Category: life

frocktober, life, outfit

Frocktober 16th!

christinahopgood
Today we went into ANU to have a meeting about a fun concert we’re planning for November/December.  The whole place was full of fluff, which comes off the trees there!  It looked like snow!
Charles taking notes about the fluff.

And my outfit for the day!

 Today was hotty-cold (as I call it), it started out really cold and got pretty hot later.

 Taking off my jumper…

 And scarf…

Dress: Mur Melche (previously known as Melche Shutilforc)

Shoes: Big W 
Jumper: SES
Scarf: Forever 21
hair, life, makeup, wedding

My Beautiful Budget Wedding Part 2: Accessories, Hair, and Makeup!

christinahopgood
Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue… and a silver sixpence in her shoe.


1. Jewellery

 My jewellery was fairly simple: a necklace with one bauble, and my diamond earrings which were a 21st birthday present from my parents.  No bracelets, and nothing flash.  My necklace was actually my mum’s, and was certainly not diamond and certainly not expensive.  I chose it because it was simple and matched my dress without overpowering it.  Same for my earrings.  I didn’t want huge dangles or baubles, although they are nice sometimes!

I think that you don’t need to buy expensive things for wedding accessories, as cheap alternatives can be found in lots of accessory shops.  Don’t go for diamonds!  You’ll worry about them all day!  My only expensive thing was my earrings, but they were also special to me for other reasons. 
Because I used things I already had, and borrowed items, my jewellery didn’t cost anything.

Here you can see the necklace and earrings, just simple solitaires.  Also this is a good shot of my hair and makeup.


2. Garter

In keeping with my family’s tradition (well, me, my mum, and my sister-in-law), I wore my mum’s blue garter for my wedding.  It is old, borrowed, and blue, so that knocked three things off the good-luck-list!  And we didn’t have any garter tossing at the reception.  Ew.

3. Stockings and Petticoat

I just bought normal stockings from the shops.  I tried stay-up hose a few weeks before the wedding (I don’t like the tight feeling round my tummy with regular stockings), but stay-up they did not!  They were probably around $10.

Even though my dress was quite full, I wanted a bit more poof so I wore a petticoat I bought years ago for Lolita.  Lucky too, since I was considering getting rid of it! It was a Dear Celine fluffy marshmallow petticoat or something.  I’d had it forever so I’m not counting it in the price.

4. Hair

For my hairstyle, I decided to go to the salon.  I found photos online of this actress with a lovely hairstyle, and took them along to the hairdresser.  Turns out this lady is called Dianna Agron, she’s a year older than me, and she is an actor in Glee.  Who knew.  But she has nice hair.

The problem was that my hair is MUCH longer than her hair, so it looked a bit different on the day.  I wasn’t entirely pleased with my hair.  I wanted it to be a bit more floaty and pretty and voluminous, but the hairdresser hairsprayed the living daylights out of it and it was like a hardhat.  But it was fine in the end.  When we drove in the little car it got extremely tangled.
The hairdresser cost me $60 I think.  I also paid for Shona’s hair, so it turned out to be $120.  The hairstyle got very knotty (she did a lot of teasing), but it stayed put all day.

4.1 Hair comb

My hair comb was placed to match Dianna Agron’s photo.  I bought it from a little booth shop selling sparkly baubles, and it cost me $40.  I also bought one for Shona which was a little different.

5. Makeup

Makeup was the one thing I was the most stressed about.  I went to and fro between wanting to have a makeup artist do it, to wanting to do it myself.  I’ve had someone do my makeup twice before.  Once for a fashion shoot, and once at the makeup shop. Both times, I really hated her looking at my face so critically, and I felt like they made me into a face I didn’t recognise.  I wanted Charles to recognise me as I walked down the aisle.

So I researched different products and different techniques for applying makeup.  My favourite YouTube channel and website for this was MakeUpGeek.  Marlena really knows about different skin types, and how to make your products work the best.  I bought some products (a blush by NARS, a Lancome foundation, a Lancome waterproof mascara, and some other miscellaneous bits and bobs) and practiced applying them.
Then one day, I did a “trial run” of my makeup right before going in to teach.  Another teacher said “Did you just have a makeup trial for your wedding?  Because it looks so lovely!” and then I decided I’d do it that way.
It was a bit scary, but I was pretty happy with my face in the end.  I just looked like me, a bit more pretty!
So I’ll estimate that I spent about $150 on makeup (those high-end products are pricey), but I did it myself.  It last the whole day!


Costs:
Stockings: $10
Hairstyle: 60+60 = $120
Hair comb: 40+40 = $80
Makeup: $150

Total: $360

Next post: The Church, Decorations, Photography, and Flowers!
beads, dress, life, wedding

My beautiful budget wedding! Part 1: Dress and outfit.

christinahopgood
As most people know, Charles and I got married about 2 months ago.  

In Australia in 2011, people were spending around $36,000 on their weddings.  Crazy right?  I have never even HAD that much money.  Our wedding cost MUCH LESS THAN THAT and in this series of four posts I will show you how.
1. The Dress
I never intended to spend too much money on my dress, because I don’t have much money.  But of course the dress has to be special, because you only get married once (hopefully)!
Even though I like sewing, I decided against making my own dress.  That would just be way too frustrating!
I did the rounds of the wedding dress shops with my mum, and was mostly disappointed with what was on offer.  Everything was entirely too huge and heavy and expensive.  
Eventually I found a dress I loved, which was the Justin Alexander 8465.  It was also $2000.  This really upset me, because I *really wanted it*, but could not justify the price.
The dress hem hit just above my ankle, the shop girl called it a “waltz length dress”.  It’s a very 1920s movie star dress – so obviously it was for me!  It had intricate beading all over the bodice and some of the skirt.  The waist was ruched satin. Love love love.
I decided not to buy the dress.  But then one night I was mucking around on the internet and found a cheap knock-off website called Your Wedding Dress – which has since mysteriously disappeared (there are plenty of others just like it).  They had the same dress for sale for $180.  Ten times cheaper!  I thought, if I buy it and it’s great, I win.  If I buy it and it sucks, that’s only $180 down the drain.  And I’m sure I can make something else out of it if it really sucks.
And it came and it didn’t suck!  There were a few differences.  Firstly, it was a bit big.  Secondly, there was no beading on the dress.  Both of these things I could fix.
I took the dress to a tailor and got it taken in.  $200.

I hand sewed on little crystals and glass pearls.

In the middle of every lace flower, I sewed some beads.  This actually took ages and was really fiddly but it was worth it in the end.

2. The bolero
Then I realised that my wedding was going to be in August in Canberra – not exactly warm!  We reached something like 15 degrees that day.  So I bought some little boleros for me and my bridesmaid from Etsy.  It was really hard to find something appropriate, but I finally found Vara.  She worked with me to find the right shade and texture of yarn, and used our measurements to make two matching boleros.  It wasn’t much, but it did help in the chill wind!  She was a pleasure to do business with.

3. The Veil
As for my veil, I made that.  It was not too hard!  You need a clear hair comb, and a big rectangle of tulle, and then you gather it and stitch it on.  And round the edges.  And sew on beads if you want (I didn’t).  I think I roughly followed this tutorial on CraftStylish.  But I didn’t hem the veil, as I wanted a more floaty look.  I also made a thick plaited ribbon decoration and glued it to the top of the comb, instead of flowers.
4. The Shoes
My shoes were actually a gift from Charles, so they didn’t cost me anything.  But I think they were around 90 pounds from London’s Irregular Choice.  They are called the Mrs Lower shoes.  I wanted these cute shoes because I knew my dress was shorter!  I’ve heard of brides with floor-length gowns wearing ugg boots!
Here is a link to Irregular Choice’s Wedding Collection.  There are lots of beautiful shoes there! And as you can see, mine is still for sale.
I love my shoes.  They have clear heels with gold leaf inside in the shape of a rose.
So how much is this wedding costing me so far?

Dress: $180
Alteration: $200
Beads: $20
Bolero: $70
Tulle and comb for veil: $10

Total: $480
If you want to include the shoes, the total comes up to around $580

Next post in 2 days: The accessories, hair and makeup!

frocktober, life, outfit

Frocktober the 11th!

christinahopgood
Today was FREEZING COLD!  It was forecast to be 12C and rainy, and it only reached 8!  So forgive my jumpers in this post!  Today I had to go in to ANU and do my annoying computer job for 6 hours, then walk over to my nice library job for two hours!

For my lunch break, I walked over to see my husband play in a lunchtime concert!  He wrote about it in his blog here.

This dress I bought from Koom in the city for about $25, but I see that Modcloth is selling the same dress!  Or if it’s not the same, it’s extremely close.  So you can see the top of the dress if you click the modcloth link 🙂

Self portrait fail!
And me showing off my new cardigan I got from BTSSB in San Francisco.

Dress: Koom
Jumper: Dotti
Cardigan: Alice and the Pirates
Shoes: Big W.

Tomorrow I have most of the day off, so I’m going to post a special post!  Stay tuned!
frocktober, life, outfit

Frocktober the 10th!

christinahopgood
Today we went into town and used some of our wedding gift vouchers at David Jones.  We were out all morning and managed to get two cups and saucers, a set of 4 plates, and a light summer doona.  Plus some pants for Charles since his totally fell to bits!  I didn’t buy anything for myself because I’m sticking to my challenge of not buying anything all October.

This dress is from Felt (a little shop in Civic).  It’s made out of a vintage dress.  I suspect that they’ve gotten an old shirtdress, cut off the sleeves, shortened it, and put elastic in the waist.  I find it a good simple piece to wear teaching.

These are our purchases!  Charles has an espresso cup and I have a teacup.  They look funny together because his is so tiny ^_^ They are Royal Doulton and the series is Fable.