There are just a few things that I’m genuinely sad didn’t exist when I was getting married back in 2008. Among them is the existence of the White by Vera Wang line. Her spring 2011 launch was met with rave reviews, and she’s just launched her brand new Bridesmaid Collection, that includes some incredible dresses, all priced under $200. A dream!

Vera’s team sent over a preview for us here at Weddingbee! The entire line is available exclusively at David’s Bridal. Be sure to click through; you won’t want to miss the shoes…

View the rest of the new collection here.

Pick a favorite…I dare you!

This article was originally posted onWeddingbee.

Sashing? Dashing? Close enough, right?

This is so strange, but it’s true. For some reason, when I made the easy decision of picking out my dress, I decided I had to have a sash. In fact, I got my heart all set on it. I’m not 100% sure why I had to have one, but I think the artist in me was drawn to the pop of color, and the opportunity to use it to coordinate our wedding colors and make them even more cohesive (… because I was a crazy bride like that).

If you look back at the image of my dress that David’s Bridal provides, you’ll see something around the waist.

Screenshot from David’s Bridal /Style T9309

Just so you guys know, the sash in that photo doesn’t come with the dress (included is a length of 2″ white ribbon, there’s even two teeny loops to hold the ribbon onto the dress), but they suggest it with the dress, as well as a thicker, fancier sash, like the purple one in the photo below.

Screenshot from David’s Bridal /Satin Sash

I know, it’s a lovely sash. It’s kind of hard to see in the photo, but there’s all kinds of pretty embroidery at the bottom.

Naturally, I had to have it. But then after I tried it on in the store, in the color Pool (as seen below), I found out that it wasn’t offered in baby blue (or the DB color “capri”).

Screenshot from David’s Bridal /Satin Sash

Long story short, I was crushed.

What’s a girl to do? Well, I maybe have been a little mopey after mucho Googling couldn’t find me a sash I wanted, but then I got my act together. At this time, Etsy’s alchemy was still around, so I started the hunt for some one who could make a sash for me, in the color I wanted, all for the price of $50.

I discovered seller BusyBeeHolidays (was the ’Bee’ in her name a sign?), who hadn’t made a sash before, but definitely seemed up for the challenge.

She started by sending me fabric colors and embroidery options to choose from. I ended up choosing one that I loved (yay!), and then I gave her another $5 because I chose an option too big for her embroidery hoop, so she’d have to get a new one. Not a bad deal, I’d say.

Then BusyBee began sending me photos of my sash as she made it, step by step. Watching the whole process come together was so exciting (and such a relief, actually, after I was super worried that I wouldn’t get the sash I dreamed of). The more photos I saw, the more excited I got to see the real thing in person.

And, because a photo’s worth 100 words, here’s the story in photos.

Photo of me with the sash that I posted on Alchemy for reference.

The option I chose for embroidery.

A sample of the embroidery for me to approve.

Ah! Coming together – embroidery on my sash.

Then some pearls for good measure. Now all it needed was a hem…

Perfecto!

Love!

I’m not going to lie, this was one wedding project that was pretty easy because I just had to sit back while someone else did all the work.

Dying to see the real sash in action? Me too! I can’t wait to share the pro pics with you all in the future.

Did you having something custom made for your wedding? On a scale of 1-10, how awesome was it?

This article was originally posted onWeddingbee.

Australian bridal designer Johanna Johnson is bringing back 1920s and 30s art deco in a big way.  When she was searching for her own wedding gown she was let down by the lack of options.  Having a graphic design background, she sketched her own gown and hired an experienced seamstress to bring it to life.  Johnson knew there were more women out there like herself, so in 2005 she launched her label.  She has been immersed in a love affair of bringing old Hollywood to the red carpet’s new Hollywood and high-class glamour to brides ever since.

This article was originally posted onBridezilla.

As I mentioned before, Mr. Snow Cone and I have decided we’re doing the traditional bouquet and garter tosses. I have my bouquet all straightened around, which is 50% of the toss battle. I can’t really do a garter toss without a garter, now can I?

Fortunately, the garter-less garter toss will not be occurring at the Snow Cone wedding. That’s right, I’ve secured my garter, armed and ready for tossing. When brainstorming garter options, I knew I wanted something specific, so it was just a matter of tracking down someone to execute my vision. After doing a couple dozen Google searches, I came across Let’s Dance Garters, a small company that offers a huge array of garters with a boatload of customization options.

I found this set, which immediately caught my eye:

Image via Let’s Dance Garters ($24.95)

But I decided that if Mr. Snow Cone withdrew a garter from underneath my gown that only paid homage to my university (which is probably one of his least favorite colleges, at least sports-wise), he’d have a cow. And, to be perfectly honest, what initially led me to this garter site was the fact that it sold a certain other collegiate garter as well:

Image via Let’s Dance Garters ($24.95)

Just as doing my school alone would ruffle Mr. Snow Cone’s feathers, doing his school alone didn’t 100% sit well with me. I decided to give the company a call and see if there was any plausible way to smoosh two schools into one garter set. I described my vision hesitantly, keeping my fingers crossed and my hopes high. As soon as I finished my description, the woman on the other end of the phone exclaimed, “Oh! You want one of our mixed-marriage garter sets! We do those all the time!” Perfection. A few quick detail decisions later, I placed my order. Less than 48 hours after that, I found these beauts waiting for me:

Personal photo

And here’s a close-up of the center of each garter in the set:

Personal photo

Personal photo

I was so pumped with the finished product that I immediately showed it off to everyone and anyone who made eye contact with me. The overwhelming response? “Oh, he’s gonna die when he sees those!” My thoughts exactly.

Did you use customization with your garters? If you could give a shout-out to any team via your garter set, which team would you pick?

This article was originally posted onWeddingbee.

I’m one of those brides who could honestly care less about the dresses that my bridesmaids wear. In fact, I told them that we could pick a designer and color and length, and they could choose from there. Whatever made them feel beautiful. My bridesmaids are all different sizes and shapes. MOH A is a size four and is 5′3″. BM S is a size sixteen and is 5′6″. BM E is 5′2″ and is a size eight. No two girls are alike in any way. Thus the reasoning behind getting different dresses. MOH A and I talked about the reason we had to pick one designer and color. Navy is one of those weird colors that all designers seem to do in varying shades. Some navy blues are so dark they are black, and others are light and look almost like a dark royal blue. Not that I minded the shades, but for some kind of cohesiveness MOH A urged me to go with one designer, thus one shade of blue.

Now MOH A pretty much took charge on the dress front, which is fine with me. About half of my bridesmaids live in Des Moines, where MOH A lives, so if she wanted to book the appointments to find the dresses, I was game. I was happy to delegate (which is completely surprising because I am usually one of those people who likes to control every little detail). So MOH A made an appointment at a swanky bridal salon in Des Moines because there was one dress that I really loved the idea of and wanted the girls to try on.

The Convertible Wrap Dress from Dessy. The top can change into anything the wearer wants! / Image via Dessy

The dress was a bust. Not only could you only order it online, the only way to try it on was to also rent a try-on from the Dessy site for 35 bucks. Um, sorry, but I was not going to spend money to have my girls try on a dress that may or may not work.

The bridal salon was also a bust. They wouldn’t let the girls take pictures to send to me, plus they were super snotty. So MOH A and BM S left to see if David’s Bridal could fit them in. They figured this was a good second choice since the rest of the BMs were spread out (some in other states), and they could go in and order their dresses on their own. So they went and were sure to take a ton of pictures for me. MOH A was actually hoping to find a dress that all of the girls could wear; she is more traditional in that aspect. I told her if she could find one that all of the girls could agree on then, sure, that would work too. So she and BM S began to try them on.

Some were obvious nos:

These dresses were not that flattering on the curvier girls…so they were nos.

None of the girls were feeling the bows or the bubble hem.

Some were definite maybes:

We thought the above dresses were fun and flirty.

The girls liked the sparkle on the hem of these dresses.

And then they tried these on:

The holy grail of BM dresses (at least for our party)

Every single one of my BMs who went to try on this dress loved the way it fit. MOH A had done what I thought would be impossible. She found a dress that flattered every single girl and that every girl wanted to wear. We are getting them in the blue color. As an added bonus there was this:

MOH A joked that she could hide a mini-flask in there for me in case the jitters get to be too much. What is the funniest part of this whole thing is that, while the dress was surprisingly easy to find, the shoes have now become the hard part to find. Finally, I told the girls that we will just go shoe shopping as part of my bachelorette weekend, and it’s not a huge deal if the shoes don’t match. Their reasoning is that if the dress matches, the shoes need to match!

Was it easy for you to find your wedding-party dresses? And was your wedding party pickier about what they wore than you were?

*All are personal photos unless otherwise specified!

This article was originally posted onWeddingbee.