Choosing a Wedding Date

To keep in line with how nuts Jesse and I generally are when we get out minds set on something, we decided to first move our wedding date back a year (to July 2012) and then up a year to July 23, 2011.  At first we wanted to have a September wedding but we realized we both loved the long days that came with the middle of summer.  Juliane James Place, our wedding venue, has so many flowers blooming all summer but we particularly fell in love with the red and pink flower below that blooms beautifully through June, July, and August.  I initially leaned toward not having a florist and just using flowers from the grounds to fill the test tubes and vases we have as part of our "turn-of-the-century wonder and exploration" feel.  My concern with that though is that I would end up cutting flowers that would make for lovely photos for others who are getting married at our place.

This date change has propelled us forward into full-throttle wedding planning mode.  To me this is more exciting than Christmas, and gift-giving is my favorite thing besides dogs and ice cream.  It feels so real and right to be getting married next year.  We want to have children in 2012 and I want the wedding experience and baby experience to be separate events.  There is just SO much to do before now and then.  And so much to blog about!!

I chose our date using The Old Farmer's Almanac.   You can download weather predictions for the next year specific to your area for $4.95.  It breaks each month down into small sections and lets you know if it will raining, sunny, hot or warm, etc.  It's not guaranteed to be spot on but at least I feel like I have something to go on!

Dresses, Round 2.1

Round 2 consisted of visits to the following three bridal salons with my bridesmaids Amy and Jessie who came up from Chicago for 36 hours of dress mania. It was Jessie's first trip to Minneapolis and although dresses were the point of the trip I also wanted to give a little tour of Minneapolis so I set up our appointments for Edina and downtown.  Our first stop was Priscilla of Boston in Edina and then we headed down to the Macy's Bridal Salon by Demetrios.

Priscilla of Boston

I really liked all the options they had in stock at Priscilla and the salesperson I worked with, Sarah, was fabulous.  The ambiance was great too but the fitting room was a little on the small side.  I like it when the people who are there for the experience can be in the room.  Especially in my case where all of my bridesmaids are flying or driving in for the experience.  I want to chat while getting into dresses!  There were refreshments provided to all three of us and I ended up liking quite a few dresses.  What I also liked is that there was a large price range and the quality of the dresses didn't take such a huge aesthetic dip as the costs went down.  There were plenty of samples for sale too.

These are the highlights...

Melissa Sweet Billie Short

This dress is around $3,000 and comes in a longer version too.  The dress feels great on and is super flattering.  I was told that the foof on top can be added to or taken away as desired.  I fell in love with the dress when I saw it on the Wedding Chicks blog in this post. I fell so hard for that particular bride's style though that I couldn't imagine it Without aqua pumps, which is when I knew I might need to move on.  If an extra $3,000 falls into my lap between now and my wedding I am absolutely buying this dress for the day of festivities before the ceremony day.  I love the idea of being super dressed up but having something on that is easy to move around in.

Kenneth Pool

I loved this dress on but when I went home to look at pictures of it I wasn't as excited about it.  The swirl on the side of it is my favorite part because it reminds me of the Vera Wang Diana I had my heart set on when I tried this dress on.  I also love the belt portion of this.  It looks great with a crystal flower in the hair.