bridesmaid dresses for the bride

Bridesmaid dresses have come a long way! From crinkly taffeta in horrible colors, to sleek, modern designs that your friends will be glad to wear after your big day. Another good use for bridesmaid dresses is for the bride herself! There are so many colors and styles to choose from, and a bridesmaid dress could be easily worn for an engagement party, luncheon, rehearsal dinner, or bridal shower. It'd be fun to sport your wedding colors in an event leading up to the wedding. That being said, if going with the same line as your bridesmaids, I'd keep away from wearing the same dress to maintain the suspense of their big wedding day look. Here's one of my favorites right now.

It's advertised solely as a bridesmaids dress, but I could totally see a bride wearing the blue to her rehearsal dinner, or the white to a bridal luncheon. What do you think about wearing a bridesmaids dress as the bride?

Rehearsal Recap: Part I

We made the decision to have our friend Amy shoot our rehearsal dinner. She's an up and coming photographer and I liked the pictures from her past events. Amy gave me the disk last night and we couldn't be happier with the them! She was non-intrusive and really let the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner flow naturally. Here's some of my favorites:

*and as you can see, after all the rehearsal shoe drama, I went with the hot pink ones

Rehearsal Dinner: A Solution?

Oh friends, the rehearsal dinner drama has continued for longer than I wish. It was so difficult to find shoes that matched my initial dress (Part I, Part II), and I realized that wearing a white dress wasn't all it's cracked up to be. Case in point- I only wear fancy dresses to our friends' weddings, but I clearly can't wear a white one. Enter- Nordstrom's amazing return policy. This leaves me with no sweat about being able to return the initial dress.
I've visited both Macy's and Dillard's at Green Hills, but they left much to be desired. So while ring shopping for Mr. SE @ Shane Co, we decided to stop at Cool Springs Galleria. Hello- somebody cue the angels. The Dillard's dress shop in Cool Springs is beyond amazing and exactly what I needed to see. It's not as if I have a lot of time to shop around now. Another cool fact- Dillard's will send a dress to your home (no additional cost) if they don't have your size in stock. I tried on both of these dresses below in a bigger size, and decided either one could be a winner.
The first is a Maggy London, and the second is by I CAN'T REMEMBER THE BRAND BUT I'LL POST IT LATER (but it's sort of like this, w/a vneck instead of one shoulder). At first I was concerned that the Maggy dress is basically the same color as my bridesmaids, and I didn't want to steal their thunder. But the nice saleslady at Dillard's informed me that #1: This was my party and #2: Many brides wear a color similar to their bridesmaids at the rehearsal. The first one doesn't settle with me, since I still want the girls' dresses to have a huge impact. But the 2nd one helps it go down a little easier.

What do you think of the bride NOT wearing white to the rehearsal? Did you do it to yours- or will you?

Rehearsal Dinner Shoes: Part II

The search for my rehearsal dinner shoes continues (read part I here). Thank you for all of the advice regarding the shoes and what style to choose! I ordered several hot pink pairs from Zappos, and they weren't the coral-ish color I was looking for. I loved the shoes, but they didn't have the same style as the dress. So here I am again, checking out from Zappos.com (again- feel free to sponsor my posts please).

If you forgot what my dress looks like, here it is again. And below are the next round of shoes that I've purchased. On the advice of Bridesmaid Nicole (a former pageant queen), I've decided to try the nudes.

Badgley Mischka Randee

I bought them. These babies have been on wedding blogs all over the country, and what's not to love? The color is beautiful, and the frills are so girly and fun. I decided to try a nude-peach"ish" heel with the rehearsal dinner dress from the below post. We'll see if they live up to the hype.

*On a site note- I think Zappos should start compensating me for all the endorsements I provide*

Rehearsal Dinner Dress: Shoe Edition

This is the dress I'm 95% wearing to our rehearsal dinner. I always knew I wanted to wear white, and the dress needed to reflect the formality of the event. I ordered 6 dresses from Nordstrom.com and this one was my favorite (and the least expensive!). But here's my problem- I don't know what kind of shoes to wear!

As you can see, the dress is all white except for a silver zipper in the back. The silver shoes that I own are more of a metallic silver, and don't go with the metal look of the zipper. I initially wanted to wear gold shoes, but the gold/silver issue troubles me. I need your advice! What shoes would you wear- and if they're online please send me a link.

Rehearsal Dinner: Booked

Yes, the wedding day itself is very important. But I feel like people often overlook the rehearsal dinner. Mr. SE and I both have lots of family coming from out of town, and we'd like to spend as much time as we can with them. We put a lot of thought into our rehearsal night, and the feeling that we wanted to evoke.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter know that our rehearsal dinner has been an ongoing battle. We had certain criteria, and finding a place in Nashville wasn't easy. Well guess what? Maggiano's fit the bill and we couldn't be more excited! Let me backtrack a little bit. Here's what we wanted: close to downtown (convenient for our OOT guests), moderately priced, private room for our 50-60 guests, good food (obviously). Oh Maggiano's, how I love you!

I remember fabulous family-style dinners for high school homecoming, along with family New Year's celebrations, and birthdays. This restaurant holds many special memories for me, including FSIL/FBIL's rehearsal dinner in 2007. While these events were all at Maggiano's restaurants, our rehearsal dinner will be at a location that we haven't used before. Their Nashville restaurant! It sits up on a hill by itself, and I just love how it looks all lit up.

Here's a screen shot of the menu that we get to choose from. To say there's lots of choices is definitely an understatement. We're really looking forward to our tasting!