Western Union Telegram

So I never really considered having wedding programs. They seemed a bit pointless for our wedding and they weren't something I thought I'd wanted at all. UNTIL...

I FOUND THESE!!!!


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That's right they're Western Union telegram programs and I'm seriously considering using them because I love them so much. You can download the template here. I think they'd go really well with the vintage theme of our wedding and would just be a lot of fun as I don't think anyone at our wedding will have seen anything like these before.

What amazing Internet templates have you found? (Yes, I'm fishing for finds!!!!).

My Locket

Picking out what jewelry I plan to wear on my wedding day has been a relatively painless process so far. For me, the best jewelry has a lot of sentimental value, and that's why I knew pretty much as soon as I found my dress that I would be wearing my locket. My locket is definitely one of my most treasured pieces of jewelry. Mr. Knitting bought it for me for my 19th birthday and I've worn it almost non-stop ever since.

For example,

Eating cheesecake in Grand Central Station in NYC:


A backyard picnic:


Being ridiculous with good friends:


Being a supportive girlfriend going to a baseball game:


Hanging out in Oxford:


At my older sister's bachelorette:


At my older sister's wedding:



I know a lot of people like to find completely new jewelry for the wedding and I think that's lovely, but for me I love the fact that I've worn this locket for so much of our relationship and I can't wait to wear it down the aisle as well!

Are you sentimental about a piece of jewelry? Tell me about it.

Second Guessing My Dress

I have a very definite type when it comes to wedding dresses. I like delicate lacey dresses, with cap sleeves and interesting backs. For some good examples see this post.

That being said, since buying my incredible and lovely wedding dress I've come across two different dresses that aren't my style at all, but for some reason I'm completely drawn to them.

The first is a dress by Shank, a Toronto store that specializes in these gorgeous and very theatrical one of a kind pieces. Their stuff is very wild, and while I can appreciate the craftmanship, is generally not my style at all. However, when I saw this dress at a wedding show I was completely fascinated by it:


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This dress is definitely not my style, but I love it. It looks even better in person because it has this fantastic flowing quality. I think my favourite part is the colour. I love how it looks as though the bride stepped in ink or something and the colour began to slowly seep upwards.

The second dress was designed by Joy from Joy's Theatricals. Joy is a former costume designer who now rents and sells her beautiful designs out of her tiny store on Davenport in Toronto. I stopped in one day as I was passing by and I fell in love with this beauty (the pinkish one in the middle):


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I'm sorry I don't have a better image of it, as it is a really lovely dress. Again the thing that attracted me was the colour. The dress is this gorgeous pale pinky-mauve. I'd never really thought about that colour before, but as soon as I saw the dress I fell completely in love.

I never really thought about wearing a different shade than white, but perhaps I should have.

Ultimately, I'm still happy with my dress and would definitely choose the same dress over again. I do think it's really interesting though how I was drawn to these two dresses, since they really are so far from my usual style.

Have you ever been drawn to an unexpected dress?

Favourite Things: Stockings with Back Seams

Normally I absolutely never wear panty hose. I had to wear panty hose when I worked as a hostess in high school, but in the 5 years since I left that job, I don't think I've ever panty hose.

However, the Bata Shoe Museum has just opened up a new exhibit on socks and they have some incredible examples of completely gorgeous stockings. Some are these incredibly elaboratly embroidered creations. For example:


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However, the ones that really caught my eye were the stockings with seams. I think they're so sexy and glamourous (something I would never say about regular old hose!), especially if they require garters to stay up. I really think I should own a pair.

Here's a tiny bit of eye candy (It turns out it's pretty hard to find good pictures of women wearing clothing AND stockings. You'll have to use your imagination!):


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In my opinion Dita von Teese is the queen of stockings with seams. She wears them all the time and they always look completely amazing. For example:


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I'm sorry it's not a better picture. It turns out it's hard to find an image of Dita in stockings that isn't mildly pornographic. While shots of her just in her stockings are still lovely, I'm more interested in the way the stockings look with clothing, rather than without!

Here's another Dita picture just for fun. I tend to love pretty much anything she wears (off stage!).

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While I was kind of annoyed at how difficult it was to find a picture of someone wearing stocking with back seams AND clothing you can leave your house in, it is fun to consider the fact that while stockings can be so elegant and lady-like, they're also incredibly sexy. I think I'll need to give these a try...

What do you wear to feel sexy?

Twenties Girl

So using my tried and true method of wandering around and browsing in stores I FOUND A VEIL!!!! Sort of. Okay, it's not actually a veil, but I guess more of a wedding head piece or cap. I found it while wandering through Kensington Market (not actively looking for a veil) in Toronto and saw the most gorgeous and unique head piece on a mannequin in the window of the vintage store Ego.

Here it is (and yes, these are really awkward self portraits!):




What can I say? I'm totally in love. It's from the 1920s and is apparently very rare because head pieces like this are incredibly fragile. I'd never seen anything like it before, which I have to say is definitely part of the appeal. I also just think it's completely beautiful. Since it was from a vintage store it was also very affordable, which certainly appealed to me, having been quoted $85 for essentially a piece of netting at another store.

The only part that wasn't so pleasant was the store owner's attitude. As I mentioned the cap was on a mannequin in the front window and when I asked the owner if I could try it on he said "Not today." I was quite put off and replied, "Oh, okay," in a very confused and annoyed tone and started to walk out the door. He then seemed to change his mind (maybe he decided I was a serious customer???) and let me try it on. I of course loved it and snatched it up, but it would have been a much more pleasant experience if he'd be a bit nicer.

Currently I'm planning to wear the cap the way it's positioned in the above pictures, but it's entirely possible I'll change my mind about that between now and the wedding. I also have the option of attaching a piece of netting to the cap so that I can still have my bird cage veil.

What do you think? I need some advice. Netting or no netting?

Veil Shopping

Finding my veil was a pretty relaxed process. While I didn't actually go Veil Shopping (that's right capital letters), there are a few places I dropped by every so often to see if they had anything suitable.

The List:

Joy's Theatricals
I love this place. The owner (Joy) is a former costume designer and she sells and rents evening wear as well as custom designs wedding dresses. I didn't actually learn about her until after I found my dress, otherwise I definitely would have been interested in working with her. She also does custom designed veils so if I don't end up finding what I want anywhere else, this is where I'll be looking.

One of Joy's lovely dresses:


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Blue Banana Market
This is a fantastic store in Kensington Market that sells items by various sellers. One of the vendors, Le Petit Chapeau, makes these gorgeous and pretty affordable hats and birdcage veils so I've definitely been keeping an eye out there.

If I was having a city hall wedding I would be all over this beauty from Le Petit Chapeau. Perhaps I'll need to work this into my rehearsal dinner outfit...


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St. Lawrence Market Antique Market
As many of you know from this post, I am totally in love with this market and will of course be looking for a veil here.

So it's not the nicest market building, but it's full of gems:


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Stella Luna
Okay, I haven't actually been keeping an eye out here as I have never actually been, but I definitely plan to go. Stella Luna is a vintage store I keep hearing the most amazing things about (like being able to very occasionally find a $40 Kelly bag), but I never actually manage to get there. Perhaps the hunt for the perfect veil will motivate me!


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As you can see, the one place I'm not looking is a traditional bridal boutique or salon. I'm hoping to completely avoid having to buy my veil at a place like that. I'd really like to find something suitable at one of the slightly offbeat and very local places listed above. I love being able to support Toronto businesses!

What slightly unusual places did you go looking for a veil?

Veil Inspiration

I want to start this post by saying that at this point I actually do have my veil, but for fun I'm going to lead you through the whole process that led me to it.

Now that I had my dress, I could begin to look for a veil to go with it. I have loved bird cage veils forever. I've always found them incredibly chic, even just as an evening or everday hat.

For example:

This is pretty much how I wished I looked everday. Between the veil, pearls, coat, and gloves, I'm completely in love. I need a fancier life...

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I love the way this one only covers one eye. So lovely.

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This one is perhaps a fit fussy, but I still love it. It was made by Stephen Jones who is a completely fantastic hat designer.

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A few more because I like them so much:


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So of course when it came time for me to think about a wedding veil, I knew a bird cage veil was for me. Here are some of my favourite images that I collected over the past few months:


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Up next: where I went looking for one of these gorgeous creations.

What's your favourite type of veil?

Let Them Eat (vegan) Cake (and bars, and cupcakes, and pie, and cookies...)

Okay, we had left off with me planning to purchase a wedding cake and make a vegan dessert. New Plan. As I kept going through images for more cake inspiration I began to realize that the images I was most drawn to weren't actually wedding cakes, but rather wedding dessert buffets.

Here's a few examples:


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Now instead of buying anything I'm going to ask a few family and friends to bake a dessert for the wedding. I love this plan. A lot. It's more personal to us as a couple, it involves our guests, it's cost effective, and it's so much fun.

One of my favourite dessert inspirations came from Style Me Pretty and because I love it so much it is getting a bit of extra personalized attention:


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That's right, it's a DIY cupcake bar!!! I am a big cupcake person. I know they're a bit over exposed these days, but I don't care. I still love them.

A DIY cupcake bar will definitely be making an appearance at the wedding. I've put my baby sister in charge of it and over the next 8 months she's going to work her way through this book and we're going to pick the three best cupcake and icing flavours. I'm so excited! I'll keep you updated on the cupcake trials.

I know I'm not the first person to do away with a wedding cake. What other dessert options have you tried?

My Very Own Pretty Pretty Princesses!

I knew who my flower girls were going to be long before my wedding. I realize that people generally people generally expect flower girls to look like this:


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However, mine will actually be looking a bit different, at least in terms of size anyway. I'm having grown up flower girls. 22 year old flower girls actually. Here they are:



My baby sister (who is 22) always wanted to be a flower girl when she was an appropriate age to be a flower girl, but never got the chance. Thus, when it became apparent that the Mr. and I planned to eventually get married my sister and I decided that she would finally get the chance to be an FG. We also decided it would be even more fun if my sister's friend who is basically like a 2nd baby sister to me became her assistant flower girl.

They're both a bit zany and lots of fun, so we're going to have a good time dressing them. We're currently aiming for a hint of magical woodland creatures. This picture below is actually a pretty good representation of their personalities, so you can see I'm expecting them to be quite exciting flower girls.


I haven't really put too much time into thinking what they'll wear yet. Actually, that's a lie. We've come up with tons of ridiculous ideas (strawberry headress and a watering can anyone?), but nothing that we would actually follow through with. I realize it's highly unusual to have grown up flower girls, and while I do want them to look a bit whimsical, I don't want it to come across as a huge joke.

That being said, it's entirely possible wings will be making an appearance...


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What's your favourite flower girl accessory?