Ballroom Blue

Thanks to Mal for the brilliant idea of looking for a pair of ballroom dance shoes - voila - blue and comfortable.

Any thoughts on these?

Blue Shoe Blues

So I know you probably thought that after all of that shoe blogging I had made up my mind, purchased a pair and was breaking them in as we speak, right? Wrong. Shoe decision fail.

I know there was a lot of support for the Tiffany blue vintage scalloped shoes from Hey Lady, and my little blogettes, you have rich taste. I can't see dropping the dough on these puppies, and I'm also not sure if they are "in-you-face-blue" (or is that "blue-in-the face?") enough for me.

Cue the "design-your-own" section at Nina shoes - what joy it is to mix different colors for hours. Bows, heels, tops and soles all in a rainbow of shades.  Here are a few of my creations... 

Unfortunately they take three weeks to arrive, and what if they don't fit? No returns on custom shoes, besides who else would even consider the orange and blue catastrophe above?

Thoughts? Suggestions? and don't you try to pressure me into the fancy shoes, I might be too easily persuaded and my poor abused credit card will have to pay, literally.

Pearls

These definitely fit with the black and white color scheme - but I don't know how well they match my superblingy earrings (photos to come soon!)

Bling

We're down to the details so details it is - only 27 days to go. Here are some sparklies that are on my mind today.

Bouquet Blitz

What would I do without The Knot?  The never-ending compendium of all things wedding. Floral decision still looming. I'm heeding the advice to go with color instead of white - but now I need to decide which color.

Here are some delicious pictures to chew on...

Hydrangeas w/ ferns and maybe a few sweet peas tucked in?

More hydrangea - a la Martha

Purple - but no orchids for me, just not my wedding preference. Thinking of something a little more wild, a little bit more (appropriately) English garden.

Sweet Peas!

Brilliant blues

I love these hydrangea bridesmaids bouquets with little pops of rusty red

What about PINK??? Peonies, hydrangea, ranunculus and lilies?

Poppies - and other fun things (what are those?)

 A mix!

More MARTHA!!

How is she so good?

We'll let her have the last word... for now.

Decisions Decisions....

My to do list is rapidly becoming filled with the word "decide" in angry all-caps with excessive exclamation. The overwhelming amount of beautiful research in the form of blogs and wedding mags has resulted in a sort of paralysis due to too many options.

Take last week's shoe blogging (still undecided) or the new decision du jour: floral. I'll keep the reception decor quiet for now (it's all good) but in terms of bridal bouquet, bridesmaids, bouts and corsages, I'm in a quandry. I just love everything too much. 

I'm sure once one thing is decided, the rest will come easily. So the biggest question now is color, or white?

I love all colors. Sometimes when I go shopping and a shirt is displayed in a series of shades, I freeze up, unable to choose just one and go with black instead... or white... or gray. It's like I want all or nothing.

So now you understand why the wedding colors are black and white. I had to restrict myself or else the entire affair would turn into the pride parade. Rainbows...everywhere. (not that I have anything against people who have rainbow weddings)

The specific flowers that make up my bouquet have already been selected for sentimental reasons, representing my great-grandmother, grandmother and mom through their favorite blossoms, each different. Of course, these flowers lend themselves to certain color choices, but still leave me with options (too many).

This is just a small sampling of the inspirational imagery overflowing my desktop. I still have a little over a week to decide, so I will share more soon.

Hey Lady

And the shoe search continues - don't know if I can afford these from hey lady - but the Nasa shock-absorbent memory foam does make them extra tempting

And if those didn't induce a little drool, maybe these will?

And then there were these

Jeffrey Campbell - pic doesn't do them justice, I promise.

Well, looks like I'm back to high heels and neutral colors.... for now.

Something Blue....

I've known for a long time that I wouldn't wear white shoes to my wedding. No offense to those who choose them, but bridal shoes are blah and so limited in use. So I knew I'd opt for color and blue was the obvious choice. 

 I've been hunting the blue shoe for a while and although I am a girl who loves the high heel, the thought of six hours in stilettos is beyond my tolerance for pain. So I give you shoe options:

Apparently these should look familiar to you - why you ask? (I asked too) They are the cheap, dirty and low-heeled cousins of Carrie's wedding footwear in SATC. I prefer cheap, dirty and low-heeled and was pleased that the SATC reference was lost on me. 

 These Pour la Victoire 50's peep toes are sweet but the heel might feel like death around 11:30.

And JELLIES!! Oh the memories, not a good bridal choice, but what more could my 12-year-old self have wanted than blue opalescent jelly heels with princess baubles on the toes. Vivienne Westwood, you are genius.

Side note, does anyone remember hosing their jellies off because they got so gross. I remember when my white ones had to be pitched, they went so well with my tie-dye t-shirt.

Then there are the vintage options - 50's shoes from Etsy. 

 Later 50's/Early 60's on Ebay (they look like they need some love).

Unfortunately the 80's seems to be the most highly represented era of cobalt shoes - so the other option is vintage white with some fabulous shoe clips. (shoe clips = bows, sparkles or both)

So time to decide and order, right? Still, I'm racking up the blue items included in my ensemble so I'm hoping that something blue doesn't need to be a singular something.

Update

I've been a delinquent blogger - what's new? 

Well, actually, lots of stuff is new. What some would call massive progress has been made on the wedding front, as should be the case as we rapidly approach the one month to go marker.

One month. Can you believe it? I mean, not yet, not today, but pretty soon. Terrifying. and sad. I like planning weddings. I like planning my wedding. Now I don't know what excuse I'll have to obsess over fonts and layouts, menus and seating charts. My wedding is my hobby.

Well on to the goods - I mean we have some goods. The previous lengthy blog post on creating wedding invitations in the form of mini books has come to fruition. Books were designed, printed, collated, cut, stitched, stuffed and stamped and by now should be in the hands of wedding guests across the country.

We've already been called crazy. I'll accept that. The invitations are what some would call crazy.

I would happily share photos etc.. with you, but I've been so busy stuffing and stamping that I haven't taken a time out for a full photo shoot. For now you'll have to enjoy the envelope of two very high-profile guests.

I'm pretty positive they'll come. I mean, it's not like they'll be that busy in August anyways - recess, right?

I'll post more invite pictures later - but for now, that isn't our only update. We've also done an (almost) full overhaul on our wedding website which I am happy to share with you - although many of you may now be coming here from there and this will just create an endless feedback loop, but for those of you who have not feasted your eyes on the handiwork of my soon to be bro-in-law, Ben, please enjoy: abbeyanddan.com

We also hired a band that was the band that we wanted all along. Although they have partially relocated to NYC, it goes to show you that a little begging can go a long way. 

This weekend finds us back out in Denver for walk-thrus, showers and the like. We still have plenty of boxes to check out on the old to do list. I think Dan summed it up perfectly tonight when he told friends: "We have all the big things and now we're just down to the details. It turns out we are very detail-oriented people."

More to come - but a few last pics from a beautiful shower in DC thrown by world's best boss, LG.