I Guess I Do

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Sunday, July 21, 2013

Sukey & Bob : Melissa Koren Photography

Meet Sukey & Bob. Sukey is a wedding blogger herself and is by far one of my favorites - a blogger bestie if you will! Her site Dress for the Wedding is a styling blog devoted to finding the perfect wedding attire. And better yet, it was inspired by her very own I Guess I Do moment! You never know where you'll find inspiration! See what inspired Sukey to start her own guide to wedding fashion and enjoy her story in her own words below.
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My husband and I have so many happy memories of our wedding, but behind the scenes there was certainly our fair share of chaos. We had no-shows, wildly unpredictable weather, and --while we were saying our vows and posing in golf carts -- our refrigerator water line broke, sending water all over the new wood floors of our kitchen. As I was busy becoming Mrs. Murphy, Murphy’s law was already well at work.
In retrospect, I realize now that the I Guess I Do moments actually make for some of the great stories you’ll tell over and over about your wedding, build your strength as a couple, and in my case, have actually given me inspiration for my blog Dress For The Wedding. Much of the motivation for founding Dress For The Wedding came from wanting to help other brides and wedding party members avoid the frustrating fashion experiences I had at my own wedding.

To set the scene, my husband and I decided on a short 7 month engagement so that we could have a summer wedding where we grew up in New England, which is 400 miles from where we live now. So with a short timeline and the constraints of planning from afar, we automatically added an extra stressful layer to everything. Because of the timing, we had already missed the window for many vendor services, so I decided to DIY the invites, flowers for the tables, favors, and lots of votives and signage. This was a lot of fun, a lot of work, and thankfully resulted in very few disasters. These made for some of the pretty picture moments!
There were many, small I Guess I Do moments along the way, but one of the most major was the drama over my mom’s mother of the bride dress.

My mom is very frugal and also an enthusiastic do-it-yourselfer, so it was no surprise when she suggested she might make her own dress. To her credit, she is an accomplished seamstress, and successfully made a flower girl dress for me when I was 9, made wonderful prom dresses for me in high school, and handled bridesmaid dress alterations for my nieces who were in our wedding.



But, my mom is also a procrastinator. With every dress she has made in the past, I also have memories of her staying up all night sewing trying to get it done at the last minute. So, when it was clear she was going to attempt this make-your-own dress stunt, for my own peace of mind, I found a few inexpensive options and asked her to please order them. She did, but since we were planning from afar, and she didn’t own a digital camera, I never saw them on. Over the phone she told me they didn’t look great (a little “nightgowny“) and I think it really pushed her further into the “I’m sewing my own dress” decision. Resigned, I asked my mom to please have her handmade dress ready at my bridal shower about a month and a half before the wedding. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but this did not happen.

Instead, she promised she was working on it, and a mere week before the wedding (which also happened to be my birthday), she showed me a partially sewn cotton fabric “draft” of the dress with some semblance of a wrap bodice, and lots of unfinished pieces and threads hanging off it. It was actually quite dramatic in a way that would be perfect for the Star Wars wardrobe department, but it looked very odd on her; and the color, style, and fabric were all very weird, not to mention the “real” dress hadn’t even been started with 6 days to go. Instead of the one thing I had asked for, (i.e., a completed mother of the bride dress), she and my father also randomly gave me a window air conditioner for my birthday. A strange gift made totally bizarre when coupled with the knowledge that my house already has central air, and that I thought we were in agreement that we were urgently in need of a mother of the bride dress. It was all too much. To say I flipped out would be an understatement. There were lots of tears.

When I calmed down, she tried on the fall-back dresses, which were indeed very nightgowny on her. So, we did what we’ve always done in my family for Halloween costumes, or other times when fancy vintage attire was needed. We headed up to the attic to find the wardrobe relics of my fashionable great aunt. In the end, my mom wore a long silk floral print gown that my Aunt Florence had worn to parties in the 1970s. It actually matched the wedding colors perfectly and had slight vintage Lilly Pulitzer vibe. It probably was the perfect dress, but I could have done without the series of events that required us to use it.
This I Guess I Do moment still gives me empathy for the wedding fashion stressors that I address on my blog, and I’m always particularly thrilled to help a mother-of-bride find the perfect dress. However, it should come as little surprise that I don’t recommend sewing your own, I advise that the mother of the bride should always make sure her dress meets with the bride’s approval, and I insist that the mother of the bride find her gown many, many months in advance!

Dress: Jenny Yoo  Mother of the Bride Dress: Thanks Aunt Florence!

 

5 comments:

  1. Melissa Koren WilsonJuly 22, 2013 at 8:51 AM

    Sukey was absolutely gorgeous! As her photographer I'd never have guessed there was so much "chaos" behind the scenes! I'm thrilled to have helped her tell her stories - both good and maybe a little crazy too!

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  2. Thanks for letting us share your beautiful work Melissa!

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  3. Awww! This was a great read...I can't imagine what I would have done having to go through these dress moments. I'm glad it all worked out in the end...yay I get to see what Sukey looks like :D

    Those flowers are pretty!

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  4. Thanks for having me share my story, Raquel! And thanks to Melissa Koren for capturing it all!

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  5. Thanks, Gee! I know - I need to have a picture on my site! This will be the first time lots of people see me!

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