The Next Morning

This post could also be titled "Reason #5782 why Sister Lioness was an awesome MOH."

Mr. Lion and I spent our wedding night at the Ritz Carlton in Buckhead.

Everything was lovely, and we woke up to breakfast in bed!

The best part of the morning, though, was when we went back to our apartment to pick up Lion Corgi before we headed to Asheville. I expected to walk in and find a post-wedding disaster. Instead, I found that Sister Lioness had orchestrated a mad cleaning session post-wedding. She and the rest of my family brought back every little piece of decor (Well, except for the stuff that couldn't fit in her trunk, but that was okay because our venue said they'd hang onto it! Oh wait...), organized all of the wedding stuff, and cleaned our entire apartment. When Mr. Lion and I walked in the next morning, we found this:

We also found Lion Corgi snuggled up with Lioness Bmaid Sara's dog.

We hung out with Sister Lioness for a bit before we hit the road. We also took this downtime as an opportunity to open all of our cards.

How awesome is that lion card?! Some of my friends know me too well...

We bid Sister Lioness and our surprisingly clean apartment adieu, then set off for North Carolina. Sister Lioness set off to do some after-partying, which looked something like this:

What was your favorite post-wedding surprise?

And Your Angry Eyes...Just In Case

You probably thought you were done with Disney puns after the series "Before the Mane Event!" Ha!

{Disney/Pixar / via Danielle Jolee}

One of the many things I learned from our wedding weekend was that it's practically impossible to overpack. I say "practically" impossible rather than "literally" impossible, because I'm sure there is a way to go overboard. Seriously, though, you never know what you're going to need, so you may as well bring it all!

Sister Lioness did a fabulous job putting together a MOH Survival Kit, just as Mrs. Bee and Mrs. Cola have blogged about in the past. A few days before the wedding, she roamed through the aisles of Target, snatching up everything in sight that just might be necessary. If she wasn't sure whether or not something was appropriate to buy, she let go of hesitation and bought it anyway. In hindsight, maybe we did waste a little money; however, the variety of supplies we had on us at all times proved to be quite helpful.

• 2 bottles of water
• Granola bars (3 different types)
• Chex Mix (because some people don't like granola bars)
• Double-stick dress tape
• Softlips Chapstick (3 of them)
• Tide To Go Pen
• Anti-Itch Cream (in case somebody got bitten by a bug)
• Neosporin (in case somebody cut themselves)
• Clear Nail Polish
• Tampons
• Nail files
• A pen
• Alice in Wonderland post-it notes (they were in the $1 bin at Target so Sister Lioness figured, hey, why not)
• Floss
• Breath Mints
• Gum
• Downy Wrinkle Release Spray
• Bobby Pins
• Safety Pins
• Hair ties
• Hair brush
• Coffee Filters (for sweating...my favorite sorority girl trick)
• 2 pairs of stockings
• Cough Drops
• Vitamin C Drops
• Aleve
• Excedrin
• Pepto Bismol
• Eye Drops
• Hairspray
• Sewing Kit
• Crazy Glue
• Molefoam Padding
• Bandaids
• Hand Sanitizer
• Lotion
• Zit Cream
• Bare Minerals Mineral Veil
• Black mascara
• Tweezers
• Nail clippers
• iPhone Charger
• An inventoried list of everything on hand

Somehow, all of this...

...fit into this purse:

We probably only used about half of the supplies, but I was surprised we needed even that much! We had lots of leftover food, which Mr. Lion and I gladly took on our road trip to Asheville (more on that soon). The only problem that we did run into was that we packed the bag for Friday through Saturday, and I got a bad headache on Thursday. The lesson: if your schedule provides an opportunity for dehydration, make sure you have at least food, water, and some sort of pain reliever on hand!

Anyone else heard of any good ideas to include in a MOH Survival Kit?

Before the Mane Event: Bridesmaid Brunch

We've already talked about Wednesday, and I caught you up on my last minute projects that I knocked out on Thursday.  As Rebecca Black will tell you, Friday is next!  I'm so sorry.  You're going to have that song stuck in your head all day now, aren't you?  I can sing "It's a Small World" if you'd like!  No?  Okay then.

Seriously though, Friday is when the fun truly began!  I kicked off the wedding weekend with a brunch in honor of my bridesmaids.  I had reserved a cozy private room in the back of the Flying Biscuit Cafe in Candler Park, one of my favorite neighborhoods in Atlanta.  Since all of the Flying Biscuit locations are so bright and colorful (and since all five of the Lioness Bmaids were Gators), I figured an orange and blue theme was a great way to make my girls feel special.

I brought a blue mason jar which I filled with orange roses...

Then, I gave each bridesmaid a "party favor" of alligator-shaped soaps, as well as orange and blue earrings.  (They also received their bridesmaid gifts of shoes and fascinators that day!)

I also printed individual menus on some leftover cardstock.  I had discussed this menu with the store manager previously, but after he offered to print it out in "something cute, like Comic Sans," I decided to make them myself.

For those of you who are just reading this post to find out about the food (that'd be me if I wasn't writing this), allow me to list the dishes so you don't have to zoom in on that picture.

Appetizers:

• Field Greens Salad & Soup
• Fried Green Tomatoes
• Side of Love (cutest name ever!), which is a black bean cake topped with salsa verde and sour cream

Entrees:

• Egg-stravaganza, your basic breakfast: eggs, chicken sausage, turkey bacon, grits, and french toast topped with raspberry compote and creme anglaise
• Shrimp and Grits, topped with a roasted red pepper and tomato sauce
• Chicken and Black Bean Quesadilla
• Tofu & Tater Salad
• Biscuit Pot Pie, a twist on a Southern classic

Oh, and of course everything's served with a biscuit!

I decorated each place setting with a little monogrammed mug from Anthropologie, as well as a thank you note.

 They're making those faces because I decorated the thank you card envelopes with vintage Disney stickers.

They're making these faces because I included a photo with each thank you card.  Each photo was specific to that bridesmaid and taken early on in our friendship.  The most recent photo was taken in 2004.  Crying ensued.

As I inhaled my food (sorry, no time for a photo), I gazed around at the five women who surrounded me.  For years, these had consistently been some of the most important women in my life.  We became friends as kids, and our friendships grew as we grew.  I felt an incredible sense of pride towards the women they had become.

Then, the moment finally hit me: I was getting married that weekend.

When have you had one of those "reality" moments?  Pretty incredible, huh?

Gratitude & Grits

Though not as exclusive to the region as the groom's cake, it is a Southern tradition to thank your bridesmaids with a luncheon.  This is usually held the morning of the wedding, or during the afternoon the day before.  Unfortunately, our wedding is at 11am, so this ruled out "morning of."  Our rehearsal will be at 5pm the day before, so that made it a little too tight to squeeze in during the afternoon.  This lead me to my favorite meal of the day, brunch!

Some of my favorite places to brunch in Atlanta: Feast, Einstein's, Parish, Murphy's, and Ria's Bluebird

Sure, there are a lot of great brunch places around here.  You'd think it'd be tough to choose between all of these delicious locations, but it wasn't.  I wanted my bridesmaids to feel celebrated.  They've done so much for me, and many of them are traveling from out of state to stand by me on our wedding day.  I wanted delicious, casual food with a bright, colorful, fun backdrop.  I looked no further than the Flying Biscuit.

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The Flying Biscuit is an Atlanta tradition.  It began in Midtown, as a simple biscuit shop.  They now have several locations throughout Atlanta, and even a few in North Carolina and Florida.  They serve a lot more than biscuits now, too.  Think Southern food with a twist.  Oh, there's grits and bacon, but they also offer chicken sausage, whole grain pancakes, and omelets with arugula and goat cheese.  They haven't forgotten their roots though; the biscuits are still the most popular item on the menu.

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If you're wondering what that sauce is that's served with the biscuits, it's some kind of apple butter.  I don't know how to describe it other than "it tastes like Christmas."

I love the ambiance in the restaurant, too.  The mismatched tablecloths, handmade tabletop decor, and eclectic wall art are sure to convey a sense of fun as I thank my girls for all of their hard work.

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If the weather is nice, we can even sit out on the patio, which is Lion Corgi friendly!

Are you throwing a luncheon for your bridesmaids?  Where did you choose to do it?

The Guests Get Creative

Obviously, our wedding has a bit of a whimsical theme interlaced throughout the vintage and Southern and garden decor.  We tried to get the guests on board with the whimsy with a little message in our invitations.  You see, the bottom of the response card read, "Please use the reverse side of this card to provide marriage advice, whimsical doodles, flattering caricatures and/or well wishes!"  The back of the card was blank.  We have now received about a third of our RSVPs, and the entertainment only continues!

We received a special response card in the mail today...from none other than Sister Lioness, who designed the invitations in the first place!  Sister Lioness lives in NYC, and her boyfriend lives in Florida.  I sent one invitation addressed to both of them, and Sister Lioness informed me that they planned to open it "together" via Skype.

Their response card included a YouTube link, so I'll let the video do the talking from here.  You really should watch the whole thing because they are hilaaarious.  But, if you only have a couple of minutes, skip to about 7:25.  That's when you can really start to see the wheels turning inside Sister Lioness' head!


They weren't kidding, either:

That reminds me, Lioness guests.  The other 2/3 of you?  Yeah, you've got two more weeks to get those RSVPs in!  So, yeah!

We'll have to do something fun with the backs of these cards, but what?  Any ideas?

Leaving Room for Flexibility

A few months ago, I got a phone call from one of my bridesmaids.  It went a little something like this:

Bmaid: Heyyy
Lioness: Hi!  What's up?
Bmaid: Ummm...
Lioness: (awkward pause)
Bmaid: siiiigh...
Lioness: Dude, is everything okay?
Bmaid: Welllll...
Lioness: WHAT'S WRONG? (at this point, I'm thinking that she's about to tell me she can't be in the wedding, she doesn't want to be in the wedding for whatever reason, or something horrible happened)
Bmaid: (giggles) Are you sitting down?
Lioness: (feeling relieved and instantly knowing what's coming next) Yes?

Bmaid:......I'm PREGNANT!

{lots and lots of squealing}

Lioness: Congratulations!  Ohhhh I'm SO happy for you guys!
Bmaid: Oh good!  You're not mad.  I'm really worried about my dress, and I was worried that you would be worried, too!  I mean, I still plan to be there and everything, but what are we going to do about my dress?

Obviously, her dress was the last thing on my mind at that moment!  But she did bring up an excellent point: what's a bridesmaid to do?  This particular bridesmaid had not yet ordered one of the dresses that we had decided on months before she learned this news.  Allow me to remind you what those dresses looked like.

Oh, Sister Lioness.  Never a dull moment.

Empire waist? Some forgiveness around the hips?  Our first thought was that this dress would work with a baby bump...but then we did the math and figured out that my bmaid would be 8 months pregnant on our wedding day.  Again, I asked her if she was sure she wanted to commit to standing up there next to me.  She responded with things like "ARE YOU SERIOUS?" and "I'm just going to make him drive the whole way to Atlanta anyway."

I started to look at maternity bridesmaid dresses.  My first stop was Alfred Angelo; they make the dress that we had initially chosen, and I hoped I could find something in the same color.  Lo and behold, I found this:

Source

Is that similar or what?  I was so glad this bridesmaid of mine decided to put off ordering her dress!  She must have had a feeling.  I called the store where we had ordered the other bridesmaid dresses from.  I told them that one of my bridesmaids was pregnant, and they said, "Oh, so would you like to change her order to the 7002MA?"  I was a bit surprised that they knew which exact style I had chosen, but she simply replied, "Well, it looks the most like the one you had initially chosen."  It's always nice to have a salesgirl who knows her inventory!

I walked away from bridesmaid dress shopping having learned an important lesson: sometimes, it's best to go with the larger, more popular designers.  They're large and popular for many reasons, and one of the main reasons is their variety.  Granted, if I had chosen bridesmaid dresses from a small boutique, we would have been able to figure something out.  But this switch was very easy and very inexpensive, and for that I was grateful.  It's definitely important to leave room for flexibility...especially if you have a bridesmaid who you know will make a wonderful mother some day!

What kinds of changes have you had to accommodate for during your wedding planning?  Any major curve balls?

Shower Planning 101

I really wanted to write a post about planning my shower, but I'm not the one planning it!  I thought this would be the perfect opportunity for a guest post.  Allow me to introduce you to someone much more qualified to talk about the Lioness shower: Sister Lioness!

Why hello there, Hive! I’m a long-time lurker, and I’m beyond happy to be here!

I’ve always loved event planning (I’ve been throwing themed birthday parties since middle school), so you would think planning this shower would be a snap. But when Miss Lioness got engaged and I actually had to think about this kind of stuff, I realized I had nothing up my sleeve. I sort of panicked. All of the fun, modern, themed showers sounded really fun to plan, but they were NOT Miss Lioness. She is traditional and classic, but she has her quirks. She needed something that suited her personality.

The Lioness Shower will be an Alice in Wonderland-themed tea party, but it will be nothing like either of the movies (for once we are shunning our Disney roots). It will be literary, whimsical, and vintage… but most of all, it will be fun.

Mad Tea Parties seem to be all over the wedding world right now. Finding pretty pictures was the easy part.

 Sources {clockwise from top left}

faeryspellcreations, Wedding Chicks, Style Me Pretty, Not Quite Nigella, Style Me Pretty, A Man Called Old Fashioned, myrecipes, Hostess With the Mostess, Lenny's Alice in Wonderland Site, Jessica Claire Photography

You’ll notice that these parties all have a few things in common. These were the things I tried to recreate – kind of like a wedding, on a much, much smaller scale.

Mismatched Vintage Tea Cups & Stacks of Books

This was the first thing I knew I wanted to do. Mama Lioness has a wonderful vintage children’s book collection, but I’m terrified of ruining one of her classics. Between thrift stores and library sales, I found enough books to make some pretty stacks without worrying about destroying an heirloom if someone gets a little sloppy with their tea.

I absolutely loved all of the teacups in these pictures, but I knew I was on a budget that would not allow for antique china. Luckily, the Goodwill near my apartment at the time had one of the most extensive and organized houseware collections I had ever seen. I became a frequent visitor, snatching up as many $1 teacups as I could find, along with the occasional teapot or water pitcher. Unlike the ones in the inspiration photos, they are not all intricate, fine china patterns; that was a pretty early compromise. But I have big plans for these teacups, and I have learned to embrace their differences.

Color & Whimsy

I was initially drawn to faded, vintage color schemes in some of the inspiration pieces, but I wanted the Lioness Shower to be brighter. I’ve always been obsessed with color – whether I’m designing stationary or dying my hair, the brighter the better. Lucky for me, Miss Lioness embraces this quirk and often uses me as an excuse to be a little more daring with color herself. Unfortunately, a lot of the teacups I found are more along the lines of the vintage fades than the whimsical brights. But with the help of some fresh flowers (and some well-dressed guests), the shower will rock this color palette:

(Has Miss Lioness told y’all that I love fonts? Because I really really love fonts.)

Garden Party

It’s only natural for an Alice fan like me to expect to throw a backyard tea party... not at all considering the fact that this shower was to be held in January. I realized this around the time I realized just how much space 25 people take up and just how much work it would take to feed them. I needed a venue: a real tea room that wouldn’t break the bank. Hive, meet the Vineyard Café in Marietta, Georgia.

Source 

Their catering manager has been nothing but wonderful to Mama Lioness and me, and when Miss Lioness and I went to try out their tea service, we were speechless. Great food, great service, great price? This lion is totally in. Did I mention they have a big beautiful sunroom overlooking Marietta square and a cute shop downstairs filled with goodies?

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Once we booked the venue, everything has been pretty easy. The mismatched teacups are serving as both our favors and an icebreaker activity. I’m still working out how exactly I want to arrange everything. I have a feeling I’m just going to show up with all of my supplies a few hours early and just deck the halls in whatever way feels right at the time (excessive planner brides, forgive me!).

So for any bridesmaids out there (or for those brides looking to drop a few hints!), here are my rules to live by for planning the perfect shower:

Know your bride. Does you bride even want a big, themed shower? Or would a small, friends and family get-together be more her speed? Find out what she wants to have before you start thinking about what you want to plan. Chances are if you’re throwing the shower, you have a lot in common with the bride. Find something you can both relate to, like your inner child/bookworm.

Know your budget. Like all things in life, you’re going to have to make concessions. Personally, I would have loved to have every book on the table be a vintage copy of Alice in Wonderland, but 50-cent bargain books were a lot cheaper and easier to find. When making big budget decisions, like whether to use a venue or go DIY, ask yourself how much your time is worth. For us, it was well worth paying for the tea room!

Have fun! This isn’t a wedding; no one is going to blog about it or iconize it like it’s a wedding. When in doubt, keep it simple. Just do what feels right and have a good time. That’s the best way to guarantee that everyone else will too!

Have you ever planned a shower?  How did you find your inspiration?  Any tips for other shower planners?

A Surprise for The Ladies

Sorry to do this to y'all so early in a post, but I can't ruin a surprise!

I was researching Southern wedding traditions when I came across the "cake pull."  In this tradition, tiny charms are inserted inside different layers of the wedding cake.  The charms are attached to ribbons, which fan out from inside the cake.  The bride chooses other women (usually her bridesmaids) to pull the ribbons out.  Each woman is left with a ribbon attached to a tiny charm, which represents some kind of cute fortune.

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I had never heard of this tradition before, but I loved it.  It got people involved, and it incorporated that element of whimsy that I've grown to love so much.  The only problem was that we're doing cupcakes.  Then, I remembered the fortune bouquet that Mrs. Flamingo and Mrs. Husky had blogged about!

Source: Martha Stewart Weddings

Imagine you're a single lady.  You gather around the bride with the other single ladies hoping to catch the bride's bouquet.  When the bride tosses the blooms up in the air, they magically pull apart to reveal several small bouquets.

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Best of all, each small bouquet has a ribbon attached to it, much like the ribbons in the traditional Southern wedding cake.  The only difference is that the ribbon is not attached to a charm of good fortune.  Instead, each ribbon has a unique fortune written on it.

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I decided to go with this idea, and to make it myself with fabric flowers (tutorial coming soon!).  Instead of fortunes written on the ribbons, I decided to include different quotes about love.  Here are the ones I decided on:

A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.

Mahatma Gandhi

A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.
Ingrid Bergman

I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love.
Mother Teresa

In true love the smallest distance is too great, and the greatest distance can be bridged.
Hans Nouwens

Love is like pi - natural, irrational, and very important.
Lisa Hoffman

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.
Zora Neale Hurston

Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.
Zelda Fitzgerald

And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

John Lennon & Paul McCartney

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.
Oscar Wilde

Where there is love there is life.

Mahatma Gandhi

What surprises do you have in store for your wedding guests?  Are you taking a non-traditional spin on something more traditional?

If I Had A Million Dollars

If money was no object when it came to our wedding, the first thing I would change is the amount of money I'm spending on my bridesmaids.  Out of the 6 Lioness Bmaids, 5 are in grad/med/law school and only one lives in Atlanta.  This means lots of travel expenses on very tight budgets.  These ladies have both literally and figuratively gone the distance for me, and I just wish I could afford to thank them more than I already plan to.  If I had the means, I would get them something like this:

Source

Hive, allow me to introduce you to 1154 Lill Studio, a custom handbag design company.  Sure, they have stuff like this on Etsy, but one of the things that makes 1154 Lill so fun is the experience.  You see, unless you live in Chicago or Boston where they have actual studios (or if you just shop online), you find a representative and design your own bag at a 1154 Lill party!  How fun would it be to have a handbag designing party with your bridesmaids?

You start with a blank canvas, which comes in every shape and size:

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Then, you choose your fabrics.  Note: you can also buy any of these fabrics by the yard...so you could make handbags to match your decor!

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I wish I could do this for my girls, but unfortunately it's just not possible.  Don't worry though; I have a few tricks up my sleeve in addition to the shoes and fascinators that they know they're getting!  What are you getting your bridesmaids as gifts?  What would you get them if you could get them anything?

Girls in Green Dresses

When I went shopping for my dress, I was accompanied by four of my six bridesmaids.  Bmaid Jackie is my FSIL, and she was unable to drive all the way up from South Florida.  Bmaid Jessica is a second year med student in Tampa, so she was super busy.  She was also heartbroken that she was unable to be there.  To make it up to her, I told her she could pick out her dress.

I told my bridesmaids that I wanted them to match and I wanted them to wear a bright green.  Bmaid Sara also added the stipulation that the dresses be cocktail length (she's shorter and didn't think she could pull off tea length...I appreciated her honesty).  Bmaid Jessica couldn't make it to Atlanta to shop together until June, so Bmaid Emily, Sister Lioness, and I did some preliminary research.

The one on the right came in a beautiful green...

...but the one on the left was the favorite!

Bmaid Emily also loved it!

AND it looked cute with my mom's dress!

I was glad that we had a strong candidate for the position of bridesmaid dress, but I would not allow anything to become a final decision until Bmaid Jessica had the opportunity to try on dresses.  I'm a woman of my word, after all.  Bmaid Jessica came into town and decided to try on the leading dress.

The whole package: with a hair flower fascinator (more on that later) and the shoes


{all personal photos}

Her words? "Umm, if it's okay with you, I don't really want to look at any other dresses.  This one is perfect."

How did you choose your bridesmaids' dresses?

The Shoes That Almost Weren't

I had so many ideas of what to give my bridesmaids as a thank you for being there for me on the big day.  Then, I had a thought.  Maybe the greatest gift of all wouldn't be necessarily the most unique, most beautiful, most thoughtful gift.  Maybe the greatest gift would be not having to spend so much money.  Being a bridesmaid is expensive!  Not to mention the fact that ALL SIX of my bridesmaids are still in school.  I hinted about this thought to Sister Lioness and Bmaid Emily, both of whom agreed that they would rather have me cover some of their expenses, even if it meant missing out on this:

 Source: Fine & Fleurie

So, I decided to cover their shoes.  Yes, yes, I know, we hadn't yet picked out the bridesmaids dresses.  I knew the bridesmaids dresses would be solid green, so I knew these would match when I found them.  I picked out a lovely pair of D'Orsay peep toes from David's Bridal and gave my girls their first official bmaid task: try them on.  Seemed simple enough, right?  Every town has it's own David's Bridal, and they don't even need to worry about paying for them.  Just try them on, call me with your size, no big whoop.  I mean, I'd be pretty eager to get these babies on my feet anyway.

 Source: David's Bridal

Unfortunately, it was the end of the spring semester and everyone was super busy.  And it was no piece of cake to try to rally 6 girls in 5 cities in 3 states to get this done.  After a few months, I finally got everyone's sizes.  I was really glad I had them try on the actual shoes because they ended up running quite large.  Adjusted sizes in hand, I called the Atlanta David's Bridal one morning to order all six pairs of shoes.  Well, they informed me that they have been DISCONTINUED and therefore I could NOT order them from their warehouse/shipment center/mothership.

I asked them to look through what they had in their store, and they told me they had ONE size 7, and everything else was bigger.  "Hmm, it's like everyone's snatched up the smaller sizes!" the saleswoman observed.  "Like, these must, like, run large or something!"  Duh, that's why I asked everyone to try them on!  She said she could search through the inventory of every David's Bridal in the country and "call me back" (oh yeah, that definitely goes in quotes).  This sounded like a long task, so I wasn't expecting to hear from her until tomorrow.  I started to look at back up options on dsw.com just in case.

I called Sister Lioness, who lived in Gainesville at the time, to tell her that my brainchild of pairing these gorgeous shoes with lovely green dresses might not come to fruition.  Sister Lioness was already out and about, and offered to visit the Gainesville David's Bridal and see what they had in stock.  She discovered two size 7s and a size 6.5.  We now had 2/3 of the shoes that we needed.  I wasn't sure whether to go ahead and get them or not...what if I did and then I couldn't find the other 3 pairs?  So I called Atlanta back to ask them if they had ANY 5.5s.  A different saleswoman answered my question with, "nope...there are only 2 pairs left in the country: one in Des Moins, Iowa and one in Norfolk, Virginia."  I asked her how she knew that so quickly, and she responded, "I just looked it up on our system."  I decided to give up on the incompetent saleswoman with whom I spoke earlier and I asked for the phone numbers for these two stores.  Norfolk did, in fact, have a size 5.5 and (upon further research) Tampa had a size 6!  Luckily, I was going to Tampa that weekend for a friend's bridal shower.  I picked up the one pair in Atlanta, I had Norfolk to ship the 5.5 to me, and Sister Lioness picked up the three in Gainesville.

I have to say I was quite impressed with David's Bridal's sense of urgency.  These shoes had been discontinued, and they helped me search all over the country to make sure I got what I wanted.  And they were efficient, too!

So there you have it: the saga of the shoes that almost weren't.  Sometimes things have a way of working themselves out...especially when you have an amazing MOH to help you with the dirty work!  Have you had to jump through any hoops throughout your planning process?