#6 The Dress

I didn't do the whole bridal shopping experience and I don't really feel bad about it. You see, when my sister got married three years ago, I went through a horrible experience with the bridal salon where we purchased our bridesmaids' dresses. It left a bad taste in my mouth and I vowed to boycott bridal salons since then.

Lucky for me, there are so many alternatives to finding a wedding dress nowadays. First of all, my approach was pretty simple. I would just browse the interwebz and bridal magazines to get ideas. Unlucky for me, I seem to be attracted to the most.expensive.dresses. EVER! It's not like I even seek out designers, my taste just seems to gravitate toward higher priced items.

What's a girl to do? I decided that I would not spend more than a certain amount for my dress. Now, this amount fluctuated depending on how I was feeling, but it was more or less in the five hundred to one thousand dollars range. In (my) wedding dress land, that's pretty modest. (I understand that term is relative, but seeing how all the dresses that caught my eye were five thousand dollars and upward, you can see how I thought my budget was modest. Or at least pretend you understand me. kthxmucho.)


Here were my top contenders:



(source)

My top choice, above, was a Monique (do I really need to spell her last name?). I love it in all its frivolous glory. The price...not so much. I had considered having something similar made, but time escaped me and decided to just let it go...



(source)
Ahhh....Vera. You never fail to disappoint me. Unfortunately, your prices (for a gown like this, anyway) do. At last, it wasn't meant to be.

There you have them...my top two choices. I had considered wearing something more sleek, but I found that I really deflected towards the more impractical and whimsical. Go figure.

Since these dresses were not in my budget, I considered other options. One was paying a (not so local) Chinese dress maker. The other was to choose something else. I went with the latter. I haven't decided if I want to "reveal" the dress yet or not, so I will leave you with this: My dress is every bit as impractical and whimsical as the Monique and Vera, but with a price tag to match my heart's desire. I found it online. The picture of the dress online wasn't even the color I wanted (white or ivory), but decided to order it anyway. I love it to pieces and cannot wait to wear it. The universe really worked it's magic on me.

Anyone else decide to live life on the edge and find their dress(es) or "wedding outfits" under not-so-traditional circumstances?

#5 The Reception Venue

During our search for the venue, I knew I wanted something unique (to us, anyway). I did not want to have it in a ballroom or a banquet hall. While I have been to many lovely and fun weddings in ballrooms and banquet halls, I wanted something different. J would have preferred a ballroom and banquet hall, but he already had his choice for the ceremony venue, so it was only fair for me to pick a reception venue. I was really looking for a blank space that we could personalize. With this in mind, I considered the following venues:
1. Lofts
2. Art Galleries
3. Warehouses

I also had some other considerations when choosing the venue. Such as,
1. price
2. availability
3. flexibilty (with time, outside vendors, decor, etc.)
4. location (it had to be in the city)
5. parking


With this information in mind, my internet search led me to these five contenders:
1. Ravenswood Event Center
2. Westgrand Loft
3. The Newberry Library
4. St. Ignatius College Prep
5. The Society for Arts

I'll share which one we chose in another post. How about you? What type of venue(s) did you consider? How did you make your final decision?

#4 The Church

Ahhhh....religion and politics...best topics ever, no? Ummm, no, definitely. Before I go on, please note that I do not mean to demoralize anyone's beliefs or non-beliefs and these words and opinions are strictly my own.

That said, I was raised a Catholic. Baptized, communionized, confirmationized.......the whole enchilada. Non of which was by choice. Dear friends, my parents come from different religious backgrounds (my Mom being a (non-practicing) Muslim and my dad a (devout) Roman Catholic). My parents wanted to raise my sisters and I with some form of a religious background, and being that my mom is non-practicing, Roman Catholicism was the default. Sometime in high school, I started questioning my faith (in Catholicism, not God) and stopped practicing. While I like to consider myself a child of all religions, J, who was also raised a Catholic, is very adamant about marrying in a Catholic church.

I am ok with this because it is more important for J to marry in a Catholic church than it is for me not to. Make sense? So, that being resolved, it was time for us to find a church to marry in. (Yes, even though J wants to get married in a church he no longer belongs to a particular one.)

Chicago is ripe with Catholic churches, but the decision came down to four.

1. St. Viator: This is the church my Dad has been a parishioner at for the last couple of decades.

2. Holy Name Cathedral: This is the church my younger sister, C, got married in three years ago.

3. St. Mary of the Angels: This is close to our reception venue. J has attended some masses there as a youngster.

4. Holy Trinity: This is also close to the reception venue and has also been attended by J as a youngster.

So what was our first choice? St. Mary of the Angels. When considering a church, we were looking for some particulars, such as:

- Aesthetics. I wanted to marry in a church that was beautiful and needed little decoration. (What? Don't judge me.)
- Availability. It needed to work with the date we had picked out.
- Distance in relation to the reception venue. We wanted it to be as close as possible.

So, while St. Mary of the Angels had us at aesthetics and distance, our date was not available. Moving forward, we had decided against St. Viator because of the distance and against Holy Name Cathedral because of recent events (fires and whatnot). So, we are getting married at Holy Trinity. I called and spoke with the priest who informed me that he would hold the date and time and we would just need to come in to speak with him and put down a deposit. Which we've already done.

What type of venue are you having your ceremony at and how did you come that decision?