The Great Stripper Debate

Everyone's seen it....almost every movie involving a bachelor party also involves a stripper. But honestly, how many real life bachelor parties do you know of that involve strippers? I can't think of any.

That leads to the question: How many bachelors actually want a stripper at their bachelor party? I know Mr. Plaid doesn't. And he's not just saying that. Most of my other guy friends feel the same way. They'd rather spend their "last free night as a single man" with their buddies hanging out drinking, gaming and shooting the shit. They definitely don't want to spend it getting lap dances.

That's not to say that their aren't guys out there that would very much enjoy a lap dance or ten at their bachelor party. I guess I just don't understand it. What's the point? What's the thrill? I'm just at a loss.

I honestly don't know how I'd feel if Mr. Plaid did want a stripper at his bachelor party. I'd be shocked, mostly just because I know him and strippers are not his thing. But past the feeling of shock, I just don't know. I think I'd be disgusted, but I don't know that it'd really go much further than that. He is a grown man and he can make his own decisions and I trust him.

However, if I were a guy, this is the only type of stripper I'd want at my party:

This is a cake I made for a friend's bachelor party who is getting married this coming weekend!

What do ya'll think about strippers at bachelor parties? How many of you even know anyone who has had one? (Maybe it's more common than I think.)

A Table Fit for a Cake (or Two)

Now that I've told ya'll my plans for our two special cakes, let's talk cake tables.

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Don't you just love a gorgeous cake table? After seeing these pictures and many more just like these I began to think about how I wanted to decorate my cake table.

I'm thinking maybe some flower petals, possibly some candles, but most definitely some wooden (or in my case, chipboard) letters. I just died when I saw "I DO" spelled out on that one couple's cake table. So what did I do? I ran out to the nearest Michaels and purchased large letters, "I", "D" and "O"! Oh and some paint!

Here's what I came up with:

Taken by yours truly

I started out painting the tops of the letter yellow and all the sides blue. But after I finished painting there was something missing. I know! Glitter. Glitter makes everything better in my opinion. I think the glitter will be a nice touch with some candles flickering close by.

How are you planning to decorate your cake table?

A Cake for Mr. Plaid

Since I talked about our (potentially) gorgeous cake in the last post I figured I should talk about what I plan on doing for Mr. Plaid's special cake.

And let me just say that until I moved to Texas 4 years ago, I had never even heard of a Groom's Cake. I thought the bride and groom just shared the wedding cake. I was so naive. Haha. :)

So once I embraced the whole Groom's cake idea, and honestly why wouldn't I take the opportunity to make another cake, I started to brainstorm. I almost immediately thought: ZOMBIES!!!

He is super into zombies. Zombie movies, zombie video games (I have to confess I'm quite the shot when it comes to killing some zombies), zombie anything. But how do I make an awesome zombie-themed groom's cake? Simple! What do zombies love most?

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Brains! I'm going to make a giant brain cake. Then I plan on molding all sorts of little zombies to climb on the brain, eat the brain, crawl across the table towards the brain...you get the picture. I may even throw in a few themed zombies, for instance: super heros, Star Wars characters, etc.

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Awesome, right? So I figured cool, we'll serve this at the less formal, more intimate rehearsal dinner. Wrong. Mr. Plaid wants it at the wedding. So his brain cake will be sitting next to our gorgeous lacey wedding cake. Haha, it'll be a nice juxtaposition at least.

Are you having a groom's cake for your groom? How did you decide what to get and what will it look like?

It's Cake Time!

Guess what arrived yesterday (or, you know, back in March)? My beautiful cake stand!

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I ordered it from Look in the Attic & Company. Isn't it gorgeous?! And there are thistles etched in the underside of the plate which is a nice little nod to my Scottish heritage.

So I guess without further ado I will show ya'll what I plan on doing for our wedding cake. Let's start with some inspiration photos:

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With both of these cakes, I am attracted to the lacey, flowery patterns. Then I realized that my dress has a lacey, flowery pattern on it so why not echo my dress in the cake?

I'm going to try using a technique called embroidery to draw the flowers on my cake. Here's an example of this technique:

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I am planning on covering the cake in white fondant and then doing the embroidery work in white as well. I'm hoping for a very subtle, yet elegant look.

I am also planning on incorporating some small yellow flowers into the design. I'm thinking forsythia might be a nice option.

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Again, these flowers will be very simple and elegant and I like their earthy quality. I think that'll go well with the general feel of our wedding day. (Bonus: They're one of my mom's favorite flowers, so she'll be happy to see them!)

And to top it all of, I planned on purchasing the Willow Tree Topper seen here:

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However, wonderful and gracious Weddingbee reader, mrstilly, has offered to send me the one she used on her cake! I should received it in the mail in the next few weeks!

How did you decide on a cake design? What were you inspired by? How many of you are crazy enough to tackle your own cake?

Blood Money

Weddings are expensive. Everyone knows that or at least has found out as they've been planning, right?

Well my job doesn't pay very much so I've been looking for ways to make some extra cash. My friend and Co-MOH, L, recently added two to her family - two dogs, I mean. Oscar and Mason are their names and they are absolutely adorable beagle-mixes. I love them to pieces.

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She has given me the opportunity to take care of them in the afternoons since their little puppy bladders won't last til she gets home at 6pm or later. She pays me to play with her dogs. I couldn't ask for a better job. Plus, with this money, I have a little pocket money to spend on breakfast tacos and Dr Peppers. :) (For anyone who knows me, these two things are very important staples in my diet.)

But on to the name of this post - my blood money. I have been donating plasma for almost a year now. It's better than donating blood because you get paid to donate. You get paid around $20 a visit and can do it twice a week. It's seems kinda crazy but it's not bad and you can bring your laptop and watch a movie or surf the web. So I am literally paying for parts of this wedding with "blood money". If you're interested, here's where I go: BioLife Plasma. There's a little informational video on their site so you can see how it works.

Have you found unconventional ways to pay for your wedding?

Writing the Perfect Words

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how to say "I love you" on our wedding day. I really want it to be special but I'm nervous I won't be able to get what I feel across in words. Let alone the fact that I may flub it all up with tears. Stupid tears....ugh! (I know Mama Plaid will be crying in the audience...I doubt I'll be able to hold it together. My emotions are going to be running high that day.)

We've basically got two options. We can just say traditional vows. You know, the whole:

I, Miss Plaid, take you, Mr. Plaid, to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part.

But I just don't know if I'm feeling that. I like the idea of just having to repeat after the offiant, but it seems so devoid of emotion and personality. We may both be quiet people, but trust me, we've got tons of personality. We might be what some would classify as weird. (It keeps it interesting, I promise. Besides, everyone's got a little weird in them.)

So then we come to option two: Writing our own vows. Oh man, does this option make me nervous. Creative writing has never really been my forte. However, I've seen this done in different ways.

When Mama Plaid got married last year, she and her husband wrote their own individual vows specifically outlining (and in his case, with an actual numbered list...oh Stepdad Plaid) what they love about each other and what they're looking forward to in their life together. I can just imagine getting up there and being like, "Ummm I love you cause you're ummm tall and ummmm you have a cute butt." Ha. Embarassing right? I'm not sure I can handle this option.

I went to a friend's wedding two years ago (Co-MOH L's actually) and her and her husband chose a passage from a book that acted as their vows. They recited the same words to each other but it was still different than the norm. I like this idea a lot actually. Other people have already thought of the perfect way to say I love you so why not "borrow" their words.

Here's a poem I found that I really love:

Love by Roy Croft
I love you
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.
I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what
You are making of me.
I love you
For the part of me
That you bring out;
I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heaped-up heart
And passing over
All the foolish, weak things
That you can't help
Dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out
Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find
I love you because you
Are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern
But a temple.
Out of the works
Of my every day
Not a reproach
But a song.
I love you
Because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good.
And more than any fate
Could have done
To make me happy.
You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it
By being yourself.

I really like what it says, but maybe it's too long. Maybe we could each say half?

I think what I would like to do is combine both the traditional and our individual style. I would love to recite this poem to my mister first and then we can do the traditional, "I, Jenn, take you...blah blah blah" part. I like these versions a bit more then the first though:

I Miss Plaid, take you Mr. Plaid to be my husband, my partner in life and my one true love. I will cherish our union and love you more each day than I did the day before. I will trust you and respect you, laugh with you and cry with you, loving you faithfully through good times and bad, regardless of the obstacles we may face together. I give you my hand, my heart, and my love, from this day forward for as long as we both shall live.

or

I, Miss Plaid, take you, Mr. Plaid, to be my partner, loving what I know of you, and trusting what I do not yet know. I eagerly anticipate the chance to grow together, getting to know the man you will become, and falling in love a little more every day. I promise to love and cherish you through whatever life may bring us.

What do you think of my idea to combine both? What did you girls do? Did you write your own or recite the traditional vows? What do you think of the poem?

Gettin' the Girls All Fancied!

So I realized the other day that I have yet to write about how fabulous my girls will look on my wedding day. When I started planning I decided that I wanted each girl to have a dress that looked great on them and fit into their budgets. I wanted them to feel comfortable standing up in front of all those people (I know I sure as hell won't...eek!).

Anyways, so I originally told them to start looking for medium blue (royal), knee-length dresses. I figured that was a pretty basic color they'd be able to find just about anywhere. And luck was on my side because as soon as stores started switching to their winter lines lots of blue popped in!

However, concerns were expressed that the girls wouldn't all be able to find shades of blue that went together (they didn't need to match, but no clashing would be nice) and some weren't exactly sure of the color blue I was talking about. So I changed gears.

I started looking into bridesmaid dresses at places that offered dresses in different styles (I still want my girls to look hot) and in a couple different shades of blue. After researching for awhile I settled on J. Crew. They've got a lot of options and two shades of blue that will look awesome together and at least five different styles that will look awesome on my girls.

I sent out an email with the options and all the girls loved them. They each chose a different style (I want them to look like individuals). Bridesmaid J will be wearing the Juliet in Vintage Blue and my two Co-MOHs, S and L will be wearing the Sophia and the Cecilia in Mediterranean Blue. They're going to look awesome!!!

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The only thing that didn't carry over from my original plan was to have them spend whatever they wanted. By me choosing dresses for them, they were "forced" to pay a certain amount. I did run it by them in advance though and all seemed okay with the price.

In addition to the dress, I have asked my girls to wear black shoes. They can wear something they already own or they can use this as an excuse to purchase something new. I figured black is good because they can for sure wear the shoes again.

As far as accessories go, I think I'm just going to ask them to accessorize however they see fit. They all have such unique styles when it comes to accessories that I don't want to lock them in to one style. Besides this way, they're completely happy with how they look and what they're wearing.

How did you chose your bridesmaids' dresses? Did you give them flexibility or is everyone wearing the same thing?

My Biggest Wedding Decision

So I'm sure for most girls, the biggest decision they make during the wedding planning process is choosing the right dress or the right location. For me, it's the cake. Afterall, I do decorate cakes for a living. So I ask you, why is it such a hard decision for me? I see cakes all day every day, yet I can not decide.

So here's what I've compiled so far (keep in mind none of the colors are right on these cakes, I was more attracted to the designs):

I love the nature-y, simple feel of this first cake.

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These next two I like the stripe-y patterns.

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I really like how this cake is simple and detailed all at the same time.

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I just thought this paisley pattern was nice and refreshing.

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This is by far my favorite. I love the use of M & Ms. How fun, right?

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So by now you can probably tell I like simple. But I'm also very indecisive and I just can't figure it out. It really shouldn't be that tough.

So instead I'm moving on to toppers. I never thought I'd have a topper but then I found a couple that I fell in love with so we'll see. Here they are:

I love this first one because it's rustic and I can totally display this after the wedding in my house.

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This one I like because it's so us. I love to pinch Mr. Plaid's butt, much to his dismay, I might add. Hehe :)

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Ok so I left out of big part of this whole wedding cake thing. Here it goes, "Hi, my name's Jenn and I decorate cakes for a living."

And I am just crazy enough to think that I am going to be making my own wedding cake. I mean I'm the first to admit that I am going to have trouble relinquishing control over design and execution. Ugh!

The general consensus is that I should not be worrying myself with decorating my own cake the day before my wedding. But I know I can totally conquer it. I'm trying to get on top of everything now so that I have time to make my cake the day before. However, I know my last couple days will probably be completely crazy so I guess I need to deal with reality.

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Two of my coworkers have graciously offered to make the cake for me for free and I'll still get to design it exactly the way I want. That's really the only other option I'd consider. I'm not about to pay for something I can do myself.

However, I'm making the cake, not anyone else. That's all there is to it!

Is/was there anything in your wedding that you insisted doing even though everyone warned you it'd be a mess? Maybe I'm the only crazy one!

I leave you with this photo only because it is absolutely hilarious! :)

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The Great Wedding Band Debate

I haven't honestly given wedding bands too much thought. Well I guess that's only true if you're definition of "not much thought" is searched high and low on the internet for the perfect ring on at least ten separate occasions. But you know, I'm just saying...

What are the chances that Mr. Plaid pretty much knows what he wants and I don't have a clue? I guess pretty big in my case, so without further ado, here's what he's thinking:

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Pretty, huh? I really like the hammered look. And some of the rings I found are good quality and pretty inexpensive. That's two yays!

So that's one ring down and one ring to go. To match or not to match? That is the question. And I'm not talking, matching Mr. Plaid's ring. That's actually not that important to me. Hmm...I wonder if he cares? I shall ask. What I mean is do I get a wedding band that matches my engagement or something totally unique.

Here's a reminder of what my ring looks like.


Here's the deal. My job (I work in a bakery) doesn't allow me to wear my engagement ring (technically anyways - I was cheating and wearing it anyways, but I got caught and can't wear it anymore). So do I buy a wedding band that matches my engagement ring for times when I'm not at work and can wear both together?

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Or do I get a wedding band that's totally unique and is pretty, but something that's totally acceptable to wear at work?

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But what if I buy a unique band that doesn't match my engagement ring, but I do want to wear both when I'm not at work? What do I do? Ugh...see my dilemma?

What would you do? Did you have trouble choosing your wedding band? What helped you make your decision?

People are Totally Saving Our Date!

Here are my Save the Dates that I'm so very proud of. I hope you like them as much as I love (and I mean LOVE) them.Ok, so here's how we (and by we, I really mean me) made them. I scoured high and low online to find the perfect inspiration. I knew I wanted to do a simple postcard that people could easily hang on their fridge to remember the date. My Mama Plaid uses VistaPrint for her at-home business quite frequently so I knew I wanted to use them. They've got great prices that you just can't beat.

I wanted to incorporate both mine and my mister's personalities in the STD and immediately thought video games/xBox360. (I think Mr. Plaid has turned me in to a total geek...oh well.) Anyways, if you know anything about xBox, when you make a profile you get to create a cute little avatar to look like you. You can chose different outfits and everything! Fun! (I'm sure that's what all the boys are thinking, too.)

So I signed on to each of our profiles and changed our outfits to more formal attire, him in a suit and me in a red dress (there are no wedding dresses available on the xBox - rude!) So then I had to hunt down our avatars on the xBox website and save the images to my computer. Now, because I had to put mine in a red dress, I had to load the image into Paint and change the red dress into a long white dress.

I then loaded both of our images into PowerPoint along with some text and the simple heart graphic. It came out great and I thought I was ready to upload it on to VistaPrint. That's where I hit my roadblock for this project. To upload your image into VistaPrint and actually get it to print out non-blurry it needs to be a certain quality.

Mama Plaid to the rescue. My mom does web design for a living so I sent the STD off to her to play around with until it would upload and print out clear for sure. She worked her magic right away so I could get the STDs ordered. VistaPrint has a handy dandy tool to create the back of the postcard right on their site so all I had to do was add text. Easy peasy!

You're probably wondering why in the heck I wanted to send my STDs out so early (I sent them back in October 2009) considering my wedding isn't until October 2010. Well, most of my guest list will be traveling from out of town and I wanted to give them time to save up for airfare and the hotel. If I were a guest I know I'd appreciate the early warning.

They arrived in a little over a week even though I chose the slowest shipping method which said it would take about 3 weeks to arrive. Yay for me! So I organized a little address party with my 2 Co-MOHs S and L, and we banged them out in no time thanks to my address collecting form I created on Google Docs. (Thank you past Weddingbee Bees!)


Here's a fun pic of me mailing them off the next day!


Did you send out STDs? Did yours turn out exactly like you dreamed?

Love, Carved in Time

I love the idea of a sweetheart table and am planning on having one for sure at my wedding for me and Mr. Plaid. I haven't thought much about decor for the table yet except for one thing that I knew I had to have.

A couple months ago I think I was perusing Martha Stewart Weddings online and saw a picture of the couples initials carved inside a heart on a white birch tree stump. How adorable is that?

Well I live in the south so we don't have white birch trees down here...bummer. :( So then a couple days ago I was flipping through the Pottery Barn holiday catalog at work and saw white birch tree stump candles. Fate? I think so!

I was planning on picking on up until yesterday when I went to Target in search of a wallet and found the exact same candle for half the price. Heck yeah, I bought it!

So here's my latest DIY project:

Here's a close-up of the carving!

I just used a knife to carve our initials and wedding date into the candle. The candle option is so much better because now after the wedding we can display it in our house. I love it!

What a simple project and one of my favorites! What has been your favorite DIY project so far? Did you make anything for the wedding that you plan on displaying in your home afterward?

Searching Hi and Low

Calling all cute adorable shoes in the perfect shade of blue! Where are you? :)

Since before I even had a ring on my finger I've been searching for the perfect wedding shoe. My friend L (also my co-MOH) got married last year and rocked some awesome red shoes under her wedding dress. I vowed right then and there that when I got married I would have some fabulous colored shoes on under my dress too.

And so the hunt began. I searched everywhere - DSW, Zappos, Payless, David's Bridal, several department stores and everywhere else I could think to type into my Google search engine. I found a lot of tempting shoes like these:

I was gonna dye these blue - they're David's Bridal

I found these on Zappos - but they're just not me

These are Nine West - a little casual though :(

But none of these were perfect. So I kept searching.

One problem though. Every time I get close to spending that much on a pair of shoes I get crazy anxiety. I know none of these not even $100 but still. I don't know how Carrie did it on Sex and the City for all those years.

Then yesterday my sister and I went out shopping for Halloween makeup for her zombie costume and we stumbled upon a new store, Nordstrom Rack. I know I've seen lots of cute blue dresses on the Nordstrom website so I thought we'd stop and check it out. We've been looking for bridesmaid dresses too. Guess what I found (it's not a dress)?


The perfect blue shoe!!! And they were under $50. Yay!!!! They're Steve Madden and have a 4 1/4" heel on them. That'll making planting a big kiss on Mr. Plaid just that much easier. I'll only be about 6" shorter than him instead of my usual 10".

Here's a bit more shoe porn for you guys:


*** Those are all personal photos unless noted otherwise.

Now all I have to do is wait a year to wear them. Boo. I will just have to wear them around the house all year long to break them in and practice walking down stairs...eek!

I also recently decided that I'm going to be a 2-shoe bride. I plan on rocking these at the reception.

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Can you say comfortable? And it looks like Miss Cardigan is thinking the exact same thing!

How long did it take you to find the perfect shoe? And are you changing shoes for the reception?

My Bouquets are Finished!

As ya'll know, I decided at the beginning of my wedding planning to not use fresh flowers. I ultimately decided to go with tissue paper carnations in whites and yellows.

I've never been a huge fan of carnations, but in a big bunch they're gorgeous. I used Folding Tree's tutorial for tissue paper carnations. So without further ado, here are my bouquets:


There are three for my ladies that are yellow and white and then my bouquet is white with yellow edges.

These are for my ladies

This one's for me!

The best part is that these 4 bouquets only cost about $20 to make. It would have been hundreds if they were fresh. I also plan on making boutonnieres for the men and corsages for the moms using the same type of flowers.

Have you considered using alternatives for fresh flowers?

Traditional and Nontraditional Traditions

Wow that's a mouthful, huh?

When I first started planning my wedding, the only wedding tradition I really knew about was the whole "something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue" thing. (I am totally doing this by the way...to some, it may be silly, but it is a must-do on my list.) Other than that though, I had no clue about any other wedding traditions.

I really want to include some other traditions into our wedding so I went into research mode. I started by Googling "wedding traditions" and came up with a bunch of stuff from different countries and religions. Here are some of my favorites that I'm considering incorporating into our special day:

1. The Groom carries the Bride over the threshold to protect her from evil spirits (This is my workout motivation!)

2. In Sweden, the Bride puts a silver coin from her Father and a gold coin from her Mother in her shoes to ensure that she will never be without either (I'm considering hot gluing one of each from each parent on the bottom of my shoes)

3. In Egypt, the Bride's parents do all the cooking for a week after the wedding so the happy couple can relax (how awesome would that be???)

4. If the younger sister gets married first (I'm the baby), the older sister has to dance barefoot at the wedding or risk never getting married (hmmmm....should I make sister Sarah dance barefoot all night long - evil grin)

5. During the ceremony, the Bride and Groom's hands are literally tied together to symbolize commitment. Hence the saying, "tying the knot". (I may use some pretty ribbon or something for this.)

Here's one I don't like: Apparently the English believe that finding a spider on the bride's dress is good luck on your wedding day. When I visited my venue for the first time with Co-MOH L, we saw a huge tarantula. If I find on of those crawling on my dress in October, I might just pass out. No thank you Mr. Tarantula!

And here's a funny one: In Denmark, traditionally brides and grooms cross-dress on their wedding day to confuse evil spirits! Does that mean the bride doesn't even get to wear a gorgeous wedding dress? Boo...

What traditions are you incorporating into your ceremony and reception?

My Dress is All Mine!

Guess what ladies? I am now the proud owner of my very own wedding dress!!! I am soooo excited! I picked it up on November 17th and I could not stop grinning. I'm such a dork.

(Remember, I'm going to be adding a sash around the waist in blue for a little color pop.)

Now that I've got my dress, it's going to set the tone for a few other things. It has a slightly vintage-y/1940s look to it. My girls are thinking of picking up the vintage-y feel in their dresses and my jewelry has a vintage feel to it as well. Once I knew I was going to buy this dress (I made the decision about a month ago) my mom offered to buy a necklace and earrings that I found on Overstock.com for me. They're gorgeous!Source


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I'm also toying with the idea of doing my hair and makeup in a 1940s style. Here are some possibilities:

Hair possibility #1

Hair possibility #2

Makeup possibility #1

Makeup possibility #2

I love the idea of drama with makeup...dark lips and all!

Did you run with an idea after you bought your dress? Do you want to make a statement with your hair and make-up?