The Dress

Life is great! I have my wedding dress! I picked it up on the 18th and I am in love with it (I better be since I bought the darn thing).

So about the dress...
Designer: Nicole Miller
Location: Short Hills Mall (NJ)
Color: Antique White
Price: Only $595!!!
Alterations: Needs to be hemmed (I'm only 5'2")

Obviously that's NOT me in the picture, it's some skinny and tall model that Nicole (yes, we're on a first name basis /jk) hired and looks perfect in the dress. I don't look half bad in it ... but you're not going to see it on me (unless you come to my wedding ceremony or one of the receptions).

I have to say that I really hated dress shopping and I can't understand why girls get so excited over it. I probably disliked the experience because my whole wedding ordeal was ... unique. But rewind to April 2006 ...

• Nick proposes, I say yes.
• The very next day I see a dress (similar to the NM dress) in a shop in Englewood NJ. I loved the silhouette (it was a prom dress in white) and the price. But I try it on and the Fiance says it looks too big on me (don't worry gals he saw it in black). So I mull over it and decide it's too casual for a 150 people sit down wedding reception.
• David's Bridal. Awful, awful, awful. I hate every dress I tried on (about 20 dresses). I'm sorry to those who love DB but I am quite particular and that's my problem.
• Local Wedding Shop - found a pretty halter a-line dress with a sash and was entirely made of re-embroidered lace. I thought this was THE dress and was ready to put down the $1200.
• We decide we don't want a local wedding. There goes the fancy a-line dress with lace.
• Search for a new dress. Voila! Designer and totally affordable.

Even though we're getting married barefoot on the beach I needed shoes (any excuse to get yet another pair of shoes ) and the logic was I am not wearing flip flips with my designer gown and I want to be taller than 5'2" on my wedding day (I also love to wear heels). So I asked Fiance to take me the local Loehmanns Shoes in the pouring rain. I usually hate rain but this was my best rainy day ever! I found BCBG (my favorite brand of shoe) high heeled sandals for only $60! They are Sand Gold in color and so pretty! I wish I had a picture ...

Now comes the issue of jewelry. If you notice, the model has a neat necklace on and I thought I could just buy the necklace if Nicole sells it. Well she does but the twists are: (1) the model actually has on 2 of the same necklace, they rigged it for the layered look and (2) ONE necklace is $300 and not even made of precious anything, just expensive costume jewelry. Fiance said to get the look the necklaces would cost more than the dress, so I bowed to logic and finances and decided to find my own necklace. I have some candidates but need to try them with the dress.

Figured Out ... For Now

We're definitely getting married next May on the island of Kauai (pronounced: COW-eye) in Hawaii. After we decided to do a destination wedding the hardest part was not where but how. How were we going to go to Kauai and get married? What about friends? Family? Where will they stay? Where will we stay? How do you plan a destination wedding having never been to the destination???? All these questions made us crazy but we finally have it figured out and the turnout keeps on surprising us.

So far we have (not including us) 13 friends and family going to Kauai with us. Isn't that amazing? I really didn't expect this many people to come but that's just the list of definites and we have about 4 maybes. For some reason I am having mini-anxiety attacks over keeping track of the people that are coming to Hawaii (some friends/family are making their own travel arrangements - I am quite thankful for that) but I have to organize the wedding ceremony itself and tell the planner how many but my number keeps changing and I am trying to plan a dinner post-ceremony that also requires a head count. I keep thinking I have 8 months but then my head goes into this "countdown" mode and suddenly I've run out of time. I think I am going to take it one month at a time ... at least I'll try.

Wedding Mania

My fiance and I began planning our wedding about 1-2 weeks after we got engaged. The very first thing we did was to make a guest list ... 150 people. Wow. So then we started looking in local magazines to find venues we'd want to get married at. The most valuable mags I got for my birthday from my good friend, Josanne, for my birthday. Nick (the fiance) and I chose a beach ceremony as ideal. We headed to the Jersey Shore with his sister (who is my MOH and lives at the shore) and checked out a bunch of places and none where perfect. Although the best and most breathtaking view was at Merrimakers at Waters Edge. What a view!

To make a long story short we felt the NJ beaches weren't exactly what we envisioned and started to look all over to NJ just to find a venue we could both agree on and wouldn't put us in the poor house. To our great disappointment we could not fall in love with any venue (we saw about at least 20) for our wedding. We then began to consider a destination wedding ... tropical beaches ... we were getting much closer to what we wanted.

After much careful consideration we decided on Hawaii, specifically the Garden Isle of Kauai. The pictures are amazing and I am still pinching myself as I make plans because I cannot fathom going to this tropical paradise and getting married there! My head spins just thinking about it, but Nick and I are so excited and awed that we're going to Hawaii to get hitched nothing can phase us! We're the super Bride & Groom ... all because of Hawaii.

Going to the Chapel and We're Going to Get Married!

Friday April 28, 2006 was a typical end-of-the-week-kind-of-day. When the clock hit 4 ... I was outta there! I was so thrilled to just be home and when I walked in the door the boyfriend (now fiance) gave me the routine hug and I sat down on the couch to check out the television. He mentioned that I had gotten pictures from Shutterfly in the mail (I had ordered them) and he wanted to see them. Being the considerate guy that he is he asked if he could open them, I said sure and he came over to the couch with the pics. We were going through the piles of pictures (I explaining the pics because a lot of them were of co-worker's and events he wasn't present at) and as I flipped through them the last picture was a complete surprise. It was a photo of him holding a sign that said, "Marry Me Jenny" and around him was a photo collage of pictures we had of us together. Needless to say, I didn't even notice he was down on one knee and asking me to marry him because I was WAYYY to busy trying to figure out how he got the picture into my Shutterfly order.

The thoughts about his conspiracy with Shutterfly ....
1. Did he hack into my Shutterfly account? (we live together so it was feasible ... sorta)
2. Maybe he called Shutterfly for a favor ...
3. Maybe these really aren't the pictures I ordered but other ones that he thought I might want
4. But the package is sealed in this cardboard thing when mailed (i thought i had opened the package, but sneaky fiance did that)

Needless to say it was an awesome and a total surprise of a proposal and I will never never forget the day.