Wedding Dresses!

This is so fun. I just was cleaning up my iPhoto pictures and came across all of the pictures I have from me trying on every dress I could possibly love. Some are totally nerdy, but here's a look at how I arrived at my dress. My first stop was a bridal store in downtown Denver. I loved my experience there in March 2013, but ended up walking away empty handed. I don't remember any of the brands of the dresses that I tried on and didn't buy... it was over a year and a half ago. #longengagementproblems

This 1920s style dress was SO pretty, but it didn't scream wedding to me... especially not mountain wedding.

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This one I likes because I liked the top of it, but hated two things: the bottom and the ugly broach up top. It was out.

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I almost picked this dress and altered the crap out it. The top had feathers... which was weird to me. But I like the criss-cross overlay on the top and the bottom was so manageable. I wanted the train to be a little longer, but I knew that I had found my SHAPE of a dress. It ended up being the inspiration for the dress I ultimately picked.

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I fell hard for the back of this dress. Like hard. But the front was not doing anything for me... see?

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Now we fast forward about 4-6 months to D'Anelli Bridal in Lakewood where I finally found my dress. This dress was on clearance for $500 and I REALLY liked the back of it and knew that I could alter the front to actually fit. I am just now noticing that the front had that criss-cross thing I liked from the runner-up dress above. But the sparkles on the top were the deal killer for me.

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In the end... this was my winner. It's by Essence of Australia and given the chance to pick a dress again, I would pick it... over and over and over. It ticked all of my boxes: under $1500, simple, figure flattering, feels like a wedding dress.

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Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

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So which one would you pick for me? For yourself?

Is a Wedding Graphic Designer Worth it?

One of these days I am going to learn Photoshop. Like, for real. It just needs to happen. But learning Photoshop while studying for the bar and planning a wedding was not in the cards. Thus, I hired Rachel Harding to do all of the design for our wedding and it was the best decision I have ever made. I've learned a lot about working with a wedding graphic designer over these last 6 months and we've really gotten this designing stuff together thing down to a science. I knew that working with a graphic designer would possibly take up more time, but paper stuff for the wedding was always important to me. Having everything "paper related" just so was one of my "I am not compromising" spots of the wedding. How do Rachel and I work to create adorable things? First, I send her an email like this about the menus:

Here are the styles I like (obviously let’s keep it as close to the invite look/vibe as possible.. possibly even chalkboard). Would like to include our married names and the date at the top or bottom… like a cute: “Eat Up- Lawren and Treana Bennett.”

I like this but with mountains in bottom right? http://www.pinterest.com/pin/315955730079401173/

Long & Skinny: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/269512358922419433/ (I like the MENU across the top)

This is a fun modern twist: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/526921225123205499/

Remember it has to be kind of long and skinny to fit into the napkin folds

She then does her magic and comes back with a few different variations for me to look at: a more modern one, the chalkboard with that spoon I am in love with, and one that very closely matches our invites.

Wedding Graphic Designer- Rachel Harding As a reminder, our invites look like this:

Hickey Final Invitation 1

But our rehearsal dinner invites are chalkboard effect and use that spoon and fork. They are just cute as can be. Since the vintage napkins we are tucking these into have a lot of color going on...

vintage napkins DIY

I opted for simple: the one that looked like our invite was out.

Hickey Menu Invite Out

I talked it over with LB and Katie and came up with the following edits:

Ok here’s what I am thinking—the chalkboard one but with everything from the white menu one with a couple tweaks. So from the top it would be:

-Chalkboard

-Menu in that exact font that you have on the menu one right now ( LOVE that menu font!)

-The fork and spoons rotated 90 degrees underneath it – fork one way, spoon the other?

-The font for the food: from the “menu” one

-And then a Mr. + Mrs. Bennett on the bottom (possibly in the menu font?)

Let’s see what that looks like.

And this is what Rachel sent over:

Hickey Menu 2

My only response was: "Holy Crap. Yes! Done and done."

And that my friends is why and how you should work with a wedding graphic designer.