bridesmaids dress update

oookay... so that seamstress might have been a dead end again... she's the 2nd one. i'm not as exasperated as i was with the first seamstress. she was charging $120, which was more of a shock to me. this seamstress... well, she came back with $165. it made my heart do that "oh my lord!" for a second. and then i recovered quickly and just was sad. i was really hoping that these dresses would be less than $100. i mean, i did buy the shantung silk already. so i was expecting labor to be much more reasonable. i expressed my frustration to my aunts and they acted quickly. the one who found this lady promptly called her and they had a nice chat and she got her to drop it down to $145. i mean, if you attach the word "custom" and "wedding", it's like they have higher rates for it. she scouted out local tailors and got quotes from them and they came it at $220. of course, she was scouting santa monica, ca cuz she lives in culver city. not exactly the lowest of standards of living over there. so she already sort of cut us a break. it's just that i think it's still a lot for my bridesmaids to pay for. what do you think? is it reasonable? or should i keep looking?

the bridesmaids dresses

finally found a seamstress to make the bridesmaids' dresses. she's a really nice lady who made bridal gowns and bridesmaid dresses for 20 years. her husband had passed away 7 months ago and she was very eager to just talk and talk and talk to us. i think she's pretty lonely. so we're both super excited to have each other. it seems we're meant to be because she started having dreams to go back and start sewing. and just when that happened, my aunt called her to see if she was available for me. so she interpreted all that as God's way of telling her to get back to work and continue with her talents. i saw her the wedding gown that she made for her daughter 2 years ago and her embroidery and beadwork were pretty impressive. i'm looking forward to the wedding dresses.

here is the idea board for the dresses. i have yet to take pictures of the overlay, but i'm excited about the overall look of the dress. :)

1 down, 5 to go

whoohoo! last week, henry and i went out with jonathan and caroline. hadn't seen them in forever! i noticed throughout the night, caroline and i were just chit-chattering away. i missed that with girlfriends. we continued to hang out at their house and i asked my first bridesmaid to be my bridesmaid! i really wanted to make my girls feel special, so i made them a little something. i wanna share it but i still have 5 of them left to ask, so i'll save it for a little later. hopefully, by next week, i'll have 4 bridesmaids and 2 matrons of honor to present! oh and henry's so funny at how he asked his groomsmen too. he didn't really know how to ask jonathan, but it seemed like such a scripted moment when caroline asked, so how will you ask you groomsmen henry? and henry just goes, like this, as he flings the little screaming monkey to jonathan. hehe! it was the funniest moment! and jongo's like, oh that's funny, not even realizing that henry's actually asking him until henry said the words. then he just laughed even more. hehe! good friends, good stuff!

so tonight, i'll knock down 2 more bridesmaids. and tomorrow, one of the matrons of honor - who doesn't wanna be called matron because it sounds too matronly. but she doesn't wanna be maid of honor, because she doesn't want people to think that she divorced her husband already! hehe! she's so funny. so i'm currently throwing around the title lady of honor. any suggestions?