Wedding Guest Dress Breakdown: One Year Later

Speaking of weddings, my niece got married last year on June 10. That spring, I had written a series of posts on the making of the two dresses I wore, a green silk evening dress and it's multi-color slip. I ended up finishing the main dress a mere two days before traveling to the wedding and didn't get any satisfactory pictures of me in my complete outfit.

So on the one-year anniversary, here's an update on how I wore the dress to that wedding. I pretty much looked at it as if I was going to an awards banquet. I researched and sourced the individual elements from all over. There were plenty of things that I bought and returned, things I lucked out on, and even things I eventually would regret not buying.

I received a hint of what I wanted to wear when I saw a swatch of emerald green silk crepe de chine and it reminded me of my favorite green dress in Atonement. Once I decided that was the way I wanted to go I started thinking of a 1920s-30s vibe. Of course, I didn't take that literally. However, the dress pattern I chose, Vogue 2745, did have the v-neck, elongated waist, and a handkerchief hem reminiscent of 1930s style.

My most important concern was my hair, a short curly natural that was drastically cut too short a week before this event. So how was I going to style it to fit this dress and the romantic vibe I wanted to have? Luckily, my love of award show red carpet reporting came to the rescue as you'll see below.

Moving clockwise:

1. Once I saw this double-tiered Jennifer Behr gold headpiece that Janelle Monáe wore to the 2017 Vanity Fair party I knew what I needed to find. This led to a search of accessory shops such as Claire's; however, I never really expected to find something that came so close, but I did!

2. The winning earrings came from Charming Charlie's. Why did no one tell me about this amazing place, all organized by color? They have everything, purses, scarves, jewelry, even tiaras! These earrings not only picked up the emerald but also royal, turquoise, and chartreuse. They will be worn lovingly for years.

3. An extremely cheap $1(!) compact mirror from Michael's arts and crafts, of all places, in a green that matched my dress perfectly. I also bought two more in pearlized white and royal blue for the bride and her maid-of-honor.

4. Yes, I actually found an extremely similar headband, the gold double row daisies headband shown here from icing.com, although I found mine locally at Claire's.

5. The Style & Co Paycee sandal in Red from Macy's. I bought these because they weren't as tall as my first choice, the 3" high Monrae from Jessica Simpson. However, the Paycee non-adjustable ankle strap turned out to be extremely constricting and I had to change shoes in order to dance.

Monrae sandal

I ended up wishing I had gone ahead and bought the taller Jessica Simpson's even though I probably would have taken them off too but at least I would not have had to compromise on style.

6. The Wanda zipper wristlet, an adorable purse in gold from Charming Charlie's. This will surely get a lot of use in the future.

7. L.A. Girl Color Pop nail polish in Amour, a fabulous red that adorned my toes in those perfectly color-matched shoes.

So, I wish I had a picture here to show you all these elements coming together but I didn't actively try to get a picture of me taken in the completed ensemble. Someone did get two pictures of me that day with family and hopefully I can get them color corrected so I can post here.