Its Been 10 Days, lets talk shoes

Oh my, how time flies. Its been ten days since my last post and and I only have eleven days until I fly off to Las Vegas. I think I have pretty much everything planned but I have a couple of things left on my to do list. First off is the shoes I am going to wear. I have a few pairs I will be bringing for various reasons.

1. I have a pair or custom ordered Chuck Taylor low tops. They have black bumpers and black laces but the canvas is a super cute pomegranate print in red, white and blue. These will be my generic walking around shoes. I can wear them to and from the bridal salon, out to the pool with my cover-up and bikini or just around the casino.

2. Fancy shoe #1 - I have a pair of strappy stiletto heels from Dolce Vita in silver, they are pretty cool. But I have spent  some of my free time rhinestoning the heck out of them so there is a ton of sparkle. I'm super excited about them, everyone is going to freak out when they see my shoes.

3. As much as I like my fancy shoes the heels are super high and after a couple of hours in a pair of torture shoes, I may need to go to a shorter heel. So my backup shoes are a black Mary Jane with a kitten heel that should go with both my evening outfits.

4. I am debating on what to wear with my Saturday Night outfit, I could wear the same sparkly shoes but I also own a pair in black felt that I didn't sparkle the crap out of. I might bring those just because I don't want to wear the same shoes on two nights. What kind of a fashion maven would do such a thing?

Only one week until my waxing and I get to be smooth as a baby for my time in Las Vegas.

Lingerie Options

As I prepare for the big Vegas vacation I am building out my list of things to pack and wear.  I am a huge planner, I like making lists and checking things off and organizing so I am sure to have everything I need. I might even make a blog post out of it soon. But for now I am trying to organize my outfits. I have three main events in Las Vegas and while the outwear will steal the show for everyone that sees me, I am one of those girls that likes to match my underwear to my outerwear. So lets go through some of my lingerie options.

Outfit One - is a sparkly pink and black hombre gown, and with it I was going to wear a basque from Pour Moi Lingerie and just remove the shoulder straps. I have the matching panties in the same Jewel/Black color. The beauty of wearing a basque is that it allows me to wear fully fashioned Gio stockings with my outfit.

Outfit 2 - would be for the wedding dress fitting. The dress is strapless so I need appropriate underwear for the fitting and I can just wear that under the casual dress that I will wear to the wedding salon.  I have tried a corset that I own and it doesn't work well with the wedding gown. I really am left with two options. On the left is something like a lace teddy but it is backless, the halter strap in the picture is removable and it has little tabs that are sticky on the sides of the bra, the bra cups are also sticky so it stays in place via the stickiness instead of boning and straps. The option on the right is a La Vien low back longline bra. I can wear stockings with either outfit but the La Vien has garters where the lace teddy I would need to wear hold up stockings.

Outfit 3 - I don't have a picture of but it is a blue satin tea length gown with some pleating around the skirt that give its some fullness, I would say the silhouette is A line. There is also an accent of black satin right across the top of the bust. The dress is also strapless but the back is high enough to wear a basque again or a strapless bra and garter belt set.  I am having some difficulty finding what I want in the right colors. I tried another Pour Moi set but they don't make a garter belt in that color and I don't like the black one I bought to go with it. At this point my option would be to purchase the same basque as above but in blue and black. But then I would basically have the same lingerie for both outfits just in different colors or I could try to find a different set of lingerie for outfit one. I really want to be able to wear stockings with this outfit. since I will have a little leg showing due to the tea length dress I can wear tan stocking but the welt of the stocking is in a contrast black so it would go so well with the basque.

I need to figure this out quick, only 22 days before I am on my way to Las Vegas.

Those In The Know

There are so many crossdressers that are afraid of being found out, I myself used to be one of them. Even to this day I am out, but not OUT. I lead a sort of a double life; those who know and those who don't. Ultimately progressing in my adventures may come back to haunt me but I continue to expand the number of people who know about my dressing.

The friends I have had since childhood and I still see regularly today are not familiar with my crossdressing adventures. Well....that's not entirely true, I have on a few occasions shown up to a Halloween party as a bride, Cher and Cyndi Lauper. But those were costumes and there is a difference. I don't expect that any of my friends would mind if I told them about my crossdressing. I don't think they would want me to show up to Thanksgiving dinner in a party dress either but I think they would be OK with the fact that I dress up sometimes. Some may even want to see it.

But when I think of how closeted I was in the past to where I am now, I was curious to think about just how many people are aware.

First off, my wife. She knows I dress up and is fine with it. She helps me with sizing and fashion advice, buys me the occasional gift and will go out in public with me dressed up too. Not wanting to hide this from her, I told her after about two months of dating just so she was able to make the decision herself if she could live with my crossdressing. That was about 11 years ago, so I think she is OK with it.

Second is what I'll refer to as my burlesque friends. My wife bought me a series of burlesque dance lessons for a birthday gift about eight years ago and I've been dancing with them ever since. Initially it was my burlesque teacher, and the students, then more students and the people who came to watch our shows so that has kind of exploded the number of people. I don't know a most of the audience members by name but some and of course my girlfriends have boyfriends or husbands whom I've met and chatted with. I would put this number at around 50-100 with varying levels of familiarity, excluding audience members.

Within the burlesque community I have about ten close friends who I perform with or takes classes with a lot and I have two besties who I would call my girlfriends, not dating girlfriends but who I hang out with a lot whether I am dressed as a girl or not. These are the girls that will be joining me at the wedding dress fitting and shows in Las Vegas, along with my wife.

My Besties

I also have a number of service providers that I have some contact with as well.  I have my regular nail salon tech, my hairdresser, the guy where I get my body waxing done, I have met with a couple of different makeup artists and photographers who I've done photoshoots with. 

And lastly are the random encounters, this would be the last group of people who I have interacted with while dressed. This would include bartenders and waitstaff at restaurants, retail workers at makeup retailers, womens clothing shops, Victoria's Secret and all manner of locations, movie theater staff, etc.

It's really not that hard to be out and about and the number of people who are aware of you just grows and grows.

Waiting and Weighting

A little more information on the wedding dress fitting event in Las Vegas. As I said in the previous post I purchased the dress on a previous visit to Las Vegas in November of 2017. At that point in time I was on a running schedule to prepare for a half marathon and as a result my weight was a pretty respectable 205 pounds. That was my weight when I went in and was trying on dresses.

Again as I said before I fell in love the dress and bought it, the store model actually fit me quite well but I was buying MY dress, a brand new dress made just for me. So we took measurements and add a little extra length to it because I'm tall. I took about four months from the time the order went in and when the dress was delivered.

Those four months were winter in Minnesota and even when training back late October there were some very cold and windy 30 degree runs. I don't belong to a gym so like most winters I just don't exercise as much. Well, over those four months I went up to 216 pounds. When the dress arrived, those extra ten pound didn't help me at all trying to get into my brand new dress. I wasn't able to get it zipped up. That was no good at all, after spending my money on my dress and I couldn't even wear it.

Back when I purchased the dress the salon owner said I might need to get it altered once it arrives. I could do that in Las Vegas at the salon or have it done locally. Initially I though I would do it locally but with the shows coming up in May/June I thought I might be able to do it in Las Vegas. And that would give me a few months to try and get back into wedding dress shape.

I have tried diets and exercise in the past without much movement on the scale but now I had a mission. I needed to get down to 205 pounds by May 31st, the day of my fitting which I scheduled back in March. So now I was going to start tracking my weight every Monday. My regimen consisted of smaller portion sizes, less sugar (no soda's), less beer, more fruits and vegetables, and starting to run again.

Naturally winter decided to make things hard and it was on April 14th that we had a blizzard that dropped one foot of snow on us. Things had been looking better up until then, the sidewalks were starting to clear, I could run in 30 to 40 degree weather and I was making progress. When the snow hit I had to stop running and I decided to dust off the old T25 exercise DVD's and try that. I could only do those on Tuesdays and Thursdays though.

In order to meet my goal I would have to lose about one pound a week over 11 weeks, that was my minimum. I set a secondary goal of 200 pounds, I called that my ideal weight. I wanted to have a little wiggle room if I needed it. Then I tracked my actual weight and charted it so I could see how I was doing.

At this point I have five weeks left and things are going very well.  I have actually made my wedding dress minimum with time to spare. I am continuing to work to lose that last five pounds to get to my ideal wedding weight. There is even a chance that I can surpass it. I graduated college in 1990, since then I have been under the 200 pound mark only three times. I hope to see a fourth.  Here is a chart of my current progress. Wish me luck.

The Events of Summer

Las Vegas 2014

Depending on how you count I have anywhere from 2 to 5 events planned for the next few months.

First, I am going to Las Vegas at the end of May with my wife and friends to attend some shows and generally have a fun time. At a number of points during the trip I will be dressed up in all my girl finery. We have two shows that I will definitely be dressing to the nines for. We also have a pool day planned and I will be wearing a bikini at the hotel pool. So I guess you can count that as one or three events.

Also, while in Las Vegas I have another event planned. Back in November I was in Las Vegas to run a half marathon and while I was there I decided it could be fun to go wedding dress shopping, at a real bridal store. It was every bit as fun as I had imagined, trying on beautiful dress after dress. Well, one thing led to another and ended up buying one. Silly me. It arrived about a month ago and I plan on having a final fitting to get the hem and fit just right.

I told my girlfriends about the dress fitting and they want to come along and join in the fun. So now that is an additional event while I'm in Las Vegas. Girls day at the bridal salon. Of course I'll have to make sure my wedding lingerie works with my wedding dress so, I'll be wearing that and a easy to get into and out of casual dress when we go. If I'm doing that I might as well do my hair up too.  Just to get an idea of how the whole package will look. There will be pictures.

Finally, after we get back from Las Vegas and the dress is all perfectly fit there is one more event on the horizon. The girls who are going with me to the bridal salon are a couple of my burlesque friends.We actually do an act where I am Marilyn Monroe, they are wearing tuxedos and we perform to Diamonds Are A Girls Best Friend. Recently, they told me about this cool old mansion where we could do a photo shoot.I thought we were going to do promotional photos for our troupe, but it turns out they want to wear their tuxedos and I will be wearing my wedding dress. Little old bridal me with two "grooms" for a photoshoot. That will be so much fun, I am super excited. And so are they.

So that's it, somewhere between two and five girly events depending on how you count it.

34 days and counting to Las Vegas

Dream Board

While talking to Fiona from Sissyschool.com, she thought a Dream Board might be a good idea. So I started gathering photos of the things I plan to wear, will wear or would like to wear during my summer adventures. I also hope to get some nice pictures of the events as they occur too.

What events you ask?  I will post them here soon, so much to do and only 41 days to do it.

I know this is a quick post but here is the link to my Dream Board on Pinterest.

https://www.pinterest.com/heisthebride/2018-sissy-gurl-summer-events/

Countdown Timer for Las Vegas 2018