THE SHORTCAKE WEDDING: "Like a Sparkly Shroud of Turin"

When I found my dress, my lovely and incomparable assistant Kelly at Stella's Bridal Galleria gave me the matching veil to try on. It was, to the best of my knowledge/veil identification skills, a mantilla style, fingertip-length veil with scalloped edges and an intricate pattern of glass beads and Swavorski crystals.

I thought it looked quite lovely with the gown, but it lacked a matching blusher, and attaching a plain blusher looked, honestly, quite ridiculous. I'm dead set on having some sort of blusher/face shrouding apparatus, as I am completely and hopelessly in love with the idea of being "unveiled."

(For example, check out kayrose's blusher - pure romance. THIS is what bridal dreams are made of!)

But, the mantilla veil was sparkly, and as anyone close (or within a hundred feet of me) will attest, I have a not-so-secret obsession with things that bling. In addition, wearing a mantilla veil (traditionally spanish) would be a sweet nod to my mother's heritage.

However, such a nod would cost $560 dollars. OUCH. Luckily for me, the veil sold (to someone else) before I had a chance to make any foolhardy decisions based on emotion and not on account balances. I did a brief search on 'da internetz' and came up with a couple of alternatives for waist-length, sparkly, scalloped-edge veils:

{image source 1, 2)

Then I saw how breathtaking a drop veil could look and was smitten:

(Knottie srpro)

I searched again, and found a drop veil with Swavorski crystals:

{image source}

...and then I read this helpful thread on the boards. As some brilliant ladies suggested, you can have a mantilla veil and a blusher too! If you pull forward the front of the mantilla veil, and secure it so that it hangs over your face, it will look like a drop veil, and behave like a blusher.

Good idea? Grace Kelly thought so!