Adjusted Reality

I feel weird talking about super girly stuff here just because – well, I love my clothes and I know my way around makeup and a curling iron, but I really don’t get my rocks off on it.  Like I do a good run or a bike adventure or a philisophical discussion on the theory of games or a perfectly poured drink on the back patio in the perfect weather around sunset.  However, I’m getting over the last few years where I tried to deny all things girly.  I might trend towards being a tomboy and feel more comfortable surrounded by a group of dudes, but I don’t have to shun the absolute LOVE I have for clothes and putting together a fabulous outfit I feel wonderful in.  And now that I’m trying to refresh my mad makeup/hairdo skillz, I’m feeling rustier than I’d like.  So expect to maybe hear a bit of girly stuff in between my diatribe about how sweat soaked by shirt was after my run.

Usually one puts on makeup to go out, not stay in, but I'm weird like that...

Also – major apologies if this blog becomes all wedding crap all the time, but it’s only for the rest of the month, promise.  First let me talk about running so you all don’t think I got kidnapped by aliens or something…

I did a 5k on the treaddy yesterday for pace.  It had been a while since I ran an “all out” 5k (makes sense, because that’s the race I’m training for *bonks self on the head*).  I hit 26:10.  The good – it’s a PR by about 30 secs and I felt strong during most of it.  The bad – I was aiming for under 26, I got super pooped by the end of mile 2 and had to actually slow to 6.5 – 7.0 for the first part of mile 3.  The more good – I’m impressed 6.5-7.0 is what I slow down to now, and I was able to pick it back up and dash into the finish at 8.5 so I had some kick left.  Going to shoot for a 8:30 pace per mile during the race and see how close I can get to it.  I wanted to do 25 flat but I’m just not seeing magically knocking off 60 seconds off my time, especially when I haven’t been running outside regualrly.

Ok, now that we have that out of the way – lat night I did makeup and hair trial #1 in project: do my own wedding ‘do.  I considered splurging on the stylist, and decided that it wasn’t the money (although that was my first complaint – it was going to be over 200 bucks!!!), and decided it was a matter of pride and trust.  Pride – as in I’ve ALWAYS done my own hair and makeup for every event I’ve gone to.  Trust – as in I don’t want to leave the fate of my pictures to some random stranger I won’t meet before that morning.  So I decided that it’s all up to me.  I’ve got two weeks to practice and learn and get good at what I want to do – so here’s the first chapter.

First of all, I spent a long, long time researching hair and makeup online.  Basically, I’m trying to do beachy tousled waves, partially up but mostly down.  I want to work braids in there somewhere but they seem to be above my level right now.  I can braid and french braid, but for some reason when I try to do it upside down my fingers get a case of the willies.  I decided against dramatic makeup that we tried and going more for the traditional dewey, fresh faced look.  Now, I love me some crazy makeup and I’m not scared of color, but as some of the wedding makeup sites said – you don’t want to look back at this picture and cringe.  Oh – and the flowers in hair are placeholder ones.

Here’s the methodology:

Started with the hair.  Took a shower, washed, conditioned, and put gel in my hair and combed it through with my fingers.  Then, I put the wet hair up in a loose messy bun and ate dinner.  About an hour later I dried it on low heat, scrunching it the whole time.  I made sure to get at my roots for some volume but I was definitely missing the mousse for more volume.  Then, I started playing.  I was going to try to do a variation of the mama mia milkmaid look but I lost my patience with it after a while (my braiding upside down skills suck).  I just did an  asymetrical part and did little french braids and a poofy back.  Not happy with how it turned out but its a starting point.

Used this picture for inspiration and then did trial run 1.5.  I’m much more pleased with it.  I toned down the eyes a little bit, and played up the lips and blush.  I think that’s pretty close to the look I want (just want to get some better quality makeup).  The hair took me less than 1 minute to do.  It would have looked better if I had sprayed it cause it fell a bit by the time we took pictures but all things considered, not bad.  I really like the side shot, and I’m considering ditching the big side flower in favor of little ones throughout the do.  I am not sure I like the actual texture of the hair/curls, so I need to see if some friz control fixes that or it’s something I’ll have to fix with a different means of doing my hair (curling iron, etc).  Hoping it can be this easy though!

Things that need to improve:

-Need to purchase concealer, foundation, and translucent powder in my proper shade.  The rest I will give some more trial runs to see if I want different colors or if what I have will do fine.

-Need to purchase mousse, spray gel, and some sort of friz control and see what product does to the ‘do.

-Need to pluck the brows and see if I’ll need a brow pencil.  Hope not, never used one…

Trial 2 tonight!  Wish me luck!  Be back Friday with more results…

So, I think we have established that I am not a wedding person.  My Zliten has been the most wonderful fiance ever and taken on a lot of the work and been involved with just about everything.  Most dudes just want to get down on one knee and the show up at the wedding.  A lot of girls want that too.  Not me.  I have never been in a wedding.  During the period where all my friends were getting married I was working 100 hour weeks.  I did not grow up dreaming about a wedding.  My parents were married at a courthouse.  I just don’t have much experience with wedding-ness.  I have been to weddings but mostly showed up for the free booze to celebrate and didn’t really pay much attention to all the intricacies of it.

That being said, I think we’re mucking our way through it quite well.  First, we picked an island/polenysian/tropical theme so it’s not a black tie affair.  Then, we decided on a Sunday afternoon – it’s cheaper, and also propigates the casual nature.  Then, we booked here:

Here’s what it looks like inside without fancy lighting:

It wouldn’t be much of a tropical wedding in a stuffy chapel, would it?  I don’t have a picture of the inside reception area, but I am assured they have all the decorations necessary to make it a tropical paradise.  So booking it that way took care of everything from the flowers to the food to the cake to the open bar…which is huge for us.  I don’t want to micromanage all that crap.  I want to tell someone that I want orange, teal, and violet as my colors and tell them to make it so.

That still leaves a lot of things for me to think about.  First order of business after booking the event itself was invites and dresses.  We ended up with this:

Sadly, they screwed up the envelopes and sent ones that didn’t match, so I sent those back and they are plain white.  Whatever.  It’s the invites and they don’t have to be PERFECT.  Instead of an RSVP card, we’re doing this:

Ignore the crazy stuff, it’s the front of the POSTCARD we’re sending out to be mailed back to us.  Cheaper postage, cheaper to have made (it was 35 bucks for 100 double sided shipped, and the cheapest I found those damn RSVP cards for was about 100 bucks before shipping!), and fits the theme much better.

Next, the dresses.  Finally settled on these for the bridesmaid dresses:

And, that’s it for now!  Next step is actually getting the invites printed, addressed and off in the mail this weekend, and then at the end of the month when my maid of honor gets back into town, we start playing with hair and makeup and  hair flowers and shoes and veil/no veil and finding me some damn spanxs since I’m going braless (so no “holdmein” action (I found what I want online but want to try it on locally) and perhaps some embellishment for the front of the dress and…

*PASSES OUT*

Why didn’t we elope to hawaii again?  Sigh…

Oh, you want to know about my dress?  Well, I finally purchased it last night.  Want pics?  Well, you will have to wait and see for the big day…. I know the suspense MUST be killing you.  I will say that I went with a traditional (not white but very close) dress and didn’t go island crazy.  And apparently one doesn’t usually wait until 2.5 months before to buy the dress as they whisked me away immediately to the alteration room and had the seamstress do her pinning magic.  The alterations cost almost as much as the dress!  Sheesh.  Wish I knew how to sew *grumblegrumble*.

I will however give up the list of the top 5 dresses I *didn’t* pick.

#5 Impregnated with Joy

It is as if I am saying in this picture, “HOW far along does this dress make me look?”  This one was eliminated from the running instantly.  It was gorgeous on the rack, but those thin little straps and the super high waist did NOT work for me.

#4 – Enchantment Under The Sea

I dunno, the top reminded me of seashells covering my boobs.  My consultant Marie was holding back about 2 yards of fabric here in the back because they only had the dress in a 16 or a 4.  I thought it was pretty but knew it would probably be too fancy.  I also wasn’t hot on the color.  I did love the fit, and for another wedding it would have worked, but it too was eliminated immediately.

#3 Sideboob Dress

I loved this one from the front.  It was cute, it showed some nice cleavage, it was on sale, it was sorta tropically, it was on sale, did I mention it was on sale?  It also fit like a dream.  Or so I thought until I reviewed the pictures.

Woah, hello there sideboob!  Aren’t you just a good little sideboob, yes you are.  Oh yes you are.  Anyhoo, immediate disqualification.  No sideboobs allowed at MY wedding.  All sideboobs will be escorted from the premisis.  I think there were 2 dresses very much alike (both on sale, both rife with sideboobage) so I’ll lump them here together.

#2 Can I Change The Theme Of My Wedding (and get plastic surgery rq?)

If the answer was yes to both, then I might have been rocking something like this.  I loved it so from the back.  I am a sucker for corsets.  It even took 2 people to lace me up.

Is it just me or do I have some kick ass back muscles?  Just me?  Darn.  The problem came when I had to face that fact that it was a) not tropical at all and b) strapless.  I had many people assure me that my hulk shoulders and hefty top half would not disqualify me for a strapless dress, so I went ahead and tried it.  I’m glad I got pictures from the back.  The front however was forgettable.

Ignore the runners tan, as I have been informed I am being dragged into a spray tan session a week or so before.  There is just too much shoulder and these odd skin folds between my arms and boobs.  They’ve gotten much better but they still exist.  Also, I haven’t worn a strapless dress in oh, forever, so I’d be constantly pulling it up.  So after much honest dialogue with myself, this one was disqualified.

#1 – Anchor’s Away!

The stripes kinda look sailor-y, don’t they?  No matter.  I went in yesterday to try on this one and the dress I purchased.  It was between the two.  I actually think this one flatters my figure a BIT more than the one I picked, but I think I can fix that with a little spanx.  And a little salad with lite italian skip the fries perhaps.

So that’s it for Quix’s edition of Wedding Spew.  I’d ask for feedback, but since everything is purchased all I want to hear is how awesome it is and other praise lavished on me.  Anyone do a theme wedding before?  Did YOU allow sideboob at your wedding?  Inquiring minds want to know…