Wedding Wear | valery brennan

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Today I’m going to share our choices for wedding attire and accessories! Even two years later, I am still thrilled with all of our outfit choices, the colors, details, etc. Oh and also the PRICE.

First off – my dress. Oh, the dress. I watched Say Yes to the Dress quite a bit before getting married (or engaged) and the Monique Lhullier Sunday Rose dress just wouldn’t leave my mind. Unfortunately the price tag was WAY too high for our budget. Well, as fate would have it, I found someone on Etsy who actually HANDMAKES a dress inspired by Sunday Rose. I sent her my measurements and a few months later, the dress was mine for about 10% of the price of the original.

Jeff already had a really nice fitting grey suit that he bought for job interviews from Express. We both really liked it, so he decided to just wear that for our wedding instead of renting a tux or buying a new suit. We paid about $20 to have it tailored so it was just the right size…and price.

We both opted to wear tennis shoes – Converse for him, Nike high tops for me. They were hand painted by a good friend of mine from college, Holly. She took our visions and RAN with them. I wish I had more pictures of Jeff’s but his were a Star Wars/Adventure Time crossover (think Finn dressed as Luke Skywalker, etc). So good. Mine were Star Wars and Harry Potter themed. Since she knows some of the things I really love, she also added in a few other surprises for me.

Close up of my shoes….aren’t they perfect?! So much amazing detail and love. All Holly’s ideas.

Real talk: I’m a wedding florist but I didn’t want to make my own boutonnieres and corsages. They’re kind of tedious and I wanted to ENJOY my wedding flower process so I came up with something different for the guys….action figures. I had Jeff go on eBay and pick out 4″ action figures, he opted for Star Wars themed for everyone. We also got a Batman action figure for our minister because that’s his fave.

Of course my man had to be Han Solo 🙂

For the parents, grandparents and siblings, we gave them fabric rosette boutonnieres an corsages. On the back, we wrote a small note to each family member. The best thing about these boutonnieres and corsages is I finished making them WEEKS before the wedding and they were just in a box ready to go. It was so convenient! Plus, the sentimental folks could hang onto them as long as they wanted to.

The guys wore black shoes of their choice, their own white shirt, a grey vest and pants (from Express – we waited until they were having a big sale and then told the guys when it was time to pick them up to save them the most money). Their ties were ordered from a small business called The Grunion Run. I liked the simplicity of a black tie and since the husband refused to wear a skinny tie or bow tie, we went with these…haha.

I wanted a special hanger to put the ladies dresses on, so I went with a suuuuper simple and inexpensive DIY project. I bought some wooden hangers, little plastic roses and stick on letters from Michael’s. Hot glued the roses on and spelled out their names…super easy and I think it cost me $15-$20.

For the ladies, I wanted them to wear different dresses in shades of peach, pale pink and cream. Admittedly, this was harder than Pinterest makes it seem. Thankfully my sweet bridesmaids were determined and I think they all looked AMAZING. My two sisters wore cream and ended up wearing a colored sash, which I thought was a fabulous touch.

I wore earrings that my husband gave me for our first Valentine’s Day together. They are so beautiful and I love that they have a special meaning behind them. I made my own wedding veil (using various tutorials I found online) and my mom made me lace gloves using some peachy pink lace I bought on Etsy. I wish I had step by step photos of the gloves but they were fingerless so she essentially just made a hole for my thumb and a big hole for my fingers.