Our photographers posted some pictures from our wedding today. I love them. I seriously could sit here and look at them all day…
Category Archives: Bridal Attire
The View Through My Lens: An almost-family wedding
Growing up ,my brother, Mark, had two best friends; the three musketeers. Dan, Matt, and Mark are still best friends today as they are becoming lovely men and building lovely families. Yesterday, Dan and his now wife Stephanie celebrated their wedding with all of their friends and family. When Dan asked Steph to marry him, he told her to pick a place in the world, anywhere she wanted to go, to get married. She picked the most beautiful castle in Ireland. After they returned as Mr. and Mrs. Jones, they planned a classic reception at the Jacob Smith House with just enough tulle and of course Jones Soda. Everyone had a lovely time, Stephanie was stunning in her vintage dress and Dan looked so grown up and dashing. I know I said I would only share one picture, but they were so lovely together even my iPhone took good pictures!
This last picture is one of my favorites, Dan and Steph are cutting their wedding pie and Mark is the official wedding pie holder, ah, the duties of a best man. Dan and Steph, you guys are wonderful and I’m so glad I get to be your “sudo-sister”.
The View Through My Lens: A dress
I picked up my dress yesterday! It’s beginning to feel real. The 10 day forecast says mostly sunny and 73 degrees with 0% chance of precipitation. It’s a little cool, but I can deal with that. It just means I should probably try t find a sweater. However, let’s be real here, it’s still 10 days out so things could change.
A Veil
The pieces of my veil arrived last week. At Christmas this past year I asked Alaina’s brother’s partner, Shelby, to help me make a flower for my hair. Shelby is the creative and artistic power behind Le Petite Menagerie. After an internship with Teatro Zinzanni she started making her own hats, fascinators, and whimsical costumes from her home in Oakland, CA. After the holidays I sent down a box of supplies, some antique sparkly earrings I didn’t wear anymore, bits of lace, white silk flowers, and some pearl flowers from the headband of my grandmother’s wedding veil. After she died several years also my mother brought home her wedding dress and veil. I tried them both on right after I got engaged and for a minute thought about redesigning the dress, but I think using pieces from her veil is much more my style. Shelby took all the things I sent her and worked them into a lovely headpiece.
The birdcage veil comes from Twigs & Honey, which I, and many other brides, have spent hours swooning over. I wasn’t sure I wanted a veil, but that if I did, I knew I wanted it to be a birdcage veil. I think they are elegant and fun without being stuffy. One afternoon last winter I was browsing wedding blogs and found Elizabeth Messina’s blog, Kiss the Groom, where she was having a birthday giveaway for a Twigs & Honey birdcage veil, a Drop it Modern photo backdrop, and a set of letterpress cards from Gigi Press. I entered along with over 400 other brides and I WON! When I opened the box I was amazed when I realized the delicate netting of the veil was a perfect match for bit of netting Shelby used on the flowers. They are absolutely perfect together and I cannot imagine a more prefect and serendipitous way to find a veil.
Outfitting a non-traditional, non-dress wearing bride
If you do a Google search for “lesbian wedding attire” or “butch bride” you’ll find several websites and blogs that have written about finding a butch bride suitable wedding attire. It is not a challenge for the faint of heart or the fearful of online shopping. Finding a non-dress option for a pants-wearing bride is a considerably harder than finding a wedding dress that doesn’t make you look like a cream puff, since at least with a dress you know where to start looking. There are whole stores dedicated to cream puff and non-cream puff dresses. No one, as of yet, has jumped at the opportunity to outfit pants wearing brides (Hint..hint…).
Source: apracticalwedding.com via Liz on Pinterest
I started searching the internet and taking notes on other lesbian weddings as they would appear on wedding blogs a couple of months ago. Alaina and I talked about some options; custom suit, flowy linen, vest (!!) and I saved images we liked to my Pinterest account to get a visual idea of the look Alaina was going for. Since we’re having a relaxed, backyard wedding we knew we didn’t want anything to formal, but something that was still nice and most importantly, made Alaina feel comfortable.
Source: soyoureengayged.com via Liz on Pinterest
There are a couple of things you need to know before you embark on a shopping excursion. First, know your size(s) in both men and women’s clothes, even European sizing could be helpful. You will also want to have measurements for your bust, waist (at the belly button), and hips. Even the most sporty and rectangular body type has more curves than their male counter part. Because of this, buy pieces that can be tailored for an accurate and flattering fit. The woman in a over-sized man’s suit look from the 1950’s is a particular style, but if that isn’t what you are going for find a good tailor to work with.
Source: weddingwindow.com via Liz on Pinterest
When we first started looking we were really overwhelmed by even where to begin looking. The posts by other butch bride bloggers were helpful, but what we really needed was a list of places to start browsing. So, while I know styles change and not everyone has access to the same stores I wanted to give you a list of some of the places we look and had the most success that might be able to point you in the right direction.
Source: bananarepublic.gap.com via Liz on Pinterest
JCrew The JCrew store we went to in Downtown Seattle didn’t have a suit shop, which would have more vests and dress pants but we had pretty good luck since they are also the leaders in laid back men’s clothes. They had a lot of fun shirts and nice pants, though sizing was a bit of a challenge.
Club Monaco This was one of the first places we looked and Alaina fell in love with a white button down shirt. They tend to be a little on the pricey end, but they have really nice clothes.
Banana Republic We didn’t find much in the men’s department, but online in the women’s department I found and ordered a light grey pants suit and a really cute linen vest (The one pictured above). The pants and jacket are fairly basic and not overly feminine so it might be a good option, especially since they are already fitted to accommodate breasts and hips. The vest is perfect!!
Nordstrom Men’s Suit Department We had amazing service from the associates at the Downtown Seattle store. The sales associate who worked with us positively squealed when I told him we were looking for a wedding outfit for my female bodied fiancée! (He may or may not have been gay…) They were respectful and worked really hard to find Alaina something she liked. They kept reassuring her, and us, that their tailors would make it fit, no matter how huge it looked on her. In the end we decided that it just wasn’t the style we were going for, but if you are looking to wear a suit I would give Nordstrom a try.
Alaina has another shopping trip with her sister this weekend and I’m going to be shopping with one of my pants wearing Bridesmates soon too. So the saga isn’t over, but we’ll keep you posted!
Alaina really should be the one writing this since she is in fact the non-traditional, non-dress wearing bride, but she has 20 more teaching days left in the school year and we all remember what the last month of 8th grade was like, don’t we? I’ll have her recap in a couple of weeks.
Put your best foot forward
I’ve been thinking a lot about shoes lately. Which, to be perfectly honest, isn’t what I should be stressing over right now. In fact, of the weddings that I have been to, I don’t remember what any of the brides wore on their feet. Seriously. It seems my mother was right when I was a self-conscious teen and she told me that no one looks at your feet so it doesn’t matter what your shoes look like. Except that I always knew what my feet looked like, I am a dancer after all.
Elizabeth Messina
And then, some really creative wedding photographer took a picture of the bride and groom’s feet. It was so unbelievably cute that it caught on so all wedding photographers are taking the shot now, and regardless of wither or not anyone will remember the shoes I wore on my wedding day, I am spending time thinking about what shoes I should get for that picture. I want them to be fun, colorful and vibrant. They must be comfortable and they cannot be high heals because I do not want to aerate the lawn all evening. Not to mention I’m a dancer so my feet are a little ugly and a lot clumsy.
Upper left: Fergie by Chocolat Blu, upper right: Faylynn by Ciao Bella, lower left: Revel Hop by Clarks, lower right: Estelle by D&G, enter: Floria by Sofft
Those darling little yellow flats in the lower right corner, yeah, that D&G stands for Dolce and Gabbana and even though it is their “everyman” line it is way out of my price range. But it is certainly cute to look at. The other day I tried on a few paris at a local shoe boutique. Cute, but again to expensive.
My plan all along was to find some crazy cute pair or shoes toward the end of summer at some ridiculously marked down price. I’m beginning to wonder if that was a bit presumptuous on my part.
The View Through My Lens: A Dress
This is not my dress, though I tried this Cicada gown on for a very specific reason. And since I’ve decided not to show myself in my dress until the wedding this will have to do for now.
Non-Traditional Wedding Attire
I promised to talk about my dress, but this post isn’t it. This post is about what Alaina might wear.
She narrowed it down to “not-a-dress” and “not-a-lesbian-suit”. Which is a good place to start, but from there we kind of have to make it up because, with the exception of Ellen, the wedding industry doesn’t give us much to go on.
Ellen and Portia's Wedding
We both really like Ellen’s outfit. It’s white, flowy with a hit of feminism. Alaina wants to be comfortable, confident and feel beautiful, just like any other bride. So while in Portland we started looking, for what, we’re not quite sure. But we got a good start.
First we went to The English Department, an amazing bridal boutique and lets just say it was good that I already had a dress before I went because I could have very easily walked out with the whole darn shop. Oh my…. While they only had dresses, they were an amazing resource of other places to look and designers to talk to.
We also made our way over to Nordstrom to see what they had in the way of white linen tops. We came up with a couple good ones too.
I like this top even more looking back on the pictures then I thought I did at the time. It looks really good on her! With a pair of white linen pants or light kakis. We both like the style but I think it would be better without the button front. So I guess it gives us a place to start and something to show a designer if we have something custom made. I think it’s a good thing we are starting early, creating a wedding outfit from scratch seems like it’s going to be an adventure!
