October Wedding: What I Wore (and What I've Learned)

So you're finally going to see what I wore at the wedding last Saturday. I hope that you won't feel "betrayed", because as you will see, I changed my mind at the very last minute (that's typical me, I'm a INFP personality type if this tells you anything at all) and I ended up wearing something that I had in my closet and I hadn't considered when I wrote the post with my different outfit options. But it's not like I had always known what to wear and I was just kidding around. I had litterally forgotten about it until a few hours before the wedding.
Also, a warning: it's going to be a long post with few pics (I didn't take the camera with me to the wedding). But if you read through the end I promise that you will have some fun.

But let's start from the beginning. As I said in my previous post, I hadn't the time (or the energy) to go shopping for an evening cardigan/shoes/wrap the week before the wedding, and that actually put outfits number 3 (the dress) and 5 (the skirt) out of the contest because those really needed some kind of investement. That basically left me with only one choice (by your overwhelming response I excluded the first two outfits with pants), ie outfit number 4, the one with the deco skirt, that also had the advantage to be my husband favorite after the pants.

So, I had everything planned out and at 10 in the morning I went to my appointment with the hairdresser where I had my color done and I chopped my hair a little bit (you have to know that besides the occasional blowdry, I go to the hairdresser for a cut and color very rarely, like once every 4 or 5 months. Thanks God for weddings and other festivities, otherwise I would never go. I have too much hair and the only though of spending at least 4 hours sitting in a chair while I could be elsewhere, like Jcrew or a movie, makes me to postpone undefinitively the call to take the appointment and with my kind of hair is just not possible to show up on a Saturday and be taken, especially when your stylist is the one who does Ramona from the Real Housewife of NYC! Yes, I have a celebrity hairdresser. Sorry for the digression but I thought it was worth mentioning).
As soon as my hair was done, it started to rain (literally a few steps after I had walked out from the salon), so instead of going for a mani as planned, I went straight home because I didn't have an umbrella with me even if I had checked the weather.com site before leaving in the morning and they said that it would rain (typical me again).

While I was waiting for the rain to stop a little bit (it was pouring), I pull out my outfit (I choose the tights and added a silk wrap) and steamed what had to be steamed, then I tried it on one last time and I didn't feel it completely. I still liked the outfit in itself but I felt a little bit "exposed" for a wedding, maybe because the skirt is very short and with black sheer tights is more noticeable. I started to regret the decision of not going with the dress. And that's when I remembered for the first time another old dress that I have worn in many "special occasions" and I had totally forgotten about this time around for I don't know which reason (probably because I was focused on wearing something new that I hadn't worn before). But at that point, it was just a thought, like "Oh, it's true, I DO have another dress".

Then I went for the mani and I saw that the people outside were wearing "fall" clothes involving some sort of jacket (despite the mild temperature) and all of a sudden my entire outfit felt inappropriate.
So when I came home (it was 4.30 already and we had to leave at 5.30) I reached for the dress and changed myself. When my husband saw me, he asked "Why are you changing yourself?". "Because I don't have a jacket to wear with the skirt". To which my husband replied "Does it mean that you have a jacket to wear with that dress?"
He had a point. I felt more dressed-up but I still hadn't an outfit and because of the color, a beautiful aqua, and the fabric, I couldn't wear my black wrap with it.
Then I realized that it was almost the same color than the Havona and that I had planned to wear the Havona with the spice olive satin soiree jacket, so I took the jacket out and really, really hoped that it would work. And it did!

So ladies, let me finally show you my outfit. I bought the dress at the Juniors department of Lohemann's a few years ago and even if it's a "cheap" dress (think F21), the color is stunning and it fits me like a glow (and my husband loves it):




And this is with the soiree blazer. I was actually very happy to wear a jacket because the temperature in the room where the ceremony was held was freezer-like.




I took the pics just before putting on a pair of sheer tights, but other than that, this is how I headed out (without a clutch, but I'm not a clutch person and I had pockets to carry my cellphone in case the babysitter would call, so it was fine). Granted, had I known that I was going to wear this outfit, I would have put more thought in the jewelry instead of throwing on the glass and pearl necklace, and I would have probably had a buff pedi, but I felt really great anyway.

Until we arrived at the wedding venue (which was a restaurant in Long Island City directly on the East River, that boosted a breathtaking view of the Manhattan skyline) and we were let in a "waiting room" were all the guests were gathered while the bride and groom were getting ready upstairs. And where ALL THE LADIES WERE IN BLACK. And I mean total black. The first ten seconds were kind of ackward, like I had missed a "Black dress suggested" on the invitation. I was prepared to see an evening gowns extravaganza and ladies much more elegant than me (as a rule I prefer to underdress at weddings because I always thought that the best dressed in the room should be the bride and one should dress up to show respect, not to steal the show) but I wasn't quite prepared to be crowned THE LADY WHO DIDN'T WEAR BLACK. A few ladies who, like me, didn't get the memo arrived after us (there was me, a lady with a long green chiffon dress, a lady with a full skirt in a flower print and a few purple dresses that could be mistaken for black) but more important the mother of the bride was wearing a long strapless chiffon dress in a delicate animal print (think DVF) which was pretty weird given that even the bridesmaids were in black.

Anyway, after the first shock I was pretty amused by the situation and it turned out to be a good conversation starter ("You know, this is my first wedding in the USA, why all the ladies are wearing black? We don't usually wear black ar weddings in Italy").
And I never felt ashamed, because I was feeling great in that outfit.
Moreover my husband was in the mood for dancing. If you haven't lived in France, nor have French people in your entourage you have to know that the Frenchies knows how to dance. And I'm talking Dirty Dancing meets classic Rock&Roll, where you have to swirl and catch your partner's hand at the last minute so he would pull you back before on the dance floor. My husband claims that they don't learn it at school but how is it that every Frenchman my age (even the ones that you would never tell) knows how to dance this way? I always feel inadequated when I dance with my husband because I know that I'm out of his league and he doesn't really enjoy it (I am a very good "solo" dancer though) but Saturday night something happened and all of a sudden I was doing all the good moves and catching his hand at the good moment and even taking the initiative. And you know what? I think that part of it was because the outfit gave me confidence in myself. At the end of the first dance my husband looked at me as if he was seeing me for the first time and he said "You got it! You were good up there!" and he wanted to dance with me again and again (the long necklace added some fun because it would move along with us).

So in the end, I had a lot of fun and that's the most important thing right? After 10 minutes it doesn't really matter what you're wearing if you feel good about yourself. In fact I think that the more easily you can forget about what you're wearing the more you can relax and have fun.

(However I also learned that I really need a backup dress and at least an evening bolero/jacket to complete my other outfits, so I will be stalking the sample sale sites like Gilt, RueLaLa or Ideeli look for it at Lohemans the next time)

Have a nice weekend!