May 29, 2010
Paisley (Finally) Reveals Her Dress Pics!
I think I waited until a month before my wedding to show you guys my dress because I was secretly worried some readers would criticize me for picking such a ubiquitous dress. Yuppers, mine is an extremely popular one….as the bridal shop informed me, and the alterations place, and many people around wedding blogosphere.
Actually, my seamstress ever-so-slightly-passive-aggressively informed me it is not popular anymore. So maybe I have nothing to fear! According to her, it’s practically vintage! She got “thousands, literally thousands of this dress like two, three years ago” and I quote.
Sweet! Not only has everybody and her sister worn my dress, but now it’s old, too! 
You know what I say to that? What-freakin-ever! I fell in love with my dress two years ago after seeing it in a magazine, and despite trying on dozens of others, I couldn’t find another I love more.
And so without further ado, I give you, arguably one of the most popular dresses of the ’10s, (and for good reason) The Melissa Sweet Lia:
Please ignore my un-makeuped, un-hair-did, early morning face with puffy eyes. Ugh.
Focus instead on the back, in all its whipped cream-like, buttery, double-faced satin glory:
Woah. Is my back really that huge? Yes, yes it is. But it’s good for things like sports and amateur hatchet-throwing contests:
I came in something like 3rd place, and I’d like to thank my huge back.
Anyway, here’s a photo of the veil I’m wearing. Cathedral length Jeniffer Leigh “Corby” veil. I like that “Corby” is only one letter removed from Professor P’s actual name.
Next up, I’ll need help from all of you ladies in deciding where to place my veil. High up near the top of my head like in the picture? Or lower on the back of my noggin?
Stay tuned for pictures of my hair, makeup, dress and veil in one great big, happy trial run!
Did you choose a popular or, as some in the wedding blogosphere say, “overdone” wedding item, whether it was a dress, veil, color scheme, or other element for your big day? Did you have any regrets about your choice to go a popular route?
March 21, 2010
Hair Trial, Part II
I wrote about my hair trial already, but only had one photo to show you. Now I’m back with the rest of the pictures, courtesy of Papa Paisley’s camera and photo emailing skills!
Here are a couple of my inspiration photos to show what I was hopin’ for:
And:
And here is my hair, all fresh in the salon:
Sorry for the funny face, I wasn’t exactly ready for the photo when MOH Paisley snapped that picture.
Here’s the back view:
It’s pretty, but a lot curlier than I’d hoped, too much wax was used, and it wasn’t the unstructured look I wanted. It was partly my fault, because my stylist kept asking me how close to my head to start the curl, and I was a little indecisive.
“Ummm, hmmm. There? [pointing to the crown]“
She asked for my direction a LOT. Which was good in a sense, but I wasn’t prepared enough, especially when it came to the back. I had no back-view picture to provide her any guidance.
After I came home, I Googled away and found this photo of Taylor Swift’s side-swept ‘do from the back. I wish I’d had this photo to show the stylist!
She did a great job with the makeup, I thought. It was also wonderful how I only got two or three hours’ sleep the night before my hair/makeup trial. Haha. Well, it did mean she got to work with a fairly accurate representation of what my sleep-deprived face will look like on the actual wedding day! (If I can’t sleep before a freakin’ HAIR trial, chances are I won’t be able to fall asleep the day before my wedding.)
Amazingly, here is what it looked like about 10 hours later when my dad took some pictures before I hit the hay at 11 p.m.:
I also spent 5 hours doing yard work that day. One thing’s for sure, this hair has staying power!
I think the stylist is nice, talented, and an incredibly good deal. The makeup and hair trial cost only $25 (half off). And since my bridesmaids all decided to get their hair done here (the $40 price won them over), that means my hair and makeup on the big day will be free!
Plus they’ll serve us coffee, doughnuts, and mimosas. ‘Nuf said. We are sticking to this salon, even if my hair looks like a poodle.
My wedding is in Lake County, meaning this rural county has two options for hair and makeup: this place, or paying like $800 to have somebody from Napa or Sonoma County drive over and do it.
But, I’m thinking of having another hair trial to try to get a less curly look. And trying to get a looser, fuller look to the back, like the photo of Taylor Swift above.
If I do, I’ll try to plan it around a day when I can go out someplace fancy, instead of going to grandma’s with MOH Paisley and doing yard work like I did after this first hair trial:
I’m currently on the hunt for photos of side-swept half-up ‘dos, especially the back views, so if you have any/know of any, please send the links my way! Muchas gracias!
Have you had two hair trials in order to achieve the perfect look? Were you glad you did it?
March 20, 2010
Hair Trial, Part I
My trip up north to do wedding things went pretty well. The wine barrel drink-bar-constructing was completed, but the grand plans to build a driftwood arbor were laid aside, since I underestimated the time it takes to gather numerous large pieces of wood around the lake. With no motorboat available, I used a kayak and towed the 7-foot hunks o’wood using rope tied to the stern. Good thing wood floats.
I got about half the wood I needed for the arbor in one day. The next day, I was all set to go out for round II of wood gathering when my dad said to me, completely somber, “Oh, keep an eye out for a body. A man drowned in the lake two days ago and they haven’t found him yet.”
My face dropped as I contemplated both the tragedy of somebody drowning in the lake and the possibility of stumbling upon the body, something my own dad had the misfortune of experiencing on Clear Lake some 30 years ago. I did not want to have to see my first dead body while rummaging around the lake shore looking for driftwood for my wedding day arbor.
Never missing an opportunity to tease me, and probably trying to prevent the inevitable freak-out he could tell was boiling up inside me, my dad then said, “You know, if you find it, you could always tow it back with you on the kayak.”
Not meaning disrespect to the person who drowned–my dad knew the man–but even if it had been a close relative of ours, he would have cracked a joke like that. That’s just who he is.
So, with driftwood off the agenda, and the wine barrel drink bar complete, I decided to get my hair trial done. My brother accidentally deleted all the photos on my camera, but fortunately Papa Paisley took plenty of photos on his camera, which he’s going to email to me, so photos of the drink bar and ‘do are forthcoming.
The hair and makeup trial went pretty well, I was mostly happy with the hair and amazed at the style’s durability. The makeup was soft and undetectable, while the eye makeup was no short of amazing. I showed her these photos for hair inspiration, all found on Project Wedding’s website:
I told her I liked the waves of this one, how they fell against her head and were still wavy even though they were pulled back into a bun.
But I told her I didn’t want a bun, I wanted a side-swept, half-up, half-down sort of pony tail. And that I liked the side swept bangs and loose curls of the bride in this photo:
And I liked the touchable-looking curls of this one:
And this:
And that this one was the closest thing to what I was going for, but with elements of each of the above photos as well:
She listened to me, and basically perfectly achieved the look of the tighter curls in the bun photo, but without the softness or looseness I’d wanted. It was very pretty, but not exactly what I wanted. She used a small-barrel curling iron all over my head until I looked like Shirley Temple, and then used hair spray, then a heavy hair wax to pull each curl looser and add definition to them.
She was great at improvising the side-swept pony tail look I wanted. Although some bobbypins were visible (plus she used yellow pins while I have recently-dyed brown locks). I think I need to go back for another trial with her before the wedding, don’t you think? I have complete faith she can do it, but I’d rather get the exact look achieved before the big day.
Do any of you ladies know of some great pictures of a wavy, side ponytail look (especially the back view)?
Have any of you experienced difficulty getting exactly what you wanted out of your hair trial? Did you find it was worth it to go back for a second trial?
The good thing about the hair is that it was finished at noon, then I proceeded to do heavy yard work with my MOH at grandma’s (the wedding location) for five hours…
…probably not what the stylist had intended for me to do after getting my hair done. But later that night, after all of the yard work and sweating, and just before I went to bed at 11, the hair was still just as perfect, no joke. The curls hadn’t budged an inch! It was truly kind of weird.
As one of my friends said, there is “something wrong with that picture.” To that I say, it’s not only the hair, it’s the fact that brother Paisley was standing on the porch of the guest house, relaxed as can be, watching us girls work, and not helping! That’s what’s wrong with that picture! (OK, he was taking photos, which was nice of him for my blogging purposes.) Then he later uploaded the photo to Facebook with the title, “I want that whole yard cleaned up nice enough to have a wedding!”
Brother Paisley, you jokester. I love my funny family.
Stay tuned for more photos of the hair, and photos of the wine barrel drink bar, oh, and the makeup, too!
