Somebody Got Married

Whelp, it's been awhile, but I have a good excuse. I was getting married and stuff. It was the most magical time of my life, and Mr. Galen is now my husband! I guess you may now refer to me as Mrs. Galen. Anyway, here we are making out in a vintage Citroën.

Although select parts of the wedding planning process made me want to rip my eyes out, there was a whole lot of it that was super fun. Mainly the part where I got to curate all things awesome. Like my favorite garlands from Confetti System, our amazing photographer Kate Miss, and of course, baby goats.

Each day, I will take you through a different cool element that I enjoyed making or planning, and fill you in on all the top secret details. Hold onto your hats. This first wedding post will be about my dress, made by the unrealistically fabulous Leanne Marshall, of Project Runway fame. It's kinda crazy to think that 3 years ago, I was gushing about Leanne on this here blog, and then I finally got to meet her and get her to make the wedding dress of my dreams.

Figuring out how to make this a reality wasn't easy. I did a ridiculous amount of internet stalking and emailing to her Etsy account and other sources before I looked on her blog and discovered a secret wedding page (which has now been removed - sorry!) I was finally able to contact her and get a response! I was put in touch with Nathan, Leanne's styling assistant and make-up artist extraordinaire who set me up with my first meeting.

My mom was in town visiting, so she came with me which was really special. She brought her "wedding lace" with her in an old brown sack. Now, let me explain this lace, which at first was a bit disastrous but then became the star of the wedding. When my mom wore it layered over her wedding dress in the 70's, it was stunning because it was part of a well-crafted ensemble.

But the lace alone - without the dress or my pretty mom wearing it, sort of resembled the puffy shirt from Seinfeld. My mom was like, "Oh you could just wear it over whatever dress you get... if you want." I could tell how much it meant to her, but I couldn't imagine a scenario when the puffy shirt would look acceptable over the type of short and cute dress I wanted. When we met with Leanne, I tried on the dress of my dreams and instantly fell in love. Check out the enormous smile on my face when I discovered the dress had pockets!

I knew this dress had to be The One, and Leanne knew it too. And we had a lovely chat about the Golden Girls, specifically about how we both were "Rose." It was almost surreal how swimmingly everything was going, until a small croak penetrated the magic moment. My mom held out her little shaking hand with the wedding lace in it. "What about the lace?" she shrieked wistfully. Leanne, in typical Project Runway fashion, offered to cut up the puffy shirt and incorporate the lace into my dress. This was "making it work" in the best way.

When I picked it up The Dress from Leanne a couple months later, it was seriously awesome to see what she had done. When my mom saw it on the morning of my wedding day, she started to cry. We both knew it was the perfect dress.