Sale Shopping? Wearing Color?

Dear ESB,

I'm not sure if there is a straight answer to these questions, but hopefully you and your fashion savvy readers can help:

Is there an ideal season in which to go dress shopping? I'm not getting married until Spring 2013, so I feel like I have a TON of time before I need to figure that out. However, it would be nice to save some money if there is a sale season on dresses. Does that even exist in wedding dress land? 

Also, I'm considering going with an untraditional skirt/top combo. Would shopping for those pieces out-of-season be my best bet on finding sales?

As for the untraditional: I'd like to add something colorful (a tropical print? a bright skirt?). Is there a fail-safe way of doing that without looking like a clown?? The attached examples are just to help me explain how I currently imagine incorporating color...

- An all-over light pink dress
- A white skirt and colored top
- A vibrant skirt and neutral top

Please let me know if this is a horrible idea so I can save myself the embarrassment and waste of time!

Thanks!
Clueless But Bright(ly Dressed)

*****

As my friend A put it, "To wear tropical prints without looking like a clown, one must first not give a fuck whether one resembles a clown while wearing tropical prints."

This wee bit of advice can be applied to ANYTHING, of course. Hangliding, buying lube at Rite Aid, approaching a group of enthusiastic young fellows at the Tiki Ti and asking them to recommend a cocktail.

To __________ without looking like a clown, one must first not give a fuck whether one resembles a clown while __________.



Anyhoo.

At top, a Pleated Flower-Print Skirt from Proenza Schouler. Perhaps to be worn with...

an Alexander McQueen Sheer Lace Blouse? Am I out of my mind??

Barneys, Bergdorf Goodman and net-a-porter are all having pretty decent sales at the moment. Go have a look-see.

couple lil going-to-the-courthouse dresses

Isabel Marant (Note: you need bigger boobs to wear this dress)

Proenza Schouler (pls be not so tall)

Headaches and Weddings

Hi there!

You might remember me from such comment threads as headache fun-time - let me just say that girl, I feel your pain. I cannot remember the last time I didn't have a headache. I've had every test imaginable (CAT scan, MRI, allergy panels, spinal taps, blood work, chiropractor, etc) and the best they can figure out is "you seem to get a lot of headaches." I can't find a specific trigger food, but I try to stay away from all the main ones as much as possible (cheese, nuts, chocolate, citrus, alcohol). Stress is probably my main trigger, seconded by lack of sleep or skipping meals. But, as you said, they're never not there. It's certainly hard to live with and explain to people...

On a different note, I've been reading your blog for about a year and a half now, and as you must know, it's a point of sanity in an otherwise crazy-pants wedding-planning world. I got engaged at the beginning of last December, and started to immediately feel overwhelmed/underfunded while looking at the typical wedding blogs. We live in NYC, where everything is beyond-expensive and I had no idea how I was going to throw (and pay for) a wedding that looked like a blog-post.

And then 28 days after we got engaged, I got the worst news of my life - my younger brother, 22, was in a car accident and didn't survive. Our family was devastated. I didn't know how to get out of bed anymore, let alone think about a wedding. I thought about postponing the wedding, but it became clear that everyone needed something good and hopeful to look forward to, so forward we went with the planning. 

Looking at venues, looking at dresses - all while dealing with an unimaginable loss. The weddings of the blog world didn't just seem unattainable now, they seemed to exist on a different planet. It was so comforting and useful to come to your site and see that real people had small weddings that were about being together with loved ones, not about how many mismatched doilies you could collect from various thrift stores to decorate your DIY dessert buffet.

So we got married last month, and it was small and beautiful and fun and even though I had been afraid for months that I would be too sad to get married without my little brother there, it was a day full of happiness and love.

All of this is to say the following:

1) thanks for doing what you do. It's funny, entertaining, and really helpful to a lot of people.
2) weddings happen in real life, which is complicated.
3) you can get married in nyc (brooklyn to be exact) without spending a fortune.

p.s. Our photographer was Daniel Benjamin

The venue was iCi, a beautiful, delicious, affordable little restaurant in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Their events coordinator, Catherine, was amazing. 

The gorgeous flowers were by Kea Morgan at Sweet & Flower

And you guys, it's The Proenza Schouler. Even more beautiful on a real live bee-yoo-tee-ful bride.

p.p.s. d'you think Melissa would be creeped out if I asked her if she maybe might want to get matching headache-exorcising tattoos?? she is my HEADACHE SISTER.

♥

I've got your wedding dress RIGHT HERE

Dear ESB,

My sweetie and I just got engaged and I'm over the moon with excitement. However, all it took was a few keystrokes and my excitement was challenged by the fact that there are hardly any wedding dresses with sleeves! We are thinking of having our wedding in the winter time (Chicago winter) and think that those little sleeves would come in handy for my Windy City nuptials. Help!

*****

I think this Proenza Schouler would be gorg on you.

Wait. Did you mean long sleeves?

(Via TeenAngster)