First things first - wedding attire

I thought that since I'm not super-busy at this moment in time, I could do something perhaps useful to society by taking all of the stuff I've found and learned since I started planning my wedding in January of 2008. I hadn't really given my "ideal" wedding a thought before my fiance proposed early this year. But since, I have spent countless hours thinking/ planning/ collaborating with my many helpers (my friends and family members).

The first thing I did was choose bridal attire to set the overall theme, tone, and formality for the wedding. I choose this tactic because all of those things determine other very important elements such as the time of day and budget for the event, which play into pretty much every decision you will make about your wedding.

I spent pretty much all of February and March looking online at hundreds of wedding gowns and bridesmaids dresses. I got my Donna Ricco bridesmaids' dresses at Nordstrom - they're cocktail length, simple, elegant purple dresses. The best part is the color. The quality of the fabric isn't too high (it's a little itchy), but they really go with my vision of the color scheme. The maids will wear silver strappy shoes.

I choose 3 lovely bridesmaids, but the sad thing is that one of them is probably not going to make it to the wedding after all. So I will probably have my youngest brother, 22, sub as the "bridesman."