Wishes in Catsablanca: 7.22.13 Epcot Wedding PJ&TR! Updated 03/09/15

[ShanaMouse]

those invites are amazing!!! they turned out so well!! love love love them!

 

[Evi]

Amazing job on the invites and the Merida costume.

 

[LittleKittyMarie]

HOLY PIXIE DUST....

Your invites are truly stunning. I them!! OMG! They really are beautiful; your guests will be stunned.

Amazing job!

Ps. your Halloween costumes were adorbs!

Thank you, thank you!

Your costumes are so cute! You make a great Merida

Also love the invites up close. It's clear you really put a lot of work and love into them! Your guests are very lucky!

Thank you!

those invites are amazing!!! they turned out so well!! love love love them!

Thank you!

Amazing job on the invites and the Merida costume.

Thank you!

 

[LittleKittyMarie]

So I am in need of some advice. I've been searching high and low for a pair of shoes to wear on the big day, and finally I found a pair of shoes that I've been think about getting... but I'm finding it difficult to commit.

Here are the pair in question:

Shoes by American Duchess

They're quite plain on their own, so I would be looking to fancy them up to look a little more like these:

(I tried these on and was prepared to buy them, but they turned out to be too narrow for my foot.)

or

(1930s-1940s from the Met Museum collection)

or

(1930s-1940s from the Met Museum collection)

or

(These are around 350 Euros, so that's not going to happen!)

I've never done anything to shoes before, so that it's a little scary. I think I'd probably get an old pair from a secondhand store to experiment on before touching the actual shoes.

What do you guys think? I like the idea of having shoes that look a little bit more old fashioned because of the whole Casablanca theme and I need to find shoes with a heel height that is under 3" (which these are). I've been really swaying back and forth, thinking "yes I should do it!" and then but what if there's better shoes out there that require less work.

The heel height is the thing that is proving really difficult. It has to be low because I ordered a petite length dress (the hem is scalloped lace and of course there's money to be saved if it doesn't need a difficult hem job). So in that regard the shoes are quite a perfect fit. Buuuut.... I don't know, I'm so torn.

The shoes are in a pre-order phase, so I have until Nov. 19 to decide on them and then the price goes up.

Any thoughts, opinions or other bridal shoe-search-dilemma stories would be very greatly appreciated! I'm in desperate need of some second opinions!

 

[tashka87]

I absolutely love your invitations! How did you do the hard covers?

 

[NoOrdinaryPrincess]

I like the black and gold shoes best, but all of those are fabulous!

 

[pkdang]

Your invitations are totally epic! Awesome job!

 

[librarygeek]

I do love the style of the pink/black/gold ones, so if you can get the first pair to have that coloring I think it would look amazing! I would definitely see if you can do a quick experiment with some old shoes.

 

[LittleKittyMarie]

I absolutely love your invitations! How did you do the hard covers?

Thank you! The hard covers were actually made from two kinds of board. One was an actual board (Binder's board) that is meant to be used for making books, which we found at an art supply store, but it was very expensive. So we also got some cheaper chip board in a similar weight for the last couple books. From the boards you cut two rectangles to be each side of the book and a thin piece to be the spine. Then we glued them to the paper for the outside and folded the paper around the edges to cover the boards. Unfortunately, I don't really have any pictures of the process. No matter how many pictures I took, looks like I still could have taken more!

I like the black and gold shoes best, but all of those are fabulous!

I really love those ones too.

Your invitations are totally epic! Awesome job!

Thank you very much!

I do love the style of the pink/black/gold ones, so if you can get the first pair to have that coloring I think it would look amazing! I would definitely see if you can do a quick experiment with some old shoes.

Thanks for your input! I'm still trying to decide if I have the skills to actually make it work.

 

[LittleKittyMarie]

If anyone's interested, I still haven't decided on the shoe situation. Siiiigh. I don't know what I'm thinking, because it seems to change day-to-day and occasionally hour-to-hour. Agh! This feels like a tougher decision than the dress!

Anyway, I have a bit of an update on another front: Welcome Bags.

A couple weeks ago I asked for some advice of the DISbrides facebook page about where other brides had gotten their bags for their welcome bags. I got a lot of great options, and one that came up from a few different brides was that they won their bags from Totally Promotional's weekly (or monthly?) facebook draw. So I decided to enter while I kept exploring other ideas, because you never know, right! Well that was Thursday...

And the next day I got an email that I had won 25 free custom bags!



They arrived late last week, and I am totally thrilled. The look fantastic and working with Totally Promotional was very easy and pleasant. They weren't technically free, because they were shipped UPS. And the UPS charge was an outrageous $42.43! But, $42.43 for custom bags is not bad, so I'm looking on the bright side. And when I opened the box there were actually 26 bags, so yay bonus free bag!

I went with our little Disney bride and groom cat design on a silver bag to keep with the black and white/silverscreen theme.

Also on the weekend DF and I started picking up a few odds and ends to put in the bags: tissues, bandaids, mini hand-sanitizers and clear folders for all our welcome bag info, newsletters, park maps and whatever else!

I'm pretty pleased with how this project is going and it's been quite a breeze!

 

[CinderALLIE]

Your welcome bags look awesome

 

[tashka87]

I love that you have special wedding logo! - did you draw it yourself?

 

[charliegirl76]

Ok, first I am still blown away by your invitations. I can't wait to see the newsletter you put in your welcome bag. I may commission you to make mine!

Second, I am in love with the red shoes, but I understand about the price.

And third, you're welcome bags came out fabulous! I love your logo.

 

[librarygeek]

Nice! Your welcome bags look awesome! They are really cute, and definitely something I would use

 

[LittleKittyMarie]

Your welcome bags look awesome

Thank you!

I love that you have special wedding logo! - did you draw it yourself?

My DF drew it actually, it was one of the very first things we made up for our wedding.

Ok, first I am still blown away by your invitations. I can't wait to see the newsletter you put in your welcome bag. I may commission you to make mine!

Second, I am in love with the red shoes, but I understand about the price.

And third, you're welcome bags came out fabulous! I love your logo.

Haha, I think the newsletter is going to be SIGNIFICANTLY less exciting. But thank you so much for your lovely comments! (When I saw your comment about the shoes, I jumped over to the site just now to check if there was any kind of Black Friday sale, but no such luck. I guess I'll just have to continue to admire them from afar. Haha.)

Nice! Your welcome bags look awesome! They are really cute, and definitely something I would use

Thank you! I'm so happy with how the turned out!

 

[LittleKittyMarie]

The first of the Bistro de Paris renovation news seems to have surfaced. Looks like I should probably change my wedding reception location from Bistro de Paris to Monsieur Paul. News via the DIS.

I'm not thrilled with the new name. But maybe I'm just freaking out.

I have no idea what my wedding reception is going to look like!

I think I feel more freaked out now with this new update than I did yesterday when everything was completely uncertain.

End freak-out.

 

[NoOrdinaryPrincess]

I'm sure it'll be okay...

 

[LittleKittyMarie]

I'm sure it'll be okay...

Haha, thanks. That is what DF thinks too. I'm sure it probably will be fine, but I guess I'm still going to have my moments of doubt.

 

[LittleKittyMarie]

I don't know if I announced this in my PJ before or not, but my dress arrived at the salon on October 28. And finally after quite a lot of back and forth between my parents, my MOHs and the salon we all finally found a day that I could fit in an appointment to try on the dress: last Friday, November 30. It took a month . Anyway, the one downside was that there was no seamstress in on the Friday so I wasn't able to discuss alterations (or perhaps more importantly alteration expenses), but now that everyone's seen the dress and we had our girly moment I can easily make some other appointment down the road just my mom and I to take care of business. And the dress is all paid for now too, so it is officially mine! Yay!

Please excuse the dorky expressions. And the flowers on the front of the dress. I forgot my scissors at home, otherwise they'd be gone already. Seriously.

As you can see in the first picture, my hem is actually perfect. Yay for one less expense. And since I never mentioned, I decided not to order the shoes I was debating about. This turned out to be a good decision, since I apparently actually need a higher heel to make the hem hang just right. So I'm back to the shoe drawing board.

On the other hand, the dress is quite big on me. I started doing some Weight Watchers (thanks to some online tools I found on Pinterest), calorie counting and more regular exercising. So far I've lost about ten pounds. I'm not sure where I stood when I bought the dress, but I guess since the dress was pretty loose, I've slimmed a bit.

The only other thing is that while I was trying the dress on on Friday, I was wearing a crinoline. When we got in the car to go home, my mom turned to me and said the dress look different somehow. I told her I was wearing the crinoline. And she said, "Oooh! I liked it better without it. What do you think?" Well, I think she should have asked that in the salon while I still had the option to take the crinoline off and compare. How I have to wait until I make it back in, which might not be until May when I start going in for my fittings.

Anyway, not to end on a downer. My MOHs helped unlace my dress so they could "practice" lifting the dress and check out how the corset worked. Meanwhile my parents left the room to talk to my consultant about... I'm really not sure what. So when we exited the changing room, and were all alone, we did what girly girls must do. Attack the veils and headpieces.

It was a good time.

 

[charliegirl76]

The dress is beautiful....though I must concure with you about the flowers on the front. I'm trying to picture it without the crinoline, but personally, I like a little poof.

Too bad there wasn't a Black Friday sale happening for the shoes, that would have been awesome! Maybe you can keep an eye on them in case they do go on sale. Even after the wedding, they would be a great add to the wardrobe.....just saying.