Our Wedding: Dress Shopping!
photo by @kristenmarieparker
photo by @kristenmarieparker
the DRESS.
Perhaps like many girls, I'd been pinning wedding dresses (see below) for quite some time, long before I met Aaron. When it came to the wedding dress, these things came to mind: unique, a-line, backless, simple, sleeves. lace. I wanted a dress that was different. But you know, wedding dresses can get pretttttty expensive and I went back and forth between the decision on spending a ton of money vs. staying under a grand.
After lots of online browsing, I was convinced I had found the dress of my dreams via Grace Love Lace, an Australian bridal gown brand. (Australian brands just do it right.) This particular brand embodies everything I'd want in a dress. LACE. They are so so beautiful. The only problem was, there wasn't anywhere near me that sold their dresses and to order them, it'd take anywhere from 6-8 months to get to you. So, if I were to buy from them, I would have to order this dress at the latest in February since we were planning on getting married in September-ish.
January 16th, 2016
In enters the reason why I went dress shopping prior to Aaron proposing. I decided to go try on other dresses in actual bridal shops in early January. The first place I wanted to check out was Brides for a Cause. This particular shop gets donated sample dresses from both previous brides and other shops and sells them at a discounted rate. I wanted to check 'em out first to see if I would get lucky. At the time, it was only based in Portland (there's a shop in Tacoma now!) so my mom and I drove down there one weekend. I had also heard of another shop down there I wanted to check out called The English Dept so we did both. One of my best friends lives down there, so she came along as well. I didn't have much luck at Brides for a Cause- there were tons of people there... it was January after all and there are always many fresh engagements. I tried on a handful at the English Dept. and found two pictured below that I really liked, but I was still not convinced. One was totally what I had kinda pictured myself in- the lace top came off so I could have two different looks within the dress. The skirt portion was so soft and flowy and I loved it.
The other one I liked was not what I pictured myself in at all, but I loved the material and I liked that it was different from what I thought I'd like. Also, this second dress was definitely outside of our budget- I think it was around 2800 or so.
cutie mom
me and katy!
January 24, 2016
Back in Seattle, I had to check out The Dress Theory! They carried Sarah Seven, a designer that I had fallen in love back with way back when. Just simple, romantic gowns. At the time they were having a trunk show for Anna Campbell as well so I thought I'd check it out before making a step forward with my Grace Loves Lace choice.
For this trek, my mom and best friend from high school came with! Shoutout to Courtney at the Dress Theory for such a great experience and time at the shop. I had a lot of fun in their beautiful, intimate shop. It was wonderful and I'd recommend it to anyone. There wasn't any pressure and it was nice to feel like a princess ;) We tried on a couple and there were two that I liked, but when it came down to it, I picked the one that I felt most like a bride in. All the other ones I loved, but this one- when I put it on, I really felt like a bride. The train was perfect. Of course it was a Sarah Seven gown and we added on Sara Gabriel sleeves that I could wear on the shoulder or off the shoulder. I was getting married! (The last photo is me picking up my dress in June!)
My mom of course thought it was a bit too simple, so she found a sparkly headband from Claire's that we turned into a small sash, which is what you'll notice in some of our wedding photos. I wore my straps up for the ceremony, but down for the rest of everything. I took them off when it came to the dancing!
shalom, me and mom!
thanks for driving shalom down for the afternoon, john :)
the SECOND DRESS.
You may have also noticed that I wore another wedding dress. This was for Saturday's events- the day before our actual wedding. We had a 10-course reception at Hong Kong Seafood Restaurant for my parents' friends and family and I wore another gown for that event. We found the dress at a Brides for a Cause trunk show up in Seattle. Aaron went with and another one of my bridesmaids, Desi, came with. My favorite part of this dress was the back. I am selling this dress if anyone reads this and is interested! JUST SAYIN'. Name your price, fo' real.
the VEIL.
Then there's the veil! Okay, one of my favorite movies is A Walk To Remember. I love Jamie's veil in the scenes from the wedding. I wanted a veil like this. My mom had volunteered to make it for me and I was pretty excited because that would be something really special, right? But after a few attempts of finding the right lace, we gave up so we actually ended up purchasing this veil from David's Bridal. I loovveddd it and it was exactly what I was looking for. Again, selling it if anyone is interested!
Because we did a first look, the veil added another element of surprise to Aaron as I walked down the aisle. It was perfect.
photo by @kristenmarieparker
photo by @kristenmarieparker
the SHOES.
Okay, so I wanted shoes I could wear again and shoes that were black (black and white were our main colors after all). I chose to go with SENSO shoes because I had heard they were super comfortable (again, an Australian brand)... and these shoes could go with anything! I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a pair I wouldn't ever wear again. These are my go-to black heels now!
photo by @kristenmarieparker
photo by @kristenmarieparker
Final thoughts in regards to the dress? In the end I decided to not go with the Grace Loves Lace dress. Although it was beautiful, I found out that when I was trying on dresses things looked different when worn. I didn't want to risk ordering a dress only to put it on and be unhappy with it. So first piece of advice, don't order a dress online unless you've tried it on already. I've heard a lot of stories of brides doing this because it was cheap or they got a deal... but in the end you waste money and effort getting it into your hands and then back into the hands of where you ordered it. Second piece of advice? The dress I ended up purchasing, I've seen on multiple brides. Originally I wanted a dress no one else had, but the dress you like will always look different on you. If you love it and if you are comfortable in it and if you feel like a bride, don't let the fear of someone else having already worn it keep you from buying it. Third piece of advice that may not apply to everyone, but worth mentioning: I've heard from previous brides/friends that they regretted not putting a bit more money into their dress or not getting the dress they wanted because of cost. I totally understand the other side of the argument as well (only wearing the dress once ever in your life). But you only get married once and you should feel beautiful and feel like a bride. All in all, buy a dress you feel comfortable and confident in. I actually ended up showing Aaron all the dresses I tried on and he liked the one I picked best! He swears it's not because it's the one I chose. (He's probably slightly bias).
Anyway, there you have it! Man, putting together these blog posts can be quite time consuming and I think I totally underestimated the process... but I also tend to be a bit thorough and in some cases, a perfectionist. This blog series will just continue to be longer than I thought it'd take! Thanks for reading!
photo by @kristenmarieparker
Read our past wedding blog posts:
Our Wedding: The Proposal and the Rings
THE PROPOSAL
A year ago today, Aaron proposed to me. Now if you ask me if I knew it was coming, I did. (We actually already had the venue booked and I had already bought a dress... more on this later though.) Aaron still managed to surprise me, which I give him major kudos for. During this time last year, I was having a lot of heart issues with the fact that I was not engaged yet, even though I had told Aaron I wanted a short engagement (like 4-6 months). We had already talked about possibly getting married in the fall so why was I being so confusing? (In retrospect, I found out that originally Aaron was planning on proposing in March but I was being me: confusing... ha) It's easy to get caught up in all of the engagements and proposals you see scrolling through social media during the holidays and the new year. It is VERY easy. And if I could go back, I would tell myself to chill out. I mean, a lot of my peers did in fact tell me this, but human hearts are wayward and we want what we want. (So, seriously, if you're reading this and you're not engaged yet, it's okay. I promise.) One of the most helpful things someone told me was this: as a wife, you have to learn to trust your husband in his leadership at times and this was the first way I could do that, even though we were not married yet. This was Aaron's thing... planning the proposal. And I wasn't being fair in pressuring him. He had a plan and I didn't trust it.
But because Aaron is kind and good to me, he made it happen. I work weekends often and a few weeks prior, he had asked when I could ask for a Saturday off next. We didn't have Saturdays together often so when I told him, he said, 'Great. Save it for me. I have some things planned for us!' Of course, my suspicions then arose.
Here is the rest of the story from Aaron's point of view:
I was determined to make this proposal a surprise. After talking with some friends, I concluded that my goal was not necessarily to make the focus of the proposal to be its extravagance, but rather its memorability. Dorothy was expecting me to be asking soon; she had all her bases covered... so I had to be extra sneaky. I knew if she thought she could predict it, and I truly did surprise her, she wouldn't forget that day.
Our friend Megan had done some ninja conversation-work and helped me understand what Dorothy was expecting. She helped me come up with a spot and a plan: jogging. Yes... surprise her while she is jogging. The last thing I wanted was to have her wondering the whole day of our time together when I would ask. Getting it out of the way first, then spending the day together was much more optimal. I had her take Saturday off work, which I knew would tip her off to the idea that I would be asking that day. But, I also lied to her (whoops) and told her that I found out last minute I had to work Saturday morning. I was really sorry of course, but would be done in time to pick her up for brunch. 'Oh, that's fine! Carolyn asked if I could go jogging Saturday morning anyways.' Perfect. Now, of course she didn't know that it was I that had asked Carolyn to already have brought this idea up with her. All part of the master plan, and she fell for it way too easily.
That Saturday morning, I dressed up nicely (and warmly), grabbed a blanket, a letter I had written, the ring, and headed off to the location. I was tracking Carolyn from my phone and saw them approaching. A couple deep breaths later and then they were right in front of me. Dorothy saw me... but she didn't stop jogging. Instead, as she jogged past, she looked over her shoulder and yelled, 'What are you doing here??' I asked her to come back, chuckling inside because I knew her surprise was genuine. I was quite pleased with myself that I had accomplished this feat, but still nervous as I put my blanket around her and read aloud the words I had written. Of course I cried, but I wouldn't change a thing. She said yes and I put the ring I had made on her finger. We sat down to pray over the next part of our lives, and then headed off to spend the day together over brunch and a trip to Bainbridge. It really was a perfect day, and one we will surely remember.
Sneaky, sneaky Aaron. He did a good job, even though I was in my running clothes ha. I was really surprised as I approached him on the run. Here are some photos of the rest of the day we had together.
And here are some photos taken by the the ninja Yee Feng of the proposal:
THE RINGS
If you see Dorothy's hands on a normal day, you'll see many rings on her fingers. At a fancier event, you might even see a diamond ring.
I like explaining the reasons why, because I get the opportunity to talk about some things dear to my heart.
Both Dorothy and I try our best to have meaning in the things we do. We still fall short, but we try. Our wedding rings are part of that. Wedding rings are a thought in everyone who gets married, and we weren't an exception to that, but from the beginning, we saw things differently from most people.
our ring tattoos we got during our honeymoon
As soon as marriage was even a conversation for us, so was the permanence of it. Realizing that, tattoos made perfect sense, because they are permanent for all intents and purposes. Knowing that tattoos were the end goal, and still wanting something to propose with and to put on her finger on the wedding day, I decided to make her rings myself. One reason for this is that I enjoy working with my hands; I like making things on my own. I didn’t want to just buy something for her, I wanted to put time in putting it together and figuring out how to do that. Dorothy had mentioned to me that diamonds weren’t really her thing, and looking forward to our tattoos, I didn’t want to spend thousands of dollars on a rock anyways. Yes, I understand that most people see an expensive diamond as just that- the amount of sacrifice and time and work that is behind the question “Will you marry me?” But something in my heart has always rubbed against that idea, conflicting with the convictions I have from my faith. “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.” Matthew 6:19-20 My thinking was, why spend a large amount of money on something that ultimately is not eternal? Not to mention the fact that diamonds being the proper proposal item was created as a marketing gimmick in the early 1900s. Someone just very recently told me that the tradition of giving diamonds before marriage came from the Bible. It’s definitely not.
Dorothy likes gold, and she already wears a lot of simple gold stacking rings. She also likes black. I mean, the majority of her wardrobe is grayscale colors. So I decided on a simple gold ring with an onyx stone. 14k gold to be exact, because I like the color of gold that it is the best. I already had most of the tools I needed to make the ring because I had messed around a little bit in the past making jewelry. Then later, with Dorothy’s styling input, I made 2 other gold bands to surround the engagement ring. These were the bands I put on her finger on our wedding day.
As for Aaron's band, later on we purchased 14K gold from the same source and he showed me how to size his finger and how to make his ring. He helped the entire time and I actually made it too small, but he fixed it because he's a fixer... so I don't know if I can really say I made his ring entirely on my own but it was fun to be a part of the process.
There is a diamond ring now that Dorothy does wear sometimes.
Her mom had a diamond that she had always planned on giving Dorothy, and after seeing that I didn’t intend to give her a diamond, she made this known. Strangely enough, I never had heard about this before, and to be honest it bothered me a little bit at first. It made me feel like the rings I made for her weren’t good enough or something. After talking with Dorothy and trying to understand what her mom was thinking, I realized there were some cultural aspects to this that I needed to have grace and understanding towards. So her mom and I arranged a time to visit a jewelry shop together. She would bring the diamond, I would pick the setting, and the shop would set the stone and we would have a ring that I could give to her for the tea ceremony. It actually ended up being a wonderful time that meant a lot to both of us. Dorothy didn’t come with, so it really was a time of her mom and I bonding- relationally, but also in a real sense as we both had a part in making this ring happen. Dorothy may only wear the ring to special events, but we both like it for the meaning that is behind it, representing two cultures coming together in our marriage.
That pretty much sums it up, and the only other thought I have is that I would love to start making jewelry as a sidehustle someday. - A
Another thought post-engagement, wedding and what not... to be completely frank, there were a few weeks after I was engaged that I was self-conscious about my ring. In fact, I had a co-worker ask me one time, 'So why don't you have a ring if you're engaged?' when at the time, I was wearing the ring Aaron had made. What she had meant to ask was, 'Why don't you have a diamond ring?' Again, I found myself comparing and almost playing defense the moment people reacted in dismay to my ring. Here's the thing I have learned, the relationship I have with Aaron and he with me is ours and ours alone. It is so special to me that my husband made my ring. I've never been the bells and whistles, sparkles and glamour kind-of-girl and I think what he made me really reflects my style and what I want my life to reflect. And, we don't write this post to disregard how special others' rings are and their relationship at all. I mean, I do have a diamond ring after all. Hope you enjoyed reading, if you made it this far!
Here's part 1 in the Our Wedding Series.
Our Wedding : Invitations & Handlettering
Welcome to part one of our blog series titled, Our Wedding. Over the next couple of weeks (or month or two- let's be honest), we'll be writing about each of our vendors and the team that it took to make our day so beautiful and us. In this first post, we're talking invitations and handlettering! Follow along on this process :)
We knew we wanted some type of floral element in our invitation suite and I thought that an envelope liner would be perfect. In enters my friend from college, Eleni. She is an amazing illustrator and I wanted to be able to hire her for something. She's just too good. We emailed her some of our inspiration images and she sent us some drafts. It was a pretty quick turn-around as we loved what she sketched out for us.
Here are some images from this process:
SKETCHES
Eleni sent us two concepts and we chose the one pictured here. She then finalized it with color.
FINAL
Here's what they looked like prior to assembly!
When it came to who would be designing and printing our invitations, there was no question. I interned for Sara back in 2013 and have since stayed connected with the business taking photos and working at their storefront. We always joked that she'd one day do my wedding invitations. I knew I wanted our invitations to be letterpress and on beautiful, thick paper. Sara did an awesome job encapsulating what we wanted for our invites because we wanted it to be able to timeless but modern. We didn't want anything that was 'trendy' per say, which is why we kept all illustrative elements outside of the invitation itself.
While I was finding inspiration for our invitations, I found the font F37 Bella. It's a beautiful font that is sophisticated with geometric elements.
The main palette for our wedding colors were black and white, with touches of dark green, plum and burgundy. I loved the idea of keeping our invites simple in the colors and I wanted to incorporate blind letterpress so you could really feel the invites because of our thick paper.
Our info card was a play on the idea as we had a password for our wedding website. The blind letterpressing made it almost like a password card.
Aaron designed our logo! A triangular shape to represent our relationship with God. The left side is meant to look like an A and the right side is a D. He did a good job, right?!
Once we finalized our design, Aaron and I went into the shop and watched as Sara pressed all of our invites. I took photos of the whole process, but lost them since they had been stored on my stolen laptop. Huge bummer :(
I've been working part-time at Paper Source for over a year now and when the holidays come around, Paper Source comes out with holiday colors for their Paper Bar. I fell in love with Spruce as soon as I saw it. I wish it was a year-long color! Once the holidays are over, these envelopes are on super clearance. The standard size for invitations is A7 (5x7), but I went for A6 (4x6) instead because that's the only size we had left and it didn't make too much of a difference. I managed to buy 90 envelopes for about $9! To fill in the remaining envelopes we needed, I purchased black A6 too.
We also got a custom embosser through Paper Source since we were doing colored envelopes and I didn't want more work for Sara to letterpress our return address. I thought it was a fun idea since we were doing blind letterpress on our invites.
Aaron has a friend who is self-taught in calligraphy and once I saw her work, I was so excited. Ellen is super talented and in her particular field, I know that she'll go far. We hired her to address our envelopes and also our place cards! Aaron found some marble tiles from Lowes and Ellen used a permanent paint pen to write on 'em. They doubled as a party favor andddd they weren't too expensive!
The last element of our invitations were our stamps! Maybe I'm too detailed but I wanted the stamp to really pull everything together. I used some of the illustrations from Eleni and added an ampersand using the same font as our invite and ordered them from Zazzle. They turned out awesome and added just the right amount of color to the outside of our envelopes.
Final thoughts? Invitations set the tone of your wedding since they're most likely the first thing your guests see regarding your wedding. I always thought I'd want to design my own invitations and do this all myself, but I am so glad I had someone else help! Obviously I am a little bias because I have a graphic design background, but the details matter to me. Details like paper type, envelopes, stamps, etc. We wanted a beautiful look to our day, but also not too serious. I mean, if you know me and Aaron, we like to have sophisticated fun. Is that a thing? I mean if having tacoland as the password to our wedding website didn't clue someone in... :) Hope you enjoyed reading!
Our Honeymoon!
After our wedding, we stayed a few days in town to spend time with our friends and family who had flown in. I've always wanted to stay at the Ace in Seattle and seeing as the first one ever started in Seattle, I thought our wedding night was the perfect excuse to book a room there. You know me and my clean looking spaces :) It's a super cool hotel and though it looks small from the front, it definitely proved me wrong once inside. Complimentary breakfast was provided at the cute little space at the bottom level.
DAY ONE
For our honeymoon, we decided to go to San Francisco. A city that neither one of us have been to, believe it or not. Aaron has never even been to California! Of course dreams of Europe were on my mind when we were planning, but it was going to be/had already been an expensive year so SF it was! And truthfully, I was just excited to be able to travel with my husband!
We flew out on Thursday, the 29th and took the Bart into town. We had rented an AirBnB in the Mission District because it was a good central spot, as we had heard. As soon as we got off the train, the first thing we saw was Coffee Mission, so of course we sat down for a cup of joe before walking to our rental. That night, we went out for tacos at La Taqueria in the mission. So freakin' good I asked Aaron to wait in line to get me more. Thanks husband! On our walk home we passed by Humphry's Slocombe, which is an ice cream shop that I had looked up prior to our trip because it had Vietnamese Iced Coffee ice cream. Thanks to our friend Shelby Payne, who had gifted us some funds for ice cream, we stopped by for a late night snack. It was better than I expected and I wish we had the chance to go back for more.
Coffee Mission
La Taqueria
Humphrey's Slocombe
DAY TWO
We set out to do all the tourist-y things! But not before brunching on some good food. We had planned to go to some other breakfast spot, but because we had slept in (sorry, not sorry), we settled for another recommendation we had found: The Boxing Room. It was nearing lunchtime by the time we sat down, but nonetheless the food was very delicious and we were not disappointed. In the afternoon, we walked around the Hayes Valley area and did some window shopping and got our ice cream on again at Smitten. This was Aaron's favorite. They had patented a machine that chilled ice cream to minus 321 F degrees. Extremely creamy and delicious. Down the street, we checked out the Painted Ladies before UBERing to the Golden Gate bridge. I was so happy to finally see it after passing by so many times before. We walked the whole beach, and checked out the batteries by the water which fascinated Aaron. After all the walking, we started to get hungry so onto Pizetta 211, a cute and intimate little spot recommended to us by our friend Stephanie.
The Boxing Room
Smitten
The Golden Gate Bridge!
DAY THREE
Oh man, I don't have too many photos from this day because lemme just tell you, there was a lot of waiting. We woke up and headed to Sightglass Coffee for some caffeination before heading into town and checking out Lombard Street and Fishermens' Wharf. (Shoutout to the Millers for gifting us coffee funds!) It may be overrated but I still wanted to see it. Aaron and I have really gotten into oysters in the past year and a friend recommended Swan Oyster Depot to us. It was a crazy long line and though we stayed in it for only 45 minutes, we did the math and there was no way we'd be able to make it in, eat and leave in time to make our tattoo appointment. We were super bummed! I suggested going to Mr. Holmes Bakeshop for their infamous donuts but alas, we got there and they had closed early because they were all sold out. Just our luck, eh? No matter, we settled at Tartine Bakery and had a small snack before getting tatted at Mission Ink Tattoo. The guys there were super friendly and we were in and out of there pretty quick. Of course, we were just getting bands.
Sightglass Coffee
No turning back now, ya'll!
DAY FOUR
This unfortunate but still redeeming day. We had been UBERing around town and had reserved a van to drive down to Big Sur. After picking it up, we headed to Potrero Hill for breakfast at Hazel's Kitchen (because Plow down the street was an over 2-hour wait!!). We were gone for about 45 minutes and within that time, our rental car window was smashed and my backpack was stolen. Luckily I had had my wallet on me and our clothes were still there, but within the backpack- my laptop, instax camera, X100s camera, a new Everlane shirt and two of my black purses... all stolen. I was pretty upset with myself for being dumb enough to leave my stuff inside the van, but then again, I didn't steal anything. People can really suck sometimes, but I tried to have a good spirit about it and didn't let it bring down the rest of our trip. After getting another rental car, we were headed down to Big Sur.
Aaron absolutely loved the drive down the coast! I knew he would, which is why I decided to take the 101 instead of the 5. After a pit stop at Bixby bridge, we settled at the Big Sur River Inn that night and it was super relaxing and quiet.
Hazel's Kitchen
What we saw upon coming back to our car :(
Bixby Bridge
DAY FIVE, SIX & SEVEN
We woke up Monday morning and did a short hike around Big Sur that morning before starting our drive down to LA! Our friends, Michael and Staci, were generous enough to let us crash at their place. On the way, we stopped in Santa Barbara for some coffee at the French Press and for me to check out my old stomping grounds for a quick sec. It was sad to see the school shut down but it brought back a lot of memories I made in the year that I lived down there. We got in around 7p that night and ate in with some delivered pizza and catching up with the Girouxs.
We spent all day at Disneyland on Tuesday! It was a long day, but we had a great time with the Disneyland-pros. I think Aaron had like four churros. We got our married pins, which is the one souvenir I wanted ha!
On our last day, I woke up feeling super sick and faint and slept the whole afternoon before we flew out that evening. By that point, both of us were ready to be home. I think the exhaustion hit then, from all the wedding planning, wedding weekend and spending time with people the few days following. It was so sweet to come home and to have our new mattress waiting for us!
Ballin' on a budget
DISNEYLAND!
OUR HONEYMOON VIDEO
After being egged on by my cousins, we relented and started making clips. Enjoy!
*all photos and video were taken on my iPhone 6 :)