wedding hair dilemmas and extensions

coming up with a hair style for my wedding day has been a real challenge. the back of my dress is crisscrossy and rather lovely and so i did not want to cover it up and wear my hair down. but then i ran into my first dilemma that i didn't want to wear my hair up because i'm terrified of looking bald from certain angles (i know.. i'm a weirdo).

so my brilliant plan was to do a side braid.. you know those bohemian, messy yet super chic and classy braids you see on pinterest (see below)? yeah, that kind.  

then i ran into dilemma number two: my hair is not quite long enough and makes me unfortunately look like i'm about 12 years old in a side braid. after talking to some friends, i decided i should try hair extensions to make my braid longer and get the look i was actually going for (not the 12 year old one). 

thankfully, my friend is a hairdresser so she matched my hair, ordered the extensions (which are NOT cheap) and attached them to my head. then she curled my hair and made it all flow and look beautiful.. which i failed to replicate at home.. numerous times. 

i went home, washed my hair and could not for the life of me make it look like the extensions blended with my own hair. and, since i already have thick hair, my head basically just looked like an even bigger and frizzier mess than usual. it also didn't help that i put the extensions in when it was about 100 degrees outside and the last thing i needed was more hair. SO. MUCH. HAIR. 

so i dried the horse tail i had as best i could and braided it (by the way, did you know there is a difference between a regular braid and a reverse braid? i had no idea. so FYI, apparently there is and a reverse braid is what gives you the loose look). and in a braid, i actually really liked the long hair.. but since i couldn't style my hair in any other way (even putting it up in a bun was a disaster) i could only handle so much braiding. 

soooooo.. after about 4 days, i got sick of the extensions, stood in my kitchen with a jar of coconut oil and pulled them all out. and then threw them away (you can re-use them) because i swore i would never put those awful things in my head again.. 

after i ripped the extensions out of my head, one of my friends (who is an extension pro) showed me her clip in extension which was all one piece and literally just clips into your head and unclips.. no gluing to put in or coconut oil to take out. so simple. i toyed with the idea of buying one of these for the wedding and decided against it. besides my eyelashes (totally fake), i really like to keep myself as natural as possible and have no idea why i entertained hair extensions in the first place.. but hey, ya live and ya learn. 

guess what i'm trying to figure out now? a new hair style for the wedding! since we'll be in the dominican republic and every day is one billion degrees with 200% humidity, i think i'm just going to have to risk looking bald and go with some sort of up-do. i'm thinking low, messy-ish bun. here are some ideas i found on pinterest and like.. 

what do you all think? i'd love ideas!