hi mom!

the spheric shape of hydrangeas overwhelms the shape and simplicity of the vase, so i'm vetoing the hydrangeas as centerpieces unless we had clear square vases, but those are $3 a piece just to rent. i'm the type of girl that would much rather receive a single flower over a big bouquet. that is why i want one of these simplistic looks. i love the look of blackberry branches:





i've purchased a huge box full of these flowers:


the mums would match the bridesmaid bouquets but i'd have to pay for them.


this is a rose i picked from the garden today. each table will have two bottles of wine on it - we could accompany them with empty wine bottles with one flower in each...but i still like the simple look of the small white vase.

finger wave

on a related note: one of my bridesmaids has pretty short hair. not boy-short, but short. one place suggested that she get a 1920's style finger curl, and it would cost the same as a blow dry - $40-50. although she doesn't have asian hair, it is pin straight and very resistant to keeping curls. they just said they'd use a lot of gel. another place i called said it take a really long time, it needs to set for 2 hours and it's $$$ expensive. so what's the difference? is the first place literally just blow drying with their fingers and a bit of product while the other place sets it with dozens of curlers?




i love the one above the best, and the blythe doll one with a little curl of long bangs across the front, sleek right behind it and curls and volume at the back and tips.


images found via a flickr search for finger waves. there's also a great flickr pool for vintage hair

hair.

hello sukis, the salon that has ads plattered all over UBC's AMS agenda each year. with locations everywhere from downtown to richmond, i'm pleased that the one on first avenue looks the best, because i'm not crazy about parking downtown (although a lot of salons do have their own parking spaces available). for my reference, they have 8:30am open, an updo can cost anywhere from $90-140, and a finger curl for vanessa would be the same as a blow dry at $40-50.
1805 West 1st Avenue
604.732.9101


caramel is downtown, and closed on mondays so i don't have much more info to offer right now. they have a list of their music faves online that include nick drake and death cab, and any stylist that is familiar with tom waites seems right up my alley (even though i'm not a big fan of his, i think it reflects well on their taste that they're not pumping beyonce - nothing wrong with beyonce, just not my style).
2342 Granville Street - looks like granville and broadway-ish
604.731.5112



rain is a salon on west first just outside granville island. they have a front end mini boutique with labels such as gentle fawn and small things designs. i've even sold my st*tchp*x*e stuff there in the past. they have stylists that range from junior to senior, levels 1-8, with the lower end running about $59 for an updo and the upper end running about $119. they said a finger wave takes a long time, so long that it would have to take 2 hours to set and be $$$. at 9am they'd have 2 juniors, a level 2 and a level 6.
1544 west 2nd
604.733.7246



aru is in whiterock/south surrey, theoretically close to where i'd be staying the night before the wedding (a good 45 minutes from the venue). they range between $45 and 70 for an updo and could do 9am.
2068 152 Street, 20th and 152nd with a little map here
604.536.0788

what all of these salons need (although the last one is miles better) is more photos of at least the place! i can understand not necessarily posting photos of their hair creations, but the place! if it's trendy and funky, i want to see it!

hydrangeas

it's very early-july and my hydrangeas are blooming. the first image represents the clusters as they were a couple weeks ago. most of them now look like the second photo. a small handful look like the last two photos, which makes me wonder if hydrangeas from the garden mid-august as centerpieces wouldn't be too far off an idea anymore. my mom had originally said they were definitely a september bloom.



they wouldn't have to endure the stressors of comprising hand-held bouquets, and even if they were all green like photo number two, they somewhat resemble viburnum and would coordinate nicely with our florist-provided bouquets.



i wouldn't necessarily expect to transport my own hydrangeas, but use my mothers, although she says they're not doing anything yet. rose fertilizer perhaps?

oregano

mother of the bride shoes

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.

dill; happy 4th of july

just how private do they keep your information

i so badly want these nesting lotus bowls. the first one is from gumps at $95 for 8. the second is handmade with love by whitney smith at etsy. she even makes them in white!. my only problem is, the only way i could feasibly register for everything i want online is to go through myregistry.com and i don't know how to really decode their privacy policy (i realize you can register with etsy). i know there are a lot of smart readers out there, so maybe you can tell me if by using them i'm going to enter married life with 12 telemarketer calls a day and 6 credit card pre-approvals every week (i did the "opt out" thing last year and the junk mail with my personal info has been pretty minimal since then).



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i've heard that when you sign up for "free things" that if you put the words "please do not sell or disclose my information" near your name, they won't. so i signed up for an american express card at costco last year, and put that statement below my name. 3 months later i got a gardening catalogue that bore the following address on the front:

miss Firstname L.
please do not sell or disclose my information
12345 my street
seattle, washington
98001

that statement was there on my address like it was the name of my business! so somehow, by omitting my last name (for real they just used the first letter of it), they respected my wishes? so perhaps your information isn't necessarily more safe with a reputable department store. but then again, they actually profit from your registry, whereas an online registry-keep-tracker would have to soley rely on renting adspace....

and for some more whitney smith love: cake stands and cupcake stands!

hello zappos!

thank you zappos for 365 day returns, free shipping, free return shipping, and for overnighting my order without me even expecting it. the ups guy carried a huge box to my doorstep and said, "that's a lot of shoes!"


i don't know what came over me to buy so many patent leather shoes, but all i can say is these two are so soffffft!




ewww, toe cleavage! when did toe cleavage become cool? i feel like 8 out of 10 pairs of shoes i try on at the mall have some serious toe cleavage going on (i'm a size six so all the samples on the sales floor are made just for me and allow me to try on dozens of shoes without pestering a sales person).



these shoes have perhaps the most perfect heel i've ever tried on. the surface-to-floor-contact ratio is perfect, there's no wobbly balance problems, and it's still cute and not chunky.


black and white seemed like the perfect option, but how few options there turned out to be. ew again with the toe cleavage, not to mention that it's hard to keep the shoe on because there's so little shoe covering my toes.











white! i only bought one pair of white shoes for some reason, and although i was leaning toward a real punchy color like red, everything was pretty much black or some variation thereof.


the shoe bends in around the ankle area to help keep them from slipping off. if i could find some grosgrain ribbon to match the detail on the shoes, they'd be nice to tie around the bouquets.


hello nude! they looked to be a soft pink online. perhaps this is the only use of toe cleavage that i approve of, because it compliments the eyelet-y parts of the shoes.



mmm mary janes! most of the shoes i bought ranged from fifty to ninety dollars, which is surprisingly decent considering a lot of them were super comfortable and the run of the mill blistery shoes you buy at aldo can usually run well over one hundred bucks. enter the brand "gentle souls." very similar to the sofft, but with super cushions around the balls of your feet. why can't all shoes have those? they actually ran about $240, but i ordered them to try out because if they ended up working out, i could wear them again and again and again. a comfortable, wearable pump to me is pretty priceless. i've bought at least 4 pairs of $80+ heels that i never wear because they're too painful.








these are character shoes straight from my local dance shop. they've got that mary jane look written all over them, but they're made for character dance pieces; with the leather soles they're probably great for ballroom dancing too.


i bought them because i've never had a pair of comfortable pumps, and i'm hoping i can bring them to my local cobbler to add more road-worthy soles so i can wear them for everyday wear.




on a completely different note: keds! i bought these just for my personal use, but i threw them on with the bridesmaid dress, and from far away they look decently complimentary. we're all familiar with the eleanor keds featuring owls, giraffes, camels and what have you, but little horses?! i've never seen these before.




so then my mind got ticking. the mister has this favorite pair of adidas shoes: rod lavers. even his best man owns a pair. and one of the groomsmen's dads apparently collects them. when he and i first started dating, he took a month trip to malaysia, only to have his shoes stolen from right outside his doorstep. his very favorite shoes. and they were a few seasons old and not available any more. so i covertly asked for his shoe size, and for some reason, i don't know, to impress me (?) he told me he was a size 11. so i scouted out the shoes on ebay and went through the pain of ordering an online item as a canadian (eww customs, duties, and extra shipping charges). turns out he wasn't a size 11, so to this day i still have those shoes in a box in the closet.


i've seen chucks/coverse runners done at many a wedding, and perhaps they're a little high school prom, but rod lavers would be so much more appropriate considering all the boys' ties to them. and they'd make great groomsmen gifts. so we'll see.


these were decent, but i could anticipate it really rubbing this circled area and making for an unhappy evening.


and now for my top pick, these! my mind has been torn in many different directions in many different areas of wedding planning, but i always come back to what i'd originally wanted in every case. hello ankle strap flats. they've got a nice sheen without being too shiny. and it's bonus-good because a) one of my bridesmaids is already taller than me without any shoes b) said bridesmaid twisted her ankle really badly the last time i was with her and probably wouldn't fare well and any height of heel.
my one drawback was that the inside was pretty darn shiny and would make for some sweaty times. but! hello little sock things to save the day! 3 for $15 at nordstrom, the cotton ones feature a little silicone-ish thing at the back that keeps them from slipping off your foot, which i'm told is a big problem with these itsy bitsy socks.