Little Red Briding Blog

I had posted a while ago speaking about my perfect wedding shoes… I had found them… but the heels were a bit on the high side.  Meanwhile, I’ve been casually searching about hoping to one day come across the perfect pair.  Well, it seems that this past monday was the day of fate!  I don’t even remember how, but somehow I stumbled upon a pair of red 2.5 inch peep toe pumps with a rosette on them at AnnTaylorLOFT.com.  They were absolutely everything I was looking for in a pair of shoes just gauking at me from my screen.

Even better… they were on sale for $39.99 with a 25% discount on top of that, for a grand total of $23.99 plus shipping.  Only problem?  I’m a size 6.5 and the red color was only in size 6.  I ordered them anyway, knowing that sometimes 6 does fit, and then thinking I’ll probably just suffer on my wedding day if they don’t because I just couldn’t pass them up!

Then, last night, I decided to show one of my bridesmaids what I had ordered, and noticed that miraculously, 6.5 had popped up in the color red!  It was 10 pm by this point, so customer service had gone home.  So, today, after work, I called them asking if they could do a switcharoo on my order.  Unfortunately it’d already been processed and placed in a ready-to-ship area, so the operator said he could send me another pair in 6.5 and waive the shipping (since I wouldn’t be refunded that when returning my shoes).  Of course, my 6.5 red shoes had also disappeared, and so did the sale.  So he located them in several stores across the country, and said he’d have them shipped to me from a store instead, charging me the same price I’d paid on Monday!  And then I could just return whatever shoe I don’t want to any Ann Taylor store!

All I have to say is that I LOVE Ann Taylor right now!!!  They are amazing!  They went way above and beyond to get me my dream shoes for a great price!

Geeze, I feel like I’m posting this super late… but better late than never, right? Anyway, I’ve been procrastinating on this post mostly because I’ve been waiting for the high resolution photos of my engagement pictures to come in… and after they came in, I spent forever editing them because the memory on my computer sucked… although, I finally got that upgraded! Woo hoo! So now I can actually use photoshop without doing chores at the same time in between loads.

So, without further ado, check out the photos! (link) To see the slideshow of all the photos, just hit “slideshow”.

The pictures were taken by Jaime at A Photographic Memory. She did an awesome job. And I just spruced some of them up a bit playing around in photoshop, mostly by editing out zits and the like. But I also made some of the photos fancy schmancy! So, enjoy!

Okay, can I just tell you how difficult those three little words are for me? I am a born shopaholic. Just watching a commercial makes me want to spend money (maybe that’s why I don’t watch TV very often hahaha).

Anyway, I was set with the idea of a budget videographer, if having one at all. I’d hire someone just to film the day for Mr. Red and me so that we’d have it all on video to watch later and relive those memories. After all, there’s so many better things to spend money on than someone using a high definition camera and making all the perfect edits. That is, until I saw the amazing masterpiece on WeddingBee of Mrs. Milkshake’s Same Day edit (link). Ever since I watched that I’ve been thinking that maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to throw down a thousand or so… you know, for an artistic vision of the best day of my life. *Sigh*.

On top of that, I’ve fallen in love with yet another pair of expensive shoes! These ones going for $300! But, but, but they’re just sooo beautiful and pretty and gorgeous and ivory and they’d look so cute and pretty and perfect on my feet!

Yes, I am a sucker.

My dad is way too funny with this wedding planning stuff! Mostly because he has no idea about anything to do with pricing! Apparently he missed the number one wedding rule where every price is quintupled when the word “wedding” comes into play.

Today I was on the phone with a cake baker, trying to figure out when I could do a tasting with them. Afterwards, my dad says, “Oh, the cake? Don’t even worry about that! That’s not going to be a huge part of your budget… it’s such a small thing.” And I was like, “What?! We need a cake that feeds at least 150 people!” And he says, “That’s going to be, what? $100?” My mouth just dropped, and I replied, “Try more like at least $400… part of the reason I’m considering cupcakes!”

That reminds me of the time when I was panicking because DJ’s in the Boston-area think that $1000 is “affordable” for 5-hours of switching CD’s. Meanwhile, my dad was in his own world, and while I was contemplating laptoping my event, he says to me, “A DJ is only going to cost about $300 tops! I’m sure I could find much cheaper than that too… there’s a lot of competition!”

Geeze, I should just hand over the vendor-hiring to my dad! He seems to have quite a few cheap connections! Add the caviar that he wants at my wedding on top of all that!

So I have somewhat of a surprise. Mr. Red came home on leave recently, and we went up to the white mountains. And, of course, I dragged him to the North Conway outlets to look around. There, we went into the Zales Outlet, and I found a ring that fit PERFECTLY with my engagement ring. The only problem was that it didn’t contain pink sapphires like the over-priced band I’d liked at Tiffany & Co.

So, the lady behind the counter said that that wasn’t a problem at all, and she could easily get their jeweler to replace some of the diamonds with sapphires! And then have the band shipped to my house! All that for a very cheap price (plus no sales tax — even better!). And since Joe didn’t know when he’d be back around to buy the band, and didn’t want to pass up on the great deal, he bought it for me!

Anyway, the ring arrived a few days ago… and I took it for a few test drives around my house hehehe. I didn’t have the guts to actually wear it out though… just a bit over a year and a half now! (The sapphires are pinker in real life.)

The lady who helped us out also attached a lovely hand-written thank you letter for shopping with them! So if anyone is ever in the North Conway area, I definitely recommend the Zales Outlet there.

I think it’s official! I have gone crazy bridal and made myself an insane organization tool. I think I’m going to name it my “Bridezilla Binder”. The only problem with it is that CVS didn’t carry more than 8 tabbed dividers! And I definitely need more LOL! I may just end up having to buy a second set. We’ll see!

Basically, I’ve been organizing all my contracts, information, and ideas I find in magazines. I also went through all my stuff I’ve received at wedding expos, and threw away the random crap, and put the useful crap in my binder. Then I went through my stacks of bridal magazines and threw away the unhelpful ones. Note to self: Bride (magazine) sucks! All ads, and not enough info for such a heavy thing!!! On the other hand, I found some other very helpful ones, especially the ones oriented towards the Boston area. Of course, most of the articles were oriented towards the summer bride, so maybe if I buy some during the winter, it’ll be different!