Here are some pictures of the other dresses I tried on! In my next post I'll throw in a "before" photo so you can see the difference!

And here are some of my "befores" so you can see my progress.

Wow! Way to go! I'm glad to hear things are improving for you! We've had a lot of chaos on my end, too, and it's so wonderful when things finally start to go according to plan. Love the dress!!!

I discovered today that Real Simple has a wedding checklist on their website. I'll have to check it out and see if it's a good recommendation to pass along...

I go to the dentist tomorrow to address my stupidity. Who knew coffee would stain my freshly bleached teeth so badly that I would look like the poster child for preventive dentistry? Yeah... I'm an addict!

Yikes, all the more reason for me to go on living with my less that snow white teeth! I couldn't go without coffee long enough for the whitening to hold! :lol:

rakel - Your dress looks great, and you've made some awesome progress! Glad things are looking up for you.

Thanks everybody! Things are starting to come together. I'm leaving for the Orlando mall in an hour or so to pick up my bra for the dress and maybe pick out a sexy lingerie set :D. I have a coupon that takes $25 off a purchase of $75 or more and the bra for my dress is only $55, so why not? :P

I think I'm going to do the photoshop teeth whitening method ;).

Well the date is set June 21, Our band is avaliable the venue is avaliable , the cake is planned a firend that makes cakes is doing it for free along with a lot of the food.l Just need to get to finding a dress LOL

Great! You're a June bride! How does it feel?

I found my dress at Ann Taylor. They could get it to me in 5-7 business days so I had time to get a few pounds off before the big day ;)

The teeth whitening thing isn't so bad. I had Zoom whitening done and my teeth were very, very sensitive but I survived- caffeine addiction undisturbed with a little Water Joe! This time, I had them do microabrasion on my front teeth to remove some white marks from a bad fever I had as a child. It didn't work, but the grinding made my teeth more susceptible to stains... unbeknownst to me! All is now well and I have a new whitening kit to try. Ah, the pains of being beautiful!

I'm getting married December 13th, 2008. :)

Will write more later about my accomplishments, trials, and etc. but I'm at work! I just wanted to peek in and join the bunch :D

I just got engaged on NYE, and am getting married Feb 14, 2009, so I'm just starting to delve into the chaos that is wedding planning. I realized I really want to kick my weight loss into high gear, because I don't want to regret my wedding pictures for the rest of my life like I do my high school graduation pictures.

Alrighty, so I'm back :)

I'm 30 lbs lighter than I was in November, which is when we got engaged. I'm hoping for another 60-70lbs in total. I'm taking it slowly but seriously. As long as I'm at least 40lbs lighter by december I will be happy. That is REALLY attainable.

I have our bouquets made, I made them by hand out of silk flowers. Everyone expressed interest in keeping their bouquets, and I wanted to make them. I have them air sealed in a dark closet so they retain their beauty until the big day!

My dress is picked out, and I have an idea for my bridesmaids, but I'm letting them pick out their own (all will be the same, but I want them all to feel comfortable) I have bridesmaids ranging from 250+ lbs and 100lbs.. so I want them all to decide on one dress that they all feel good about themselves in. I've chosen the color and length, and they can do the rest ;)

We are going next month to try on and buy our dresses. My is being paid for by my grandparents.

Location is secure. My cousin owns a 2 story log cabin with a private beach on Lake Weir.. it's beautiful! It's set up on a really big hill overlooking the lake. Huge fireplace downstairs, smaller fireplace in the upstairs suite (upstairs is only the master suite and a bathroom), private balcony on the upstairs suite, huge back patio overlooking the cascading staircase that leads to the beach. Half way down the stairs there is a built in gazebo with fans, TVs, grill, fridge, table, chairs... and the whole place is wired for surround sound (even down at the beach) so music is easy.

He is a lawyer, so he's loaded and this is his "vacation house" and we snagged it for the wedding, reception, after party, and our whole week honeymoon all for free!!

I already have my engagement ring. And he's picked out his. I need to get the bands.. probably closer to the wedding, I don't want to lose them!

I have a local part time photog who works days with my grandfather painting houses, and he said he'd give me a really good deal.

My cake is picked out, and being paid for by my grandparents.

.....

I sound like a spoiled brat! In reality we were paying for everything, but they stepped in for my birthday and gave me gift certificates for my dress and cake. And my cousin is just really loaded and really generous :)

I don't think I have enough posts to post pictures but I will once I can!

oh, I forgot the best part! the lake house has a huge hot tub on the back patio overlooking the lake! beautiful sunsets!

and in december I'll be LIVING in the hot tub since swimming in the lake will probably be out of the question ;)

cant find a picture that i can save of my dress, but here is a link:
http://davidsbridal.com/bridal_gowns...7&prodgroup=10

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/nicolby/ring.jpg
that is my ring. it is way prettier in person! It's really sparkley :)

We just went to a wedding where we stayed at a Lake House with a hot tub. (We=wedding party.)

Since everyone else is showing off their rings, here's mine!

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2161/...0067ee6b_m.jpg

twirl: aw, too bad I'm not original! but my place is stilld beautiful, even if it's not original! and your ring is pretty. is it a marquis cut? the angle makes it look like a marquis... sorry if I'm wrong!

mine is 9 princess cut diamonds in the main angular square, and 2 circle cut diamonds on each side.

I believe it is a marquis... I'm not terribly knowledgeable about jewelry, to be honest.

I really liked the whole "rent a vacation house for the wedding party" deal. It was nice not to have to get in touch with 30 different people in 30 different places, and to have a place to all come back to and hang out together afterward and help each other get up and ready the morning of.

A vacation house is a neat idea, if we had to pay to rent out someplace for the wedding I think we would have done that -- on the beach somewhere, because I think it would have actually been cheaper and then like you guys are saying, you can have it for the honeymoon. We're getting married in our church and having the reception there as well. It's a small church but we aren't expecting a lot of people anyway. For the reception, I'm thinking about just doing o'dourves, since the wedding is at 3pm and the reception immediately proceeding, so it's in an "in between" eating period -- too late for lunch and too early for dinner. Plus it's less expensive and that's right in our budget.

We're counting on getting a lot of help from people we know too. I'm also trading with people to get some things I need for the wedding, which is nice. I'm making a website for a photographer and a printer (who is printing my invitations, programs, etc). One older gentleman in our church is a professional cake decorator/baker, so tonight if he's there, I'd like to ask him how much he'd charge to make a cake for us -- my pastor seems to think he'd make it for the cost of ingredients, but I don't want to assume that. There's also a man who has his own very successful business who often lets people stay in his cabin up in the mountains of Tennessee (I think, either that or Kentucky) that is REALLY nice. Our Pastor seems to think he'd let us use it too, but we have to ask him and we haven't yet. It's getting down to the wire though, so I'm going to see if we can ask tonight.

I wasn't planning on having a bridal shower, but my to-be sister in law things that I really should have one. The thing is, that I just don't know that many women down here. I moved here about 2.5 years ago, and most of the time I have been working at home, or in a business with my fiance's brother where there weren't a lot of employees. My fiance has lived here all his life, but he doesn't hang out with a lot of girls. Some of his friends have girl friends, so I'm trying to get to know them better but I'm pretty shy. I feel a little embarrassed inviting some of these girls to my bridal shower because we're really not close and it kind of makes me feel like a loser. I know I shouldn't feel that way, but I guess I get a little down that I don't really have many close friends down here. I've always had a hard time making really good friends, because it takes me awhile to warm up to people.

Nicolby --

I'm planning on making my own silk bouquets myself, I found some sites with silk flowers, but I was wondering where you got yours and what you think about the quality? I'm looking to purchase from save-on-crafts.com. I'm planning on making all of the boutonnieres and corsages with silk flowers too -- maybe even the decorations to go on the tables at the reception.

You should be able to lose at least 40lbs in 10/11 months -- it's good to not set your goal's too high at an emotional level. It's more realistic to do that because things happen and you aren't going to be perfect. I thought I'd be around 240 by now, but I'm still in the 270's. I think in the end it's going to work better for me, because I'm learning about maintaining as I'm losing weight, instead of losing all the weight and then trying to tame the beast to stay the same.

Aaah! You're posting rings and mine is at the jeweler being resized. I have been gasping as I look at my bare hand all day, thinking I've lost it. I've only been clutching my hand for a few months now...

We did it! No more Euro to dollar exchange rate debates... we booked our flights to Paris for our two-week honeymoon! Hooray! (I'm sure the fact that I agreed to a few days in London for a premier league soccer game had nothing to do with my fiance's sudden agreement!)

Tommorrow night is the big wedding band discussion with the jeweler. Of course, gold and platinum would be at an all-time high right now... guess mine will just have to have more diamonds ;) See? I'm willing to take one for the team!

rakel,

I bought my silk flowers from Michaels craft store (michaels.com, I believe) here in my town. The quality is wonderful, and the colors are very vibrant. I'm making our boutonniers (sp?) as well, and probably some sort of centerpiece arrangement for our tables. I agree about my goal, I have enough stress regarding the wedding, I want a realistic goal that I can accomplish, not set myself up for failure right before my wedding!

:P

Hi! I was just doing some wedding planning yesterday and today! Woo! I'm living in Kentucky, but getting married in Massachusetts. The date is June 6th, 2008 (it's creeping up!) and will be just outside of Boston. I'm finding it extremely difficult to plan a wedding from 1000 miles away because I always feel as though I'm missing out on something. But luckily I have a wedding planner back in MA, so it's basically all being taken care of.

You're all posting such pretty pictures! I must post some too!

Here's my engagement ring:
http://s3.photobucket.com/albums/y72...cows2/ring.jpg

And here's my dress (it's back in MA, so I can't take a picture of me in it, sorry):
http://s3.photobucket.com/albums/y72...ows2/dress.jpg

nicolby -- hmm, when I went to Michaels they were all dusty. Did you have to wash them or anything?

Leanmoomercows- welcome! Gorgeous dress! Mine is very similar- I have the Ann Taylor Elizabeth dress with the champagne sash.

I still miss my ring :( It's a 1.25 ct solitaire in a platinum setting and the wedding ring will be a channel set eternity band (just picked it out tonight!). Platinum prices just hit an all-time high today so it was actually less to buy the platinum eternity band they had in the store than order the plain platinum band I wanted. Hello, bling! Something about this wedding had to work out in my favor!

How's everyone's planning?

Lafayette: Thank you, I love my dress too! It's lace all over, I don't know if you can tell from the picture. So it's very light-weight, which is perfect for a June wedding (though it is in New England, the chances are just as good that it'll snow! :dizzy:)

I actually picked out my wedding band yesterday! Every store we looked in mentioned that the price of gold was going up dramatically as well as platinum, so if we wanted to buy, we should soon! We were planning on buying them sometime in the next few weeks anyway, so we just went ahead and bought them right then and there! Though mine needs to be re-sized because my ring size is 3.5, and the one I picked was a 7 (like you said Lafayette...I also chose the one they had in store because it was less expensive then a special order because of gold prices skyrocketing). I suppose it was just good timing. The one that I got is a band with diamonds that sits flush next to my ring; it's from the same place as my engagement ring, so it's made for it. :D

Also, am I the only one who decided to have a Friday night wedding? We looked around at many different event spaces and decided to go for the much nicer (and obviously more expensive) place, but knocked it down to a Friday because the prices actually equaled out. Am I alone on this?

What city in MA?

Twirlandswirl: I'm originally from Abington, MA which is just about 10 minutes South of Boston and I'm getting married at Lombardo's in Randolph, MA. Are you from MA as well? Or are you getting married in MA?

Just wanted to pop in and say "hi" to our newcomers! :wave: Your dress and rings are so beautiful. nicolby, your lcoation sounds great. It's awesome that your family is being so genreous and helpful!

We finally booked our officiant. He's a judge, says he's been doing weddings since 1984, seems like a very pleasant, agreeable and easy to work with individual. He has a standard ceremony that he performs, but he is also open to letting us write out own ceremony/vows, include whatever readings or music we'd like. I got a bunch of books from the library about preparing the ceremony, and there are so many options! I'm looking forward to creating something short and sweet, but nice and personalized. Our goal is to have the ceremony be 30 min or less.

We want to include each of our parents in doing a reading, but we'd like to pick the readings. DF's dad would really like to read the Ana BeKoach and make a copy (bound in a nice cover) for each guest. We're going to say no, but I'll leave that to my DF. ;) Just hope he doesn't take it personally. It would just be weird to have this kabalistic prayer thrown in there when we want to keep the service very secular. We're having a few visual, symbolic traditions borrowed from the Jewish faith, but they are ones I can connect to a larger humanistic context and like the idea of them. Other than that we'd kind of like to keep religion out of it for a number of reason.

Shan- we are also trying to avoid being too religious and making guests of other faiths uncomfortable. I don't want my wedding to look like it was outfitted at a Christian bookstore just because our families are Catholic. We did go with the Catholic wedding Mass, which covers the religious portion of the programming. I think of it as the separation of Church and reception ;) I wish you luck- this is always a tricky area!

Lean- I did see the lace- the lines are very similar between our two dresses, though. I love yours! Lace makes me look like a chubby dwarf for some reason.

Sorry for the wait... my mom is from Danvers and I spent every summer there growing up!

Wedding plans are coming along, I got my invitations sent out yesterday... they are beautiful! I am so pleased with how they turned out, really! I also just ordered all of my silk flowers, and I can't wait to start making all of my arrangements!

rakel - Your invites are beautiful! You designed them yourself, no?

I did! I had a friend print them up for me -- silkscreen actually. I'm doing a lot of things myself -- everything but the photography and catering ;). I made up my bridesmaids bouquets tonight (sans ribbon and other finishing touches that I need to purchase tomorrow)... (see picture attached). I'm actually having a lot of fun with these! I made my hair comb too... no photo of that yet though. I'll get one soon!

Rakel- I love peonies! Gorgeous! The "in body/in spirit" response is darling!

Well, just a little over six weeks to go and I'll officially be a Mrs. So far, so calm. We receive response cards daily. I wish we had them all so I could get the seating chart made and the placecards printed. Then I'd be done!

Oh, and I have an offer on the table to start a great new job, so I may be adding "new job" to my list of excitements! I am human Prozac... aaah!

Okay, so get this.

THE CHURCH CANCELED MY DATE!

We had to reschedule.

Holy crap, they can do that?!

Our invites have been sent out for proofs, we're looking to have those out by mid-March. This thing is coming so much faster the closer it gets to the date! I have way too much going on with work (planning events) for the next month or so, but things should slow down a little after that so I can focus more on my own event!

Apparently... we're now getting married February 7, 2009. I'm trying to look at it as getting to marry my love a week early... but it's hard.

Ah, Twirly!  I hope all goes well for you!  Our priest (and good friend of my family) had a quadruple bypass this past Friday!  I'm not sure what concerns me more: his health or the fact that he still insists on performing the ceremony.  Aaaah!
I have to pass along a FIND:  Merry Modes, Inc. in NJ makes a slip/strapless bra that is perfect for my dress.  Style 9600 is keeping everything where it belongs on the day of my wedding!  What a reflief, since the diet has been more or less chucked out the window!

Yikes! I hope he is ok.

Just got my proofs on my invitations in (they look great!) and finalized the guest list. Seems like we're checking things off left and right these days.

I am a little nervous about the undergarment situation with my dress. (I posted pix here). The back is too low to allow for any sort of real bra so the plan is to sew cups into the dress. Hopefully it will be enough to hold everything in place! I've heard mixed reviews about Spanx undergarments, anyone here tried them? I need something that won't show seams through the dress but would also like something to smooth the tummy and thighs. My dress should be here within the next month, I can't believe the wedding is in only 3 months!

Good afternoon ladies!

I'm getting married on June 1, 2008. It will be the 17th anniversary of our first date. We have a 15 year old daughter that will be giving her father away during the ceremony. Our official has something else on the burner with her as well, but they won't tell us what!

I've lost 10.5lbs since starting back on my plan (Jan 7/08) and am hoping for about 15 more before the wedding...that's three months and should be doable.

I'll just give a quick run down of what I've got done to date:

Colours: (Navy, White & Silver)
Wedding Gown: Picked it up last weekend, have to take it to a seamstress as I'm having the panel in the back (under the corset) changed from a white panel to Navy Blue.
Bridesmaid Dresses: Got em! Alfred Angelo #6310 in Navy
Venue: Done!
Reception Food/Wine: Done!
DJ: Done!
Official: Done!
Invitations: Should be delivered this week. Bought send and seals to make things easy.
Guest List: Pretty much done...still working on the "b" list
Vows: Haven't even started
Wedding Bands: Harven't even looked
Flowers: Have a consultation this Friday
Wedding Consultant: She's a friend and my saving grace so far!
Ceremony: We're getting there...venue is booked just working on details
Rehearsal: Booked
Photographer: Booked and we've already done our engagement photos...one is my Avatar
Decor: Working on it

If anyone is interested you can check out our website: www.tamarawedsjason08.com

Looking forward to hearing ideas, exchanging photos and so on.

Cheers,
Tamara

Morning Ladies, :)
My name is Michele and I'm getting married on October 25, 2008 :) we wanted to get married on halloween, but it landed on a Friday :( we have started to get things in order, guest list and such. im going to be doing all of the wedding favors and decorations. our colors are black, red & silver. so.. i need to actually lose like 20 to 30 lbs by the middle of may early june for my first dress fitting. my future hubby is trying to lose as well., but he has way more time than me:devil:. so im here for diet support and wedding support cuz im gonna need both :hug::) i look forward to reading all your past post and getting to know u all. thanks!