An Unbalanced Act

A balanced wedding party used to be the standard, an equal number of guys and girls standing up on behalf of the bride and groom. Nowadays, we brides-to-be get to be more creative with our wedding party. A Man of Honor? Heck yeah. A best gal friend? Absolutely. More 'maids than 'men? Go for it, and that's what we've got goin' on.

I've thrown out my number a couple of times but for good measure I will remind you that I have eight bridesmaids. Our wedding party will be a total of thirteen, not including the troop of 'lil ones. Simple math tells me this can only mean one thing: we have an uneven number of bridesmaids and groomsmen. Me with eight, Mr. Honey with five. An unbalanced wedding party.

Just like Miss Candy Apple and Mrs. Fro Yo, among others, I have embraced that our wedding party is not going to be symmetrical. The majority of our groomsmen will be escorting not only one, but two bridesmaids up and down the aisle. Two girls to one guy; those lucky boys:

Image via Weddingbee/Photo by Mrs. Bee

My initial fears of having odd looking pictures were put to rest when I came across this recap post by Mrs. French Fries, whose uneven wedding party was the furthest thing from obvious or off-looking in pictures:

Image via Weddingbee/Photo by Molly of MThree Studio

This, of course, prompted me to look at more group shots of wedding parties and I was soon drawn to the nontraditional shots of wedding parties. You know, the jumping ones: 

Image via MyWedding.com/Photo by Betwixt (formerly Theorie)

The perfectly unorganized ones:

Image via Elizabeth Anne Designs/Photo by Ameila Strauss Photography

And the casually strolling ones:

Image via Pinterest/Photo by Ben Blood

My point is, that unless you sit and count the number of 'maids to 'men, no one will ever know the difference. And, more importantly, who cares! I wouldn't want to sacrifice any of the girls I have chosen and would not expect Mr. Honey to scrounge up another three guys to stand up with him on our important day just to make it even.

I have a mix of old friends: MOH Stac & I met in preschool and are still super close 26 years later. Her & I became BFF's with BM Scoot and BM Fawn in high school. And new friends: BM Candace and I have known each other for years but became besties in our early twenties, and BM Hogan and I met six years ago. And family: I don't have sisters, but I have my cousins BM K, Mae & Bel. Mr. Honey has BM Cruise who is like a brother from another mother. GM Frank, Steele & Jack who go way back to his childhood in Alabama, and GM Joel who is a newer Colorado friend. Thirteen people standing next to us when we say I Do.

Our groomsmen and bridesmaids will actually be walking the processional together, because (a) I have been in weddings and I much prefer to have someone else share that attention with me and (b) we are getting married with snow on the ground; having lived through 28 years of winters, I know it's easier to walk on snow when you have someone to lean on. I digress.

Logistically, I'm still figuring out the best way to have them paired up. Obviously MOH Stac & BM Cruise will walk together. But that leaves four groomsmen to seven bridesmaids. Oh, and our doggy Zeus. Big Z, as we often call him, is one hundred pounds of pure Weimaraner excitement. He needs a good guide down the aisle.

I could sit and contemplate the best way to pair them up, but I'm going to go ahead and say that it probably won't get hammered out until we are together with all thirteen of them the day before W-Day.

Until then, lets hear who else has the opposite of a standard bridal party? Tell me about your unevenness, Hive!

Reachin' Out To My Girls

It had been quite a few months since I had touched base with my girls about where my wedding planning stood. Sure we would discuss bits and pieces over cocktails, but never all together and never exactly what I was thinking. Plus, since my last email to them, I had changed my colors & also changed the look of what I wanted them to wear. I had made a couple of trips to Hobby Lobby, (which PS, is a 50 minute drive across state lines...yes I have to venture to New Mexico, a whole different state to get craft supplies) I had visited Hobby Lobby and picked up some basic crafting supplies: paper cutter, stamps, card stock, bone folder and I was itchin' to do some craftin'. I decided I would create something to give to my girls showcasing my ideas. Being that I got too anxious and asked my bridesmaids to be in the wedding either via a phone call or an email, I thought this could make up for it.
I will preface by saying that I did NOT have a clear vision when I started, and because of that, it took me four weekends to complete, with numerous hours devoted to how I wanted this something to look. There were three ideas I knew I wanted to portray to the girls: 1. My Vision 2. My New Colors and 3. The Bridesmaid Dresses.

I started with My Vision:

I created the collages through Mosaic Maker and printed everything on neutral toned card stock. After I printed and cut them, I mounted them on another colored card stock.

I introduced My New Color Palette:

I saved the color swatches of off 100 Layer Cake's Inspiration Binder and then just bordered them in Microsoft Word; separating out the Main from the Accent's.

And then the Bridesmaid Dresses:

I made another collage with eight pictures of mismatched bridesmaid's dresses, to get them to see that my lack of control on this issue would turn out perfectly beautiful.

I used stickers to accent their names and stamps to add a little decoration; adding a picture of myself and each girl put icing on the cake:

{Front}

{Back, yikes sorry for the blurry photo}

{All Together}

Thennn...I was stumped. I wasn't sure how to present the card. Do I just mail it as is? Will they wonder why the hay I'm sending this to them? Another weekend passed...then I was making a card for a friends birthday and came with the idea of creating my own card and ended up with this:

{Front}

{Inside}

I hand wrote a note to each girl also, you know to make it personal. I customized the one for MOH Honey saying Maid of Honor rather than bridesmaid and I made one for my parents that said "and we have your support as parents and future in-laws".

I created this little explanation flag to tie it all together:

Then I literally tied it all together with some yarn:

I signed, sealed and delivered dropped them in the mail. I think the girls appreciated it, even though it wasn't necessary I felt satisfied giving them something personal.

Sure, it wasn't the most efficient DIY project but it helped me get some crafting jitters out before I began working on the real wedding projects.

How did you touch base with your bridesmaids? Anyone else use a crafting project as a 'practice run'?

Eight Easy Steps to Finding the Perfect Bridesmaid Dress.

I dropped the clue of how many bridesmaids I will be having in my last post, but in case you missed it, I have 8. Eight lovely ladies standing up with me on our wedding day, that's a lot of girls to worry about dressing. Don't fret I will introduce the Honey 'Maids soon. Today I'm talking about the search of what to have the girls wear. My bridesmaids dress search was, um, not.fun. So rather than bore you with my freak outs, meltdowns, and indecision making I have created a step by step guide on how I came to the conclusion of what my girls will wear.
Step One. Image search the crap out of bridesmaids dresses:

Image via Love and Lavendar 

(sources included there)

Step Two. Being overwhelmed with the choices, go ahead and just pick something and send out an email to your ladies telling them "what they'll wear". (My first idea was gray dresses paired with tights and Uggs to make the party look more wintery.)

Gray dress Image via Once Wed/Photo by Jill Thomas
Tights Image via Style Me Pretty/Photo by Levi Matthew Photography
Uggs Image via Clark + Walker Photography/Photo by Clark + Walker Photography

Step Three. Mull over your decision for two months, all the while looking at wedding blogs. Second guess your original decision because of pictures like these: 

Image via Ruffled/Photo by Kelly Kano

Image via Forget Me Knot/Photo by Sean Walker

Step Four. Change your mind on original decision because Gray Dress + Black Tights + Gray Uggs is what I like to call frumpalicious and was a split second decision. If panic ensues, switch around your color palette and introduce a new color because it fits your vision better:

Image via Wedding Chicks/Photo by Edyta Szyszlo

Step Five. Take feedback from your girls and  tweak the color of dresses once more and settle on a new color that is universally flattering:

Image via The Knot/Photo by Pen Carlson

Step Six. Realize the TREND you have fallen for. Collect loads of inspiration pictures from wedding blogs and actually enjoy browsing bridesmaid's dresses:

Image via Elizabeth Anne Designs/Photo by Tinywater Photography

Image via Ruffled/Photo by Feather Love Photography

Image via Retro Weddings by the Knot/Photo by Stephanie Williams

 

Step Seven. Go ahead and pour yourself a glass of wine because, you my friend, are done searching for bridesmaids dresses. The answer was under you nose - er - on your computer screen all along:

Image via Petdog Online/Photo by Jen Rodriguez

One more? Okay, twist my arm because this next picture is purrrrfect:

Image via Style Me Pretty/Photo by Watson Studios

 

Step Eight. Jump on the amazing bandwagon that is mismatched bridesmaids dresses. Put full faith in your girls to choose their own dress (with a few guidelines) and feel the burden lift off your shoulders.

 

Painless, right?

 

Who else is loving this trend and gave their 'maids full control over which dress they will wear? Who thinks I'm crazy?

Our Peeps

{Peeps, image via Boston.com}

I don't have any sisters but I am very much a girlfriends-friends forever-these are my ladies type of person and so I always knew my wedding party would be massive. I felt (and still feel) that the people standing with you should represent you and important phases of your life. Before I was even close to getting engaged, I joked that my side of the wedding party would be 12 women...and if that meant two ladies to one man, well then so be it.

{image via Weddingbee.com}

While it ended up not being 12 (although it very easily could have been), I have 8 females standing up with me on my wedding day.

I have three best friends from high school, one who is my Maid of Honor (this title seems so ancient!). MOH Stacy & I have a picture together on the pre-school playground...through elementary school we always participated in birthday parties together; through middle school we stood by each other as other girls were not so nice; through high school we partied, laughed and cried; through college we traveled and lived in Guam together; 7 years after graduating college she is married with two daughters and we still see each other as often as life will let us. There was no question in my mind that she would be my MOH, she knows me pretty damn well and although we don't spend every day or night together anymore, there is no one else that I could picture with that title.

{From high school days to now}

My other two best friends from high school, BM Fawny & BM Jen, complete what I like to call the BFF circle. The four of us girls had far too much fun in high school and we have managed to hold on to our friendship for 15 years!

{Young BFF's in high school to more recently}

I have three cousins who I was raised with. Two of them are older and one of them younger, but growing up they were like my sisters. Although blood has us related, we all four know that we are very lucky to be friends in addition to relatives. We all live in Durango and so it makes family get togethers very fun because it's like I've got a group of girlfriends with me. So that's BM Kel Bel, BM Mae, & BM KT.

{Cousins in high school, Cousins at Christmas 2010. With an appearance by my bro!}

See? My side is already at 6 with my stand-by high school besties and my cousins.


BM Candace and I actually went to high school together but we didn't become friends until a few years after. She has been by my side since 2005 and I can't even put into words how much fun we have had over the years. I can always count on her to meet me for a drink, or be there with her shoulder for me to pout on.

{Candace & I circa 2005, and more recently in 2009}

Last, but certainly not least, BM Hogan. My dogg aka homegirl. We have a ridiculously fun time together...from girls nights out to including our men in a home cooked dinner. We have been known to sit on the couch and watch E! and cry from laughing so damn hard.

{First known picture of BM Hogan & I and of course more recently in 2009.}

{And an appearance by mine & D's matchmaker, Carly!}

That's eight. I had a very hard time keeping it to eight. I would have loved to add at least three more(I'm looking at you, JoJo, Em & Schlapps!). BUT I forced myself to stop at eight. We will have sixteen friends/family standing with us and then a small army of little ones, that's for another post. I can't wait to get pictures like these:

{Image via eleganceandsimplicity.com}

{Image via bridal.threaddesign.com}

{Image via carlateneyck.com}

For D it's not so easy; sure he's easily got eight friends but guys are different. I know that if these girls were anywhere in the world they would try their damnedest to get back to D-town for our wedding. D has two great friends here in Durango. His best man (luckily!) and one other dude that we are close to. The other six he has mentioned having are spread out around the country...and by that I mean on the eastern side of the US. And traveling to our little world is not easy peasy. Our airport is tiny, I'm talking two terminals; we are 6 hours from Denver and 4 hours from Albuquerque, the closest international airports.

This makes me a little worried, not that I don't have faith in his friends but I want to make sure that D has support from his buddies just like I will have support from my ladies on our big day. He was not so enthused to talk to his friends and 'invite' them to be groomsman, I think majority were asked via Facebook chat. Two were in person. And maybe a couple over the phone. And he's said more than once "Whoever can commit to coming to Colorado will be my groomsman." Men, I don't get them.

The day after we got engaged, I started calling my girls. MOH Stacy actually stopped by my office to see my bling and that's when I was able to ask her to be my MOH. I had always envisioned myself doing something clever to ask my favorite girls to be in my wedding, like this beauty:

{Image via Oncewed.com}

I also thought it would be creative if I just sent them a text and ask them if they were busy on January 21st? And when they responded, 'Why?' or 'How on earth am I supposed to know, that's so far away!' I would say 'Because I would like to have you stand with me on my WEDDING DAY!'.

Unfortunately, excitement got the very best of me and during each phone conversation, I just blurted out "I'm engaged! You are in the wedding!" Whoops.

Learn from my mistake, taking your TIME to relay this information to your bridesmaids is crucial...the follow up to this mistake, up next.