Busy Wednesday

My Bridesmaid #1 (she prefers that title to maid of honor) showed up with a handful of magnolias yesterday. She picked them at her friend's house. I love magnolias. So big and buttery looking! Bridesmaid #1 joined me today for a flurry of activity. We met the person who's making my dress downtown to shop for dress supplies, then stopped at Orochon for lunch.

The tofu was just okay, not silken enough to be mistaken for fresh made.

Orochon is definitely not as good as it was a year ago. Their noodles are more like spaghetti noodles now, the broth is murky and has muddled flavors, and they put green bell peppers in it. The fried rice today was wetter than usual. Overall, an okay meal but nothing to return for when Daikokuya is just across the way. We got take out for my sister's boyfriend and dropped it off a his office.

Then we went to MILK without him and had a banana split. They sub out the strawberry for banana ice cream, but I love MILK's homemade banana ice cream so it was great. I think next time I'd want chocolate/strawberry/banana though, and forego the vanilla because it's overpowered by the other flavors anyway.

Then, we accomplished the biggest task of the day: we found fabric for my dress! I wanted an off-white dupioni silk or silk taffeta, and I've been having a hard time getting the exact shade, texture, and thickness. Last week I thought I'd found it, but when I took home a sample piece I realized it looks gray in artifial light. So this time, I took pictures of the dress in the sun, in the shade, in a dark corner of the store, with and without flash. All the photos look great! It's got a nice shine to it, and a little texture without being too coarse.

Here's my lovely sister, modeling the fabric with a little drape. It's very wrinkly but that's because we were playing with it a lot. We both agreed after looking around the mall later that the wedding dresses at department stores are made out of inferior fabric.

We wandered around the mall a little after that, looking for wedding inspiration but getting distracted by summer sales. This wall of bowls at Anthropologie caught my kitchen-loving eye. Claire, your mom would love this (she collects these). Does she have all these colors yet?