing wedding in Cornwall, England, and now we're gearing up for a 'country kitsch' ceremony & party in Northern California--we can't wait for October!

Photo by Wyatt Olson Photography

A few weeks ago, I was having a blogger conversation with Kelly about my just-gone California wedding and she shared that her and Natalie wondered how I had arrived at the decision to wear a red dress… It never occurred to me to blog about it because, really, it was always what I wanted for our California wedding that I stopped thinking of it as ‘different!’ (Kind of like when Mandy was reminded that a family wedding was the ‘antithesis‘ of hers…)

I think maybe it started as a serious joke. Something I said in passing to someone when talking about the wedding–Alex’s favorite color is red and we knew it would get incorporated into one of the weddings–and maybe it just instantly made so much sense that I never went back to another idea. Plus, it helped finding the perfect wedding dress(es) when I wasn’t EVEN looking for wedding dresses yet! The quick story goes that I found my English wedding dress in a (just happened-upon) sample sale at The English Department (who rock!), went on Jenny Yoo’s website, saw the red dress, tried on one in white, and then ordered the red one!

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Engagement Photos and Gender Roles, Part 2

Posted on July 8th, 2010 by Michelle. 5 Comments

Michelle
Wedding Date: November 10, 2010
Bio: I'm a teacher, reality TV addict and avid theatre nerd. My fiancée, Deborah, and I met during a production at a local theater a little over three years ago. She pretty much tap danced her way into my heart. We are planning a slightly off-the-wall but mostly traditional wedding in our hometown deep in the heart of Texas.

In my last post about our engagement photos, I was still struggling to find an outfit that I loved, but wouldn’t come across as too definitive in our relationship roles. Bridesmate Beth was concerned that wearing a fancy vest and pants could be a little ‘butch’, which was a frustrating but accurate thought. What really constitutes a butch lesbian anyway? Well, I was unsure of the exact definition, so I looked it up.

According to the highly regarded, but academically unsound UrbanDictionary.com, a butch lesbian is defined as an overtly/stereotypically masculine or masculine-acting woman. Can be used to denote an individual, or the dominant role in a lesbian relationship. Huh. Then, my little internet definition adventure took me into sub-categories: Stone Butch, Sport Dyke, Soft Butch, Chapstick Lesbian, Fellagirly, Gym Queen, Tomboy Femme, Futch and the list goes on and on!  I’m all for defining oneself, but on any given day, I could fit into any of these labels and more! If the labels were sewn into jeans, I could even be a Blue Jean Femme.

Why are we, as a community, so quick to jump to assumptions about others gender identities and relationship roles? And why are we so adamant on sticking to the traditional hetero-normative definition of what a couple should be? (Excuse that last sentence, I sort of threw up in my mouth as I typed it, but it is still true– vomit inducing or no.) I’ll be the first to admit that if I saw a photo of a lady in a dress and her partner (who happens to be…um….. ‘cherubic’ in weight) in pants, I too would make a quick decision on their relationship roles (aka who was butch or femme).  But what if you saw that cherubic gal in a skirt and her lady in workout clothes, showing off her super-toned arms? Who is the ‘butch’ now?  Because on any given day, that is little ol’ me and my bicep crushing Deborah.

Deborah and I in the summer of '08 at The 'Shoe on Ohio State University's campus in some of our typical outfits. Photo by Bridesmate Ashlea

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