01-09-2001

Taking a great stride forward in this whole wedding-planning-thing, my mom and I talked to a seamstress on Sunday. She seems quite nice - very direct and open. She came with an armful of outfits for us to see, and a two-month old little girl with fly-away hair and a very serious stare. Seems grandma (the babysitter) was sick, so little Evie had to come along. My mom didn't mind a bit - she was more than happy to play 'grandma' and hold the little one while momma went out to the car to get some other things. Anyway, after spending an hour talking outfits and themes and such, we've decided to go with her. The list of outfits is starting to grow - bridesmaids, groomsmen, the ring bearer and the flower girl, the ushers, my parents, and then of course there's also my dress and Richard's outfit.

Richard was banished from the house while she was there. I don't think he minded too much - gave him a chance to go lurk at a bookstore and drink coffee. I'm doing my best to keep him from seeing my dress before the wedding. It's not going to be elaborate, and it's certainly not a 'normal' wedding dress - but I still would like to keep it a surprise. He doesn't even get to see the bridesmaid dresses beforehand - well, not if I can help it, at any rate.

We'll go shopping for fabric this weekend (Monday, actually, as it's a holiday for me. I could go into work I suppose, but after the way this week looks like it will go, I think I'm going to need the day off). This means everyone needs to scramble to get some preliminary measurements. I don't like this anymore than anyone else - I was hoping to shrink my measurements a bit before this was necessary. I won't let it stop me though - I'll still keep plugging away at that task. She can always take the dress in later. I'm not sure how she'll handle the outfits for the kids in the wedding, since the tendency of children to have growth spurts is directly proportional to the urgency of knowing what size they will be because you need to have them wear something soon.

But this has raised one big issue. This means I'm finally going to have to commit to colors - something I've really been unable to do up til now. Basically, my main constraint is that whatever they wear, they can't clash with the dark green carpet of the church. My intention is to have the bridesmaids all in different colors, and I'm going to try to avoid solids - preferring a simple pattern for each. I've at least narrowed it to five colors, but trying to match hue to maid is where I'm having some of the biggest difficulty. Lucky for them though, it's not quite enough of an issue to make me want to toss in the towel and make them all wear froths of orange sherbet crepe...yet.

The men are easy - we can actually put them all in the same color and it'll be fine - the ushers will be in the same thing as the groomsmen, but in a slightly different color theme, and Richard will be in similar attire too. I suppose I could give up and do all the maids in the same color as well, but I'm finding myself strangely reluctant to do that. I'm also hoping that between all our friends, we'll have enough swords for all the groomsmen to wear and I'm hoping to find one for my dad - I think he'd get a kick out of it if he could wear a sword while walking me down the aisle.

This will be one hurdle covered - assuming we can get all the fabric we need. Getting a photographer is the next big challenge - considering my time constraints these days.