My bachelorette party attire arrived today. I know, I’m a total girl — any excuse to get a new outfit — but seriously, you only get to do this once. And you have permission to look ridiculous. How often can you say that?

Miss Bride tee from Inkbox Design Boutique. (The $48 price tag is a bit intimidating, but it’s worth it — the cotton tee is oh-so-soft and the printing is direct to fabric so you never have to worry about cracking.) Pettiskirt from Sterling & Pearls.

Let’s get one thing straight: I did not enjoy my wedding dress fitting process. I was not at all prepared for that to be the case. My wedding dress selection process was so lovely and pleasant that I think I expected the same to hold true for the fittings. And I haven’t heard much from other brides about their fittings, so I figured that it must be at worst uneventful and at best enjoyable.

Now, I fully expected the first fitting to be less than wonderful. My dress was ordered to my largest measurement, so it was a little more than three sizes too large in the waist, and I knew I wanted to remove the straps and belt/sash from the get-go. I walked out of the first fitting feeling like I still didn’t have a good sense of what my dress would actually look like on me when it fit but I was 100% confident that it would be fabulous.

Well, someone should warn you about second fittings. You’ve waited months for your dress, and now the seams are open and exposed and it still doesn’t fit and all of a sudden your brain kicks into overdrive. I always made fun of the girls on Say Yes to the Dress when they came in for their fittings and went on and on and on about how that wasn’t their dress and it wasn’t the same as the sample and the color/detailing/proportions/etc. were completely wrong. “They must’ve gotten my dress mixed up with someone else’s,” they would say. I now know that all those girls must just be there for their second fitting, because I was so there. I was so freaked out that I actually tried to go to Gabrielle’s and look at the sample the next day to see if it was different from my dress. And when I got there and they were closed, I called my seamstress and asked her to compare my dress to the sample the next time she was in the shop because I swore that the pleating was different. Seriously.

I ordered my dress when I was living in the San Francisco area last year, so I was hoping to have my dress altered and shipped to me in Portland after the second fitting. But I was way too traumatized after the second fitting to trust that everything would be right, so I decided to fly back down to the Bay for my third fitting. And let me just say that it was worth every penny — ultimately, it only cost me $50 more to fly down and back than to just have my dress shipped. I didn’t have to worry about my dress being rained on, tossed around, and stacked under hundreds of other boxes in shipment. My flight home was nearly empty, so my dress had its very own overhead bin. (Southwest will let you take your dress on board as a carry-on. They don’t have flight attendant closets like some larger airlines do, but if you carefully fold your dress in half, it fits nicely in an overhead.) And the dress had to be taken in again after my third fitting, so being there enabled me to have a fourth fitting to ensure that everything was as it should be.

Eight months, four fittings and two airports later, my dress is home and somehow looks even lovelier in my little pink bedroom than it did at the bridal shop. Not sure how that’s possible but it’s true.

It has been DIY central around here lately — well, really since Christmas, but I’ve made a big push this week, so there will be lots of little things popping up here over the next several days.

The first thing (after the save-the-dates) was the shoes. There’s a pair of shoes in a 2006 MSW that I’ve always loved (forgive the horrible scanned image):

The style, the pleating, the pearls! But I couldn’t find them anywhere, not even on eBay. And, in all honesty, the heel was too high to be practical for me. I’d really rather not be taller than Mr. R at our wedding. So I started looking for a peep toe d’Orsay pump with a low heel, and let me tell you, there isn’t much out there. d’Orsay = 3″+. Finally, I found this pair of dyeables on the always-trusty Zappos:

I ordered shoe dye from Steps to Memories, where they have over 100 different dye colors and will match a sample swatch if you want. I was really intimidated about dyeing my shoes, but my mom said she’d done it many times and would do it for me. We decided to do it together over Christmas, and I couldn’t believe how insanely easy it was. It was, by far, my easiest DIY project. The dye kit comes with this amazing little pom pom with a wire handle, and it makes the application process a breeze. Don’t use RIT dye or pay a cobbler to dye your shoes for you. Get one of these $9 kits and go for it. SO easy. Seriously.

I adjusted and attached the pearl brooches that JMG Jewelry made for me. The finished product:

They’re a bit more blue than I originally planned — they’re definitely brighter than most of the other blues I’m using — and look even more blue in this photo. But overall, I’m really pleased with how they turned out. All told, the price tag was around $120, mainly because of the Swarovski pearls.

All of my custom accessories are here now — hooray! They look so pretty sitting in my drawer together, I can’t wait to see them with the dress. I’m the queen of requesting custom items on Etsy, and items for the wedding were no exception. I love DIY, but I also love perfect, professional-quality pieces from independent designers, so I often default to those who are masters of their crafts.

The first thing was my clutch from Oktak; it arrived all the way back in June. I’d been coveting her clutches for many months, but by the time I got ready to order one, the one that I wanted wasn’t available anymore. Out of the goodness of her heart, she agreed to make one for me, and she even changed the ribbon color from the one pictured below to blue.

Around that same time, Rebecca was agonizing over veils, and I was becoming increasingly convinced that I didn’t want one at all… And I was looking at some flower pins on Etsy that I was thinking about putting on my shoes. (Very Carrie, wouldn’t you say?) But somewhere along the way, I found this hair flower and it was decided. Who needs a veil or faux-couture shoes when you can have a voluptuous feather flower?

Two problems with the flower. First, it was outrageously expensive. Second, and more importantly, I couldn’t find it anywhere. I gallivanted all over the Bay, visiting the retailers listed on their website, and out of the ones I visited, one shop was closed (like permanently — they weren’t even at the address anymore), another didn’t have the flower, and the last one had dreadful customer service so I’ll never know for certain whether they had it or not. They don’t have a single retailer in Oregon, so once I got back here in August, I was really out of luck. That is, until I found the spectacular Twigs & Honey. Everyone in the blogosphere has been talking about Myra’s work lately, and deservedly so. Best of all, she’s right here in Salem, within walking distance of my house — small world! You look far and wide for something, and then this ridiculously talented designer lives a few blocks from you. My flower arrived right before Christmas, and I was so excited, I promptly put it in my hair and started prancing around the house.

A few months ago, Mr. R offered to buy my wedding jewelry, and I just couldn’t say no. I picked out a couple of sets from Tigerlilly back in June, and I finally decided on one in the fall. It arrived a while ago, but the necklace was the wrong length, so we had to send it back. I just got it back last week, and it’s perfect. The earrings are so me, it’s ridiculous.

Have you ordered any of your wedding goodies from independent artists and designers?

Since the middle of October, I’ve been trying to make an extra-concerted effort to take good care of my skin. I have extremely dry, sensitive skin; just give it a sidelong glance that it doesn’t care for, and it breaks out and starts flaking and gets eczema, all in the same spot. I’ve been trying different skincare lines for awhile (Mary Kay, Estee Lauder, Murad, Dior, MAC skincare), and it’s exhausting because you have to give each one a sufficient trial period to see how your skin really responds. I hadn’t found anything I was really crazy about until I started using Clinique in October, and I’m now a huge Clinique devotee. They have all these “extra mild” products that are even more gentle than their normal “level 1″ skin treatments, and they’re fantastic. I use an Astara moisturizer in addition to the Clinique, and together, it’s perfect.

Then I started getting facials every 6-8 weeks from the world’s most fabulous aesthetician, Jane Cowan. She is absolutely amazing. I simply cannot sing her praises enough. As I said in my Citysearch review, “I actually feel sorry for my friends who don’t live in Portland and can’t see her. And on a more personal note, she is unbelievably fun, warm-hearted, personable, kind, and downright cool. As other reviewers have said, you feel like you’re hanging out with your best friend.” And that’s high praise from me, because my best friends are like a part of me, we’re so close. Appointments with her are skin and life therapy in one.

She recommended an independent makeup artist who I am so, so excited to work with for my big day. But she has a regular full-time job and just does makeup on the side, and she travels a lot for her day job, so there’s a chance she won’t be available in April. I decided to have Event Cosmetics (the premiere bridal makeup studio in Portland, or so I’m told) as my back-up, even though the quote I got over the phone was painfully expensive. And about a week ago, I went in for my first run-through.

I took this photo in my car after I got done with my appointment, and it pretty much says it all. The makeup is exceptional, but as Rebecca said, I look super skeptical. Really funny.

Warning: Brutally honest ranting below.

For starters, I was at there for three hours. I expected 90 minutes, two hours, but THREE hours? We did a consult at the beginning where we talked about my wedding and I showed her the photos I had in my binder. Aside from a couple of compliments about my dress, she was very jaded — she has clearly seen bigger and better, and that’s understandable, but I can’t help it that I like when people ooh and ahh over my ideas and get excited about things I’m doing. Instead, she kept talking about how she’s “in the business of weddings” and kept asking me question after question — have you thought of this, done that, etc. Umm, you aren’t my wedding coordinator. And speaking of coordinators, we had an awkward interlude when she asked if I’d been to the Bridal Loft before, and I told her that I’d met with Emee once about 8 months ago. I didn’t want to say that Emee wasn’t a good fit, so I just said that I couldn’t afford a full service coordinator. She then launched into an exposition about how Emme offers all these services and she’s SOO great and when I hit roadblocks I should hire Emee for hourly consulting and on and on. Before she started the makeup, she gave me a tour of the Loft and gushed about all the little businesses and what they do and how I should use all of them. It just felt like a little “club” where they expect you to utilize all of their services because, hello, why would you go anywhere else?

EC uses all “their own” cosmetics, which I don’t really believe… I think they’re repackaged cosmetics of some description, but they make it sound like they have their own brands, so it’s anyone’s guess. The way they do their airbrushing is completely different from how I had it done in LA. In LA, he primed my skin and then used the airbrush to apply a liquid MAC foundation. At EC, she applied some kind of mineral foundation that’s designed for photography and when she was all done with foundation, concealer and powder, she applied a light coat of some kind of airbrush over the very top. It felt fine on my skin, but I didn’t think it produced as flawless of a result.

What she did a truly phenomenal job on was my eyes. The shading was perfect, she somehow used brown liner (which never looks good when I use it on myself) to make my eyes look bigger, and she applied tons of the individual false eyelashes — longer ones at the outer corners and shorter, lusher ones all over. This photo shows my eyes really well:

But then she did the lips, which is an infamous problem for me whenever anyone does my makeup. I told her over and over, nude lips, nothing heavy. Well, her idea of “nude” is very different from mine. She used liner and an overall lip pencil with a semi-sheer lipstick over the top, and it was WAY too much. I’m sure no one would agree with me, but I feel like I look like a drag queen when I have anything but the very sheerest of lipsticks on. Beautiful on other people but not on me. The lipstick came off as soon as I got in my car, so I don’t even have it on film — but trust me, it was not good.

Of course, at the end of the appointment, she wrote up an estimate for me, and it took everything in me not to stand there aghast when she read it to me. When I made my consultation appointment, they quoted prices that sounded high but doable if I really wanted it. Apparently their pricing has changed since then. Now they do a package instead, because they have a three person minimum for on-site makeup. Just to put the pricing in context… If I did the package and then added my extra bridesmaids, I’d be looking at a figure that’s the same as my letterpress invitations; almost as much as the cases of wine we’re required to buy from the vineyard; more than half of what I’m spending on flowers; and more than I’m spending on cupcakes, cutting cake and fancy Clara French cake stand combined. Seriously? And I thought the original estimate was obscene.

I shouldn’t rag on the makeup artist — she was a nice person, she truly was — but the last 45 minutes of the appointment was filled with her going on and on about all the beauty treatments I should be doing — about how I shouldn’t take hot showers (”you have to baby your skin for your wedding day”), about how I should get highlights and a gloss treatment for my hair, about how I should get my eyebrows shaped (they ARE shaped!), about how I should use the EC skincare instead of the stuff Jane recommends… Fundamentally, I just felt like her priorities are all screwed up. This is about the relationship with my fiance, about our family and friends. I want to look beautiful, but it isn’t all about ME.

The next few days, my skin reacted horribly to the products, despite how gentle they were supposed to be. I was just extremely over-processed — in part, I’m sure, because she was arguing with me that I wasn’t as sensitive as I think I am. And I got some of the worst eczema I’ve ever had because she shaved to clean up my eyebrows (instead of tweezing) and then used some kind of eye cream. The combination made my skin break to the point of bleeding, and I had to put salve on it for almost a week.

The Citysearch reviews of EC are mostly glowing, and one of my friends used them and loved them. But for the more budget-conscious, less assertive bride with sensitive skin, I wouldn’t give them a recommendation.

I haven’t given much thought to what I’ll wear to the rehearsal dinner — I have a closetful of beautiful dresses, and given that 70% of them are not work-appropriate, many of them are on unfortunate house arrest — but thanks to Julia, I might’ve just found the rehearsal dress.

Beautiful off-white satin dress, from Spiegel of all places. But then I start thinking about shoes… Some gold flats maybe? Not Maloles for $260, but something similar perhaps.