Warning: Mr. Darcy Stay Far, Far Away!!!!!

After my last traumatizing post. I thought I would post about something more fun: accessories. The other day, Mama Austen and I decided to go shopping for her mother of the bride dress. We didn’t make any appointments because I never know how Mama Austen is going to feel and didn’t want to put the pressure of time constraints on her. So we headed off to David’s Bridal. Well after finding her a dress there (you will have to wait to find out about that in another post) we found our way over to the accessories section. I have spent a lot of time researching different accessories for my wedding, but hadn’t picked out anything specific. I had ideas, yes, along with vague input from Mr. Darcy. This is the one area I felt really adamant about Mr. Darcy giving his opinion. (I sometimes feel like Mr. Darcy would rather have a root canal than to help me plan the wedding.) One thing I felt strongly about was that Mr. Darcy giving input on how I looked for the wedding. I want to look like everything Mr.Darcy imagines for our wedding day. I know it may sound silly, but I want Mr. Darcy to have everything he wants for this wedding. He has only made a few requests, a groom’s cake, our first dance song, and that he be marrying me. So I scoured wedding websites and wedding magazines for pictures of beautiful brides for Mr. Darcy to look at. In the end, I got that Mr. Darcy wanted my hair down and liked makeup that played my eyes up. So with that in mind, I began to look for accessories that fit into Mr. Darcy’s vision and my personality. Here are some of my favorites:

Badgley Mischka Randall Shoes in Blue

 

Source: Zappos.com

Occansey Designs Sheer One Tier Veil with Bugle Bead Edge

Source: Occansey Designs 

I wanted a simple and elegant look, no princessy accessories for me. My dress is simple and elegant, also. I wanted a vintage feel to my look. So when Mama Austen and I found ourselves in the accessories section of David’s Bridal. Never did I imagine I would be trying on big, foofy veils and tiaras. Bu,t when I stood there in jeans and t-shirt wearing just that and Mama Austen began to cry, what was I to do? I ended up with a foofy veil and a pearl and crystal headband. Am I unhappy with my accessories? No. How could I be when they made Mama Austen so incredibly happy? Is it all what I expected to wear? No, but that’s okay. So without further ado here are my accessories in full including veil, headpiece, jewelry, brooch, and shoes.

Jewelry:

Sonya Renee Pearl Cluster Earrings

These babies are from favorite jewelry designer Sonya Renee. The goal of these was to incorporate the pearls and crystals into my look because I wanted to wear my grandman’s pearl necklace.  My mom wasn’t sure if the pearl necklace would work with the neckline of my dress (since its all beaded), but this was a non-negotiable for me. Here are the results.

Personal Picture

The corset on the dress is not all the way tied up and the dress needs to shortened, majorly. You can kind of see my grandma’s pearl necklace and this the veil.

Headband from David's Bridal

Personal Picture of Headpiece

Shoes:

Katie and Kelly Lily Shoes

These babies I picked up at DSW for $40. Aren’t they cute? They’re not blue, but the price and design were right. I think I am going to pick up a pair of sparkly, ballet flats for the reception, also. Maybe these:

Nine West Facinate Flats

Source: Piperlime

 Brooch:

David's Bridal Crystal Flower and Pearl Pin

Doesn’t it match my earrings perfectly?

Sometimes I feel like an accessory at my own wedding. MOH Mrs. Sewing and her husband both told me that Mr. Darcy and I were just accessories at our wedding. At the time we were just joking around, but sometimes I feel this way. Not in a bad way, but in the way that in the Austen-Darcy wedding is a community one. It takes a village to plan a wedding and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

As I explained before my mom suffers from two chronic illness. Well illness has reared its ugly head again. Both Mama and Papa Austen will need surgery before the wedding. Mama Austen’s most likely a few weeks before the wedding. Well my first reaction, sobbing. Yes I laid on my bed sobbing while Mr. Darcy rubbed my back. I sobbed because I didn’t think it was fair that my two relatively young parents had to suffer like this. I know it seems childish, but in that moment that’s all I could do. When I stopped, sobbing, I started talking. I talked with my parents, my matron of honor, Mrs. Sewing, and two of my bridesmaids. My instinct was to postpone the wedding. My reasoning, I was not going to get married if Mama Austen was not there. After to talking to my nearest and dearest though we decided to just cut the guest list. The reasoning was that if we invited only our nearest and dearest family members and friends and limited the number of people, who would have to get on a plane to make it our wedding, then if Mama Austen couldn’t make it, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. So we will march on. We will continue to plan our November wedding and I will pray and hope that all will go well with Mama and Papa Austen’s surgeries. Life happens and Mr. Darcy and I have learned to roll with the punches long ago.

 Mama Austen and I have been in search of a reception venue. We had crossed anywhere at Mandalay Bay off the list. Now we had a couple other restaurants to look at. Restaurants with private rooms that accommodate us all. First up, Maggiano’s LIttle Italy:

Outside of Maggiano's at Fashion Show Mall

Maggiano's Little Italy Banquet Room

Here is my take on Maggiano’s Little Italy-

Pros

1. The food is super delicious.

2. It’s affordable.

3. The portions are huge and nobody will go hungry.

4. Offer a variety of packages some even include the cake and bar.

Cons

1. The chairs and the table linens. I really didn’t like them. This means I would have to rent new ones.

2. The view from the last window is a half finished building and an empty lot.

This is a viable option.

Next up Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak, and Stone Crab

Banquet Room at Joe's

Pros-

1. Beautiful View

2. Nice Place Settings

3. Room is in the Round

4. Great Lighting Fixture

Cons-

1. No Room for Dancing

2. Again the chairs and linens

Last and final option, Trevi Restaurant at the Caesar’s Palace Forum Shops-

Trevi Restaurant

View from the Room

View of Downstairs

Do you see all the gorgeousness? My mom and I were instantly in love. This room is just so unique and different. So now you have it, our reception location. I know it’s nontraditional, but it’s just an incredible room. The only time slot available was for 2:30pm, so we are going to have a cocktail style party. This is a good thing because there wouldn’t be room for dancing if we had a sit down meal.

So I had an easy time picking the dress and the ring. The dress I found when I wasn’t even looking for it. Some of the girls and I had gone to look for bridesmaid dresses. After trying on a few bridesmaid dresses and finding a few styles we like, we decided to look at a few wedding gowns. Well I decided to try on a couple. After about four I was done. The sales person convinced me to try on one more and it was strapless, none the less. Let me tell you I had no intention of buying a strapless dress. I did not want to be one of those brides, who was pulling up her dress all night long. Despite my better judgement, I tried the dress on. Well, that sales lady knew what she was talking about. I was in love and my mom cried. Just like that I had a wedding dress. It was simple, elegant, and extremely flattering to my body. Now this was way back when I first got engaged, like I mentioned in my Journey to the Wedding post. So fast forward to today, when I dragged Mr. Darcy to the mall. I have a very unique engagement ring, which was custom designed. It has my great, great grandma’s solitaire diamond and diamonds from my mom’s wedding band. Well, having a beautiful custom designed engagement ring posed a bit of an issue when shopping for a wedding band. I had an idea in my head of what I wanted: milgrain edge, pave set diamonds, and slight curve in band, so it would it sit flush. Here are some of the rings I found:

Source: Jared the Galleria of Jewelry

Source: Jared the Galleria of Jewelry

 Well, fast forward to today when we’re strolling through the mall,  I convince Mr. Darcy to go into Kay Jewelers with me to look at wedding bands. After all, they are having a sale. I take my engagement ring and showed it to the lady and before I could even tell her what I was looking for she placed into a enhancer and handed it back to me to try on. I put it on my finger and it fit perfectly. It was gorgeous. I was instantly in love. The band is actually an enhancer in which my ring inserts into. Her is a pic of what it looks like all together.

So, as you can see, this is not what I originally had in mind. But I love the bling, bling, and I love that it shows off my engagement ring so well. I am in love with my wedding band, almost as much as the man who is going to give it to me on our wedding day.

Moral of the Story:

1. Listen to the experts. They know what they’re talking about.

2. Have an open mind. Neither my dress nor my wedding band are I would have originally picked for myself, but they’re perfect and I love them.

Bridal shows are a great source of ideas and to meet vendors. You can also win free stuff there and who doesn’t love free stuff. So here are my tips for a bridal show.

Miss Austen’s Tips for a Bridal Show:

1. Take a friend or two with you or your mom. This is a great activity to do with your mom or mother-in-law and some of your bridesmaids – it makes them feel involved.

2. Set-up a free e-mail address specifically for this event. You don’t want your personal e-mail to be stuffed full with all the wedding related emails you are going to get from this event.

3. Make sticky labels with your name, e-mail address, address, wedding date. Print several sheets and give one to each person in your party. This will save you from having to fill out numerous forms with this basic information.

4. Wear comfortable shoes.

5. Pre-register for the show. If you pre-register and buy your tickets they usually enter you automatically for giveaways.

We will be leaving for Vegas in a few days for the bridal show, but until then I have been working on other wedding projects including a wedding website. I had a couple of things in mind when searching for a platform for our website: user-friendly and fashionable layouts and an online rsvp component. My lovely matron of honor, Mrs. Sewing, mentioned to me that her cousin had used theknot.com’s free wedding websites and that she had a place to rsvp online. This was great. I am already a member of the knot, they had everything I was looking for in a website, plus it was free. I don’t know about you, but I love free things. So now Mr. Darcy and I have our very own wedding website. I am so excited. Now we have one central location our guests can access that contains all the important information about the wedding and other important events.

So Mama Austen came to an agreement on the ceremony location. I think she is warming up to the idea of Mandalay Bay more because the lovely coordinator, Hobyn, sent her a lovely e-mail. Thank goodness for kind wedding vendors, they make all the difference in the world. You’re probably asking yourself what this has to do with the reception venue, well I am getting to that. The first idea was to have an in-suite reception. In-suite receptions are common for Las Vegas brides, at least they seem to be on the knot Las Vegas board. The problem with an in-suite reception is that we have too many guests. Our guest list topped off right at 130. We actually did a relatively good job with the guest list considering the size of my family. Poor Mr. Austen has a family of five. When I say five, I mean everyone, including his uncle, his mother, his sister, and his brother-in-law. So the majority of our guest list consists of my large family. Heavens, I am getting side tracked. The second option was to have the reception at Mandalay Bay, either in a restaurant or in one their ballrooms. The restaurant option was not considered and put aside because there was no restaurant that was large enough to give us a completely private area and we would not be able to have dancing. The second option was a ballroom. As I told you previously Mama Austen and I are not particularly fond of ballrooms. Not that the ballrooms at Mandalay Bay weren’t pretty. They were large with high ceilings, but it’s a ballroom and Mama Austen and I find hotel ballrooms to be impersonal and either too large or claustrophobic. This is just my opinion, so I don’t mean to offend you if your wedding is taking place in a ballroom. They’re just not my thing. So alas, there is no reception location today. Perhaps when we visit the upcoming Las Vegas Bridal Show, Mama Austen, Mrs. Sprinkle, Ms. Cake (Mama Austen’s best friend of over forty years), and myself will be attending.

I love my wedding dress. I did buy it a couple years ago, but I am so glad I did because the designer doesn’t make it any more. Its simple, elegant, and makes me look and feel gorgeous. I have tried a couple other dresses on since then, but none have ever topped my dress. In the end my mom and I have always come back to my dress and fallen in love with it all over again. But today, today I saw the dresses Vera Wang designed for David’s Bridal today. The collection is called White by Vera Wang. Here is some of the gorgeous designs that Vera has designed for he bridal super store all coming in under $1,500.

Style: VW351011, Organza Fit and Flare

Style VW351010, Structured, Fit and Flare with one Shoulder

This one is my personal favorite. Style VW351002, a draped halter and empire waist with corsage

So why have these dresses given me pause and question my original dress choice? Well, I am obsessed with all things Vera. I love her designs. Her designs are all so chic, sophisticated, and elegant. I have always wanted a Vera Wang wedding dress. The design I was in love with had a $7,000 price tag and I knew it just wasn’t happening. Well now she has gone and designed gowns I can afford. I looked at the beautiful tulle confections online and was in love. I called Mr. Darcy and told him I was having one of those moments. He took a deep breath and asked me to explain. I told him. I told him how Vera had designed a line of gowns for David’s Bridal and the dresses were all under $1500. He responded with a reassuring and firm, “Honey you have a dress and you love it.” Tears began to well in my eyes. I know it sounds stupid, but a Vera Wang dress is just one of those things I had dreamed of and now it was within my reach. “Can’t I just try them on honey,” I pleaded. “Honey, you have a dress,” Mr. Darcy repeated. “I know. I love my dress, but I can just feel the luscious organza and charmeuse.” Mr. Darcy listened to my pleas and told me I could go try them on, but that I would probably fall in love with one or two for that matter. “It’s like playing with fire,” he so graciously pointed out to me. The point is I know I can’t afford to buy another wedding dress. I know if I go and try the dresses on I will want one and it will make it worse. So I will let it go and do my best not to oogle at the images on the David’s Bridal websites. Have you ever had a wedding dream or desire you had to let go?

On the second day Mama Austen and I headed down to the strip. Our first stop the Wedding Salon at the Wynn.

This beautiful garden is where I so had my heart set on getting married. But if it were to rain, a possibility in November, we would be stuck inside and out the $1,000 extra we paid for the outside venue. Not something Mama Austen was thrilled about. So we moved on to the next venue, The Chapel at Mandalay Bay. Then there it was the Platinum Chapel.

Do you see that? There in the window. Its trees. Yeah for bringing the outdoors in. I get the best of both worlds. The gorgeous outdoors and no stuffy chapel as a back-up plan. Mama Austen is okay with the decision. I guess she doesn’t quite see my vision yet, but in time she will.

Since we have very dear friends, the Sprinkles, who live in North Las Vegas when Mama Austen and I decided to make a trip to Vegas to search for a wedding venue we stayed with them. Mrs. Sprinkle, Mama Austen, and I headed out on day 1 with the idea of dropping by the JW Marriott in Summerlin. Let me just show some of this yummy goodness.

Ceres Restaurant

View from Ceres

I am mean really look at that restaurant, chandelier, beautiful view, wood beams in ceiling. This is not a traditional ballroom and seeing as neither my mom or I like traditional ballrooms, this venue was a great fit.

Check out this second option. Wouldn’t it be lovely for a brunch or lunch reception?

Marabella Room

As much as I loved this venue. It’s just not what I really wanted.

If we were going to have a destination wedding in Vegas, I wanted it to be in Vegas. Although neither Mr. Darcy or I are big partiers, drinkers, or gamblers, this is our wedding weekend and I want it to be fun. So we went to lunch and contemplated our next day of appointments.