Finalizing & Fun

I went home this past weekend to do all the finalizing of the wedding details. I got my trial wedding day make-up done as well as my hair (which were both AMAZING!), went and had lunch with my sister and mom at our caterer’s café and got to talk about cake design as well. I also picked out the linens and tables; if you remember from before my mother and I were butting heads about me wanting family style seating and her and my dad wanting round tables. Well when we finally went to the rental place and saw the tables and looked at pictures (which I have been emailing her btw) she was like “oh sweetie your right that looks so nice”. I WIN! Huge weight to be lifted I must say. Then we both agreed that my centerpiece idea was complicated and we needed to simplify which is why we are now doing simple easy hydrangeas! I have always loved them and thought about doing that in the beginning but then like many things my ideas and thoughts went overboard and complicated. I finally feel relaxed and grounded and not stressed in the least about how everything will turn out because everything has just started falling into place and it is oh so lovely! There were a few surprises while I was home. Thanks to my AMAZING MOH and bridesmaids of course; they through me a surprise bachelorette party on Friday! And yes it was really a surprise; I mean I was in shock for at least 30 mins, to the point where I was sitting on the party bus just staring at everyone lol. They told me I looked terrified and I said I was! HAHA! Honestly though I could not imagine a better bach party, even if we had gone to Vegas. This was so perfect and oh did I mention how they got me the HOTTEST STRIPER EVERRRRR! Hahahaha to all you girls who detest male strippers, I, myself am not a fan but this guy ….. Oh man was he SO sexy and super nice, like not creepy in the least. It’s funny too because I guess when my MOH was picking the guy you had 3 options: Black, White, Mystery Man … and she picked Mystery Man! Hahahaha! Such a super good time I will never forget, and yes I remember the entire night. Then on Sunday they tried to throw me a surprise Bridal Shower but I figured it ALL out and when I walked through the door I yelled “SURPRISE!” hahaha too funny. Nellie, my MOH, made home made cookies and baked brie and then my sister Amanda cooked all this amazing food like sliders and chicken with a Thai peanut curry sauce, and then they got wings from my fav wing joint. I was amazing. Oh and did I mention my MOH also made sangria … Yeh not store bought but actually made it …. Ridiculous! Everything was so great and I am so grateful to have such amazing women in my life to do this for me AND get me amazing gifts! Seriously I am the luckiest bride. You should SEE the custom garter belt (and throw away) they got me not to mention ALL the beautiful kitchen stuff and some good stuff for the honeymoon ;-)

The Suit-uation

So we FINALLY got the suits for Patrick and his groomsmen! It was touch and go there for a while and the dream of having the guys why a suit even flat lined but thanks to the Assistant Manager at the Jos. A. Banks in Highland Park, TX our dream was brought back from the dead! Now as everyone knows that if you died but were brought back you are never quite the same … something changes …. For us I believe the change was fate. I won’t reveal it quite yet but soon. Let me just tell you what happened. We have been looking for MONTHS for not just the perfect 3-piece suit, but one that is affordable. Patrick promise this would be no problem as suits are not in as high demand as they once were since most work places these days are business casual. Well we found this amazing gray (PERFECT gray might I add … that stone gray color) suit at Macy’s. The Alfani Red Slim Fit. Now it wasn’t a 3-piece, in fact it was a suit separate and I did know a vest existed because I had seen it. We Patrick kept putting it off even after he bought the suit for an interview and for the AMAZING price of $220 and this included a shirt and tie …. No vest though. BUT after the interview he went and returned everything! He said there would be another sale and not to worry. Well there were other sales but never as good so we kept waiting. Finally 2 weeks ago I went on a mission to Macy’s. I was determined to talk to a manager and see if they could cut us a deal because we would be buying 6 suits from them. As I walked into the suit department I decided to stroll by the suit just to see what sale was being offered at the moment. Low and behold, hanging on a rack to the side of the suit was a matching vest! Seriously this MUST be fate. So I grabbed the suit AND vest and walked over to the salesman and said “I am getting married in May and the groom and groomsmen are going to buy this suit BUT I have only seen one of these vest can they just order it through the store since it is not sold online either? This was my first mistake because first off I should have talked to the manager. The salesman did not seem to be the most knowledgeable guy … for a couple reasons.

1. The guy said it would be easier is the men ordered them as a 3-piece suit ….. They are suit separates which means they do not come as a package deal. I had to argue this point with him until he dragged me over to the rack and saw that the suit was in fact NOT a 3-piece suit but in fact suit SEPRATES!


2. When we tried to look up more of the vests they are only carried in California … typical. I asked if when the guys ordered their suits couldn’t the store just call California and have the vest sent to their store. The salesman said no that I would have to call every Macy’s in Cali to see which ones carried the sizes we needed and have them ship it to us. This I know not to be true because I have had Macy’s call around for me on a number of occasions. I let it go and took the list of store regardless be tired of telling this man what was what.


3. I asked if because it was for a wedding and we would be ordering so many suits at once would we get a discount. He said, “No Macy’s does not do that.” Exhausted by this man I left.

After Macy’s I talked to Patrick about the vests and the suits. The sale was just for the jacket and pants and it wasn’t very good. It would have been $220 then the vest was $75 and we would still need the shirt and tie, which would probably be another $50. We just could not ask the guys to spend $350 on a suit for a wedding … and that is before tax!

We were defeated and reluctantly unplugged our dream from life support and make the choice to rent the gray tuxes. So last weekend we went to Jos. A. Banks to register for the tuxes. I chose them instead of David’s Bridal because they had gray/silver vests that were not as metallic and shiny as DB’s were. So we sat and gave all our wedding info and the names of the groomsmen and when it came time for the vests I asked because I just had to, “You don’t happen to have the vests that matched the tux do you? I just really hate colored vests and the shiny ones so I want the vest to match as closely as possible.” The guy sat back in the chair and was like “Have you guys ever thought about buying a suit instead of renting?” Patrick and I both looked at each other and said in unison “Yes.” It was a very defeated yes lol. So I than explain to the nice gentleman our ordeal and how it just didn’t work out and would cost to much. So as much as we would love to we could not ask that of our groomsmen. The salesman looks at us and says “Listen I’m the Assistant Manager and we offer discounts all the time for bridal parties on suits, let me just show you some 3-piece suits and see what I can do.” So Patrick and I agree thinking what the hell why not.

They didn’t have any of the 3-piece suits in store but he went on line and pulled up their “Joseph” line of suits. As we looked we found that they didn’t have any true gray 3-piece suits. They had a tan gray and an olive gray but we didn’t care for either. The guy suggested another color that we agreed on (actually I jumped on the color cause I LOVED it) but you don’t get to find out quite yet what it is. All I can say is that something about the suit was a risk and we were a little nervous about how it would look in a wedding setting. Then came the tedious numbers work. We sat as he entered all 6 suits (which were $989 each), we picked a shirt ($60 each) and I found a tie that was beyond perfect ($89 each … yes I know I did not know the price when I saw).Than he started working his magic; He made the suits $199 each! The shirts he made clearance and so were knocked down to $19.99 each. THAN he took that $89 tie, he put on clearance, halved it than made it buy one get one free … each guy will pay $7.50 for that $89 tie! And the best part …. I know you are asking how much better can this get, right? Well Patrick gets his entire outfit for FREE!!! Seriously that men single handedly saved our wedding lol that’s a little dramatic I know BUT that’s how it felt. So yesterday we got the call that the suit was in so after work we went to Jos. A. Banks and Patrick got to try on the suit and see if in fact this is what we wanted.

Time for the big reveal!

So what do y'all think?! I am so thrilled with the way it looked and freaking stolked about the suits being NAVY! If you remeber back in my post "Gray is the new Black" I has said I originally really wanted navy but was shot down. Some times fate works in mysterious ways :-) Also notice the slight pin stripe ... do you guys approve?