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And for the love of Linden, The Swirly Squirrel

I found my shoes!

First, here are my Ariel shoes from Disney that I wore today. Garrett saw these on his last trip there in October and wanted to get them but was afraid they wouldn't fit. I figured there was no way. But apparently I am cinderella and the shoes fit! I am an XL footed princess apparently.




If you've been following my blog at all you'll know that I've been looking for yellow shoes to wear for my wedding for about 5 months now. I missed some opportunities on some vintage shoes on etsy (though I was nervous about whether they'd fit once I got them in anyway) and I had pretty regularly browsed ebay (which I'm not crazy about), zappos, jcrew, and typed in "vintage yellow heels" enough to cause callouses.

I took a trip to Belk's because I wanted to be able to try the shoes on before I ended up stuck with five pairs I'd bought online. I only found one pair that fit my criteria, they were kate spade and looked remarkably similar to my mary janes that I bought from mudd a few years ago for maybe $30. This made them not quite worth the $325 price tag. They didn't strike me as sexy or all that interesting. Just cute.

I hadn't looked online in a while so last week I took a quick glance through zappos and found this shoe:

The color looked perfect and the height was good (I'm 5'2.5" and I knew I'd want some height). I immediately called my mom and said I thought I'd found the shoe. The pressure was on because my first dress fitting is May 27th and the woman that does alterations for the dress shop said it would be all for naught if I didn't have my shoes by then. I ask my mom to go ahead and buy them and she puts them in her cart only to find that they are sold out! I didn't even consider that a possibility. But every size of the lemon color was gone.

I engaged in an online chat with a zappos customer service person (very nice and I liked not picking up the phone) and he put me on a mailing list in case it became available. As a master of twitter I posted about my strife. Apparently Zappos searches for zappos references in other twitters, because before long I had a message that asked what size I was looking for. I said 7.5 or 8. They also asked what style I was looking for. A day or two later I had another 'tweet' that said there was one 7.5 that I could order. So I did, immediately! They sent me a link to a few other pairs that might fit my criteria in case those didn't work out. And, they upgraded my shipping to next day for free!

The story doesn't end there. I also received an email that size 8 was in stock (just 1 left!) so I ordered it as well. The great thing about zappos is free shipping both ways and you can return an unworn pair up to 365 days from the purchase date. So I knew if they didn't work I wasn't stuck.

Oh but they do work! The size 8s are perfect (a little tight in the toes but I'm pretty confident that wearing them in the house everyday will make up for that and if not my mom says shoe repair people can add a half size to a well made pair of shoes). I was not so sure about the peep toe but it is a tiny peep and I think it works well!

So here they are in real life:

Silhouette me!

I cannot tell you how pleased I am that Garrett and I finally have silhouettes after the months I'd seen them all over every wedding blog. While I don't think we'll be fully on board with a silhouette themed wedding, I think I would like to display them at our reception.

How we obtained such wonders of modern science:


Garrett and I went with his family (including cute little cousins) to Disney World where they have stands set up with artists that hand scissor silhouettes! The cost? $8 per person, $8 for a frame (optional) and you automatically get 2 copies of the print (they cut two sheets at a time so that the other copy is opposite.



Worth it? Yes! I love it! I asked our artist, Anthony, how he was trained and Disney takes them in as artists and trains them in different skills, so he can do caricatures and other mediums but prefers the quickness of the silhouette. And it is quick, something like 3 minutes for each of us. If I thought we could afford it I would hire a silhouette artist for our reception. But I suppose our fabric "photobooth" will be just as fun.

I know I've been a bad blogger!

via rocknrollbride

I've been so busy lately with the launch of my photography website, A Bryan Photo's workshop, shoots, editing, and then Disney World! I really want to post about everything but you'll need to give me some time to catch up, I've been on the go and have a personal to-do list a mile long!

For now, I know Linden's opinion of this, but how do you feel about Disney obsessed brides? I hadn't been to Disney since I was in 7th grade and I didn't feel like it was lame, I just figured it couldn't be that much fun after the age of 12. I really loved it though. We were there with Garrett's parents and uncle and his family, which included a 3 1/2 year old, Warren, and his 8 mo. old brother, Samuel. Warren went around saying "Happy Mickey!" the first day like someone would say happy birthday. He loved the Donald Duck mouth whistle Garrett and I bought and went around making loud duck whistles at strangers. He asked every adult in sight what their name was. It was awesome.

But besides that, Disney World is a really happy place. We had a meal where the waiter threw straws at us, brought garrett a coke in a 64 oz. mason jar (which we nearly made ourselves sick trying to finish before he got back to the table so he'd be impressed), had the entire restaurant bring us ketchup bottles when we asked for ketchup, and Warren got to ride around the restaurant on a stick horse. Most of the people seemed happy to work at Disney, and I even got excited when we would see a character.


image from bredenbecks.com

As much as I love Disney, I could only see me incorporating it into my wedding in a subtle way. Garrett and I really love Alice in Wonderland but I won't go so far as a topsy turvy cake (even if it's white) or crazy colored anything.

I really loved The Little Mermaid when I was little (matching pink shirt with ariel, printed shorts, and printed jellies...ariel cake topper at one of my birthdays), and to be honest if the Disney inspired Bridal gown for Ariel was what I wanted in a gown I would've probably have considered it. I actually do like the new one for Giselle:

images from Kirstie Kelly

My main issue with the dresses is that they seem to be just vaguely inspired by the princesses and are too normal. Maybe because dressmakers have been making cinderella dresses this whole time, because brides want to be princesses.

All that being said, I'm for subtlety in themes. I will have a little bit of vintage, a little bit of Alice, a little art deco, but you won't go to my wedding thinking you should've come in costume. At Disney World I preferred subtle mickeys (the classic mickey head shape was featured in a pretty floral design in the shower curtain at our hotel and made it's way into the southwestern tapestry pattern on the floor) to a shirt that said Disney world. Garrett and I liked the Tower of Terror gear that just had the hotel's emblem on it.


image source

How do you feel about incorporating your obsessions into your wedding? And what if your fiance doesn't share your enthusiasm?