Bend and Snap (Bridesmaids Keep Out)

I FINALLY finished the hangers for my bridesmaids dresses and I'm BEYOND happy with how they turned out.

Here's what I used:

• 12 Gauge Hanger Wire (100ft. roll), bought at Home Depot for $5.99

• Wooden Hangers (6 pack), bought at Home Depot for $6.99
• Ribbon (extra that I had from invitations, but you can pick up a roll from any craft store)
• Pair of Wire Cutters and Pliers
• Drill
• Hot glue gun

1.  Cut 6 ft. of wire per name.  

2.  Leaving about 6 inches on the end, start to create their name. (You can print out their names in a nice font and try to follow it, but I found that free-styling worked much better for me.)

3.  If your hangers have a pant bar like mine did, you'll need to remove those.  I found that if you just pulled on it firmly the bars came right out.  

4.  Drill (or have fiance drill) holes for the wire to be inserted into.  The holes that we drilled were basically right where the holes for the pant bar were.  

5.  Center the name on the hanger and cut off the extra wire, leaving some extra to insert into the holes.

6.  Put a blog of hot glue in one hole and insert the end of the wire, pushing firmly.

7.  Repeat for the other end of the wire in the other hole.

8.  Decorate however you'd like.  I made little bows from ribbon with tacky glue and then attached them to the hangers with hot glue.

Here's the finished product (6 hangers for $12.98) (I left mine off since it's Mrs. "_______").  

Survey Monkey (and Bridesmaids) to the Rescue

        So I posted about here, I have been having some difficulty deciding on a bridesmaid dress for my ladies.  Finally, I had it narrowed down to two dresses, but couldn't make a decision.  Fortunately, my maid of honor suggested using surveymonkey.com to get everyone's opinion, which is exactly what I did.  After looking at the results and taking everything into consideration, I was actually able to make a decision.  So, before I have a chance to change my mind again, I am making my decision official.  I just posted it on our bridesmaid website and can finally relax.

      Looking back on this whole ordeal I am still glad that I included my ladies in the decision making.  I think that we ended up with a dress that will all feel comfortable wearing and knowing that made my decision easier.  (I also just need multiple people to agree with me before being able to commit to anything, so having the continuous reassurance was extremely helpful).  What about you?  Did your bridesmaids help pick out their dresses?  Did you have as much difficultly as I did in deciding on the dresses?

P.S.  Apparently it can really take some time for those bridesmaids dresses to arrive.  I contacted David's Bridal and they told me that it can take anywhere from 6 to 18 weeks for dresses to come in and then you still need to leave time for alterations if they are needed.

Bridesmaids Dresses: Round 3

About 2 weeks ago we had finally decided on the bridesmaids dresses, but then I made the mistake of going onto David's Bridals website and found another dress that I liked.  Yikes!

So here are the final 2.  (The second set of pictures are what the dress would look like in our color).

Here are my thoughts:

I like dress 1 because the satin definitely gives it a more formal feel (which is what we are going for since we are having a formal ballroom wedding).  Also it's definitely affordable (only $100).

However, I also LOVE that dress 2 reminds me of my wedding dress.  But, I also think that it looks less formal because of the fabric.  This dress is also a little more pricey ($150).

Any thoughts?

Bridesmaid Dress "Shopping": Round 2

So I already talked about our first round of shopping for bridemaids dresses and how we had possibly found the dresses.  However, we had our dilemma of the dress not being formal enough and so it was back to square one.   Fast forward a week or so later and Round 2 of shopping is complete.  The results:  6 possible dresses.  (**Note:  We have already decided the the bridesmaid on the right is going to need alterations done on pretty much any dress she gets.  She is short and top heavy so the dresses just didn't fit her correctly.)

After looking please feel free to vote.  If you don't already know, I am having a formal ballroom reception.  Here is a picture of my dress and some pictures of my venue.


Drumroll........

Dress #1

Dress #2

Dress #3

Dress #4

Dress #5

Dress #6

27 Dresses

...And counting.

So after the bridesmaid dress crisis (read about it here) I decided to take another look at dress options.  For the next two days I spent hours upon hours looking at bridesmaids dresses and at wedding party pictures determining what style dress would work.  Eventually, I got to the point where I just couldn't take it anymore (I actually had my first wedding nightmare because of this - I'll tell you about that one later).  

MOH to the rescue again.  I called her up and together we sat on the phone going through David's Bridal and came up with some new options.  With that, be expecting Dress "Shopping" Round 2 pics soon.

Dress Dilemma

I recently talked about our bridesmaid dress search here.  After days of going back and forth and looking over all of the pictures, we decided on the dress below.  We thought it was the most flattering on everyone.

However, after showing the dresses off on my go-to wedding site (weddingbee.com) I got some comments back saying that they weren't formal enough to go with my dress/wedding.

Here is my dress/some pictures of the venue (see more pics of the venue here and read more about it here).  We are going for a traditional type wedding and it will be starting at 2PM on a Sunday.  

So are knee length dresses formal enough?  What's your thought?  Yay or nay?

Bridesmaid Dress "Shopping"

Forever ago, I talked about my bridesmaids being so far way (Check it out here and here).  Being so spread out, we had to get a little creative with our bridesmaid dress shopping.  Luckily, my MOH is AWESOME and figured it out.  Her suggestion was to find any big chain that sells bridesmaids dresses (which ended up only being David's Bridal) and each of us going to a store near us to try on dresses and take pictures.  So here's a peak into how it went!

So these were their top 3 picks: