Married, Honeymooned, and ready for Christmas!

We did it! Our wedding in Virginia was over 2 weeks ago, I can't believe it. Everything went perfectly, our venue was amazing and took care of all the extra details. The ceremony was beautiful, Bryan's uncle did such a good job! Our DJ was fabulous and we happily danced the night away. I'll start recapping with pictures and vendor reviews for any other ladies getting married soon.

I will only say this, Etsy was my savior!!!

Hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving! We were on the tail end of our honeymoon in Napa/San Francisco so we decided to have a Chinese dinner in Chinatown, it.was.delicious.



For shoppers still looking to pick up a few gifts or holiday accessories, Pottery Barn is having an amazing one day monogram and free shipping sale on tons of great products. I scooped up a few things for our friends, family, and apartment!

After Party

This is my post wedding/after party dress! I can't wait to wear it--though it's going to be pretty cold out, maybe with black tights?

Skincare Love

I know it's been forever! since this bride to be has checked in for a recap of well...anything. I'm going to try to start back up with wedding details since the big day is less than two weeks away!

First off, skin care, something I used to know nothing about. When we were first planning the wedding I had heard it was a good idea to go all bootcamp on your skin, unless you already had a magical regime--I definitely did not. I started slow using these guys every night to take off the day:



Then I decided to spring for something I had been pining for:



The Clairsonic! is amazing. I am really a believer in this product and after using it daily for about 2 weeks I could tell my skin was softer and nicer with more of a glow. I didn't have any weird reactions to it, no bumps or irritation, just taking off the older skin cells and exfoliating like it was going out of style. This was my major skincare routine change and it worked amazingly well.

So I thought about doing facials for a more intense kind of skincare prep right before the big day. Instead I decided to try out the Boscia Black Masque from Sephora and now I give myself facials at home twice a week. There is a reason everyone is raving about this masque, it really cleans your skin and purifies amazingly well. I think this is still sold out at the Sephora website, I nabbed mine from the local Nashville mall.



There you go--my skincare regime revealed! What are some of your favorite products?

You're invited...

So we have hit the 3 month mark until the wedding, can you believe it? The summer is flying by at lightening speed, even working at home--which I did not anticipate. My days go so quickly that I hardly have time to put on a real outfit, not involving pjs, and throw some makeup on. Bring on the wedding panic, we have no invites! I have been looking at invites for months and months, secretly before B and I were even engaged!

I hate everything, I don't know what it is--I feel like the wedding invite sets your expectation about the event, which I know is ludicrous, however after much website surfing and serious lamenting I found the ones.

Enter Etsy. I usually think of Etsy as a clusterbomb of stuff that usually scares me away(they need to organize that site!). BUT I loved the idea of supporting someone's local business and actually talking with the person who would make our invitations. I also thought prices might be more reasonable on the site, check!, yes they were (depending on what you're looking at of course). I was never under the delusion that I would make my invites, props to the people who have craft skills, this girl knows her limits. I just wanted something beautiful, simple, and elegant.

I found my dream invite and Amy at Amy Olsaver Designs, http://www.etsy.com/shop/amyolsaver, has been wonderful to work with. I saw her monogrammed styles and fell in love. She also customized our colors exactly and was open to any kind of changes that I wanted to make. I would recommend her to anyone looking to incorporate monograms into their wedding, either labels, favor boxes, or invitations.

Back from Hiatus

Between vacationing to South Carolina, packing up our old apartment, and moving 10 hours from Richmond to Nashville it's been a crazy past month! But I'm back, blogging from my home office, and so happy to be a Nashvillian.

I would include some new pictures of our apartment, however, it's still a bit of a wreck. There is a lot of organizing, decorating, and buying new household items to come! Hopefully I'll be able to spotlight some of the new projects along with our Nashville, and other Tennessee, adventures.

Here are a few things I'd like to tackle in the weeks to come:


Organizing my closet! I love the idea of framing pictures of your style icons for instant inspiration.


There is now sand on my growing list of house must haves--I love this idea for makeup brushes.





I really want to do a gallery wall above our big couch in the living room--I have collected tons of black frames so I just need to work up the courage to start!

Packing for a Mystery Bachelorette

My bridesmaid ladies, and other friends, are planning a surprise Bachelorette party for me this weekend! I don't really know where we are going, or what we're doing, and everything going on right now I'm so thankful to not be involved in the planning at all (totally going against my majorly type-A tendencies)--major dove love going out to everyone!! I have a few surprises for my friends as well--I just can't wait to see everyone and have an amazing, relaxed time wherever we are.

I've also decided I need to start planning some outfits for the upcoming weekend. I'm pretty sure it's going to be HOT wherever we are so sundresses are my new best friend. After another weekend in my hometown, with a jcrew warehouse sale--yay!, I picked up a few more essential items. Here's what I'm thinking:


a Metallic Beach cardigan, for cooler summer nights


I have been dying over these shoes since they came out and luckily snagged a pair over the weekend-


Love this simple, breezy dress


This jersey ruffle dress is so comfortable


A big straw hat will definitely be necessary to save me from the heat

Friday cannot come soon enough!

Hey Mambo, Italian Dinner

I just bought the Everyday Food cookbook and I think I have been wrong all along...maybe Martha and I will be friends!

I tried the 3 Tomato Spagetti, which I was unsure of as there are only a few ingredients and it was a breeze to make. It turned out really well with lots of flavor! A perfect light summer meal--

Ingredients:
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 pound spaghetti
2 tablespoons sun-dried tomato oil (from oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes)
4 cloves garlic, minced
¼ to ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 can (28 ounces) whole peeled tomatoes with juice
½ cup oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
1 pound cherry tomatoes, halved

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook spaghetti according to package directions.

Heat 2 tablespoons tomato oil in a large saucepan over mediumheat. Add garlic and crushed red pepper; cook until fragrant, 30 seconds. Add canned tomatoes with juice and sun-dried tomatoes. Simmer gently over medium, stirring occasionally and breaking up canned tomatoes until thick, 15 minutes. Add cherry tomatoes; simmer until soft, 10 minutes.

Drain spaghetti, reserving 1 cup pasta water; return pasta to pot. Add tomato mixture; season with salt and pepper. Toss, adding pasta water as desired (I did not end up adding any). Serve immediately (and cover gratuitously with parmesan cheese!).


I also really like this cookbook as it's broken up by season--easy peasy.

Back on the Wedding Train

Ok--we've decided to go ahead with the wedding. Hopefully that will be the only hiccup in the rest of our planning process, we've come so far I cannot imagine starting over entirely. Thank you for all of the supportive words and love from the blogworld. Last week was tough, like can't sleep tough, but now the sun is out and I'm getting excited about our wedding all over again.

To help get back in the mood, enjoy some wedding teasers:


I found these shoes at a J Crew warehouse sale and they are beautiful and incredibly comfortable--I'm not a big shoe person so as long as I'm tall and somewhat comfy, that is all that matters.



Love these earrings.


A cardigan over the dress, why didn't I think of this?--one more reason I'm so happy to be November bride.

Wedding Dilemma

We just ran into a major issue with our venue. We are getting married at a small Inn in Virginia. The plan was for all of us to stay there for the weekend, get married on their grounds Saturday afternoon, and hold our reception at this same location. A few days ago we found out that the Inn had booked all of the rooms for another wedding, the Friday night before our wedding. There is absolutely no availability and not only did they not give us preference to book these rooms, we booked our wedding first, they did not alert us to this change at all. We found out after relatives called warning us that the Inn was not taking their reservations as it was booked.

I have been a mess for the last few days. We were given a rate for Friday night and told that we would certainly be able to book rooms. Now that we are still 6 months out we have the option to basically pull out of the wedding or continue working with our venue to make the best of things. They did admit fault and are trying to make this oversight up to us. What I need to know is, is this worth it? Should we just cut our losses and do something completely different? Readers who have gone through the wedding process, were you glad that you did? Is the stress and planning worth the end result? Would you have done it differently if you could go back?

I need your guidance to help wrap my mind around this new development.

What the Ladies Will Wear

I just realized I never revealed what my lovely bridesmaids will be wearing for the wedding. I decided to go with the J Crew option, mostly because it's very accessible and I don't believe in fittings for bridesmaid dresses--why should they be doing the same amount of work that I'm doing to get into their dresses? We also scored in ordering some dresses on sale, the barely peach color was going out of style--I frantically realized one day when the styles were selling out online.

I let the girls pick from a range of colors and styles but in the same fabric, silk taffeta, to keep everything somewhat coordinated. I am in love with our wedding colors and was inspired by the following mood boards.




Here they are!






There is also a blakely dress in champagne but I couldn't find a picture online.

I opted for a strappy gold sandal, like these J Crew styles:

Easiest Frozen Key Lime Pie Recipe

4 ingredients:
One container of light cool whip
One can of sweetened condensed milk, fat free
1/2 cup of Key Lime Juice (you can either squeeze your own or buy the bottled stuff)
One graham cracker crust

Thaw cool whip until soft and add in milk and key lime juice, mix until incorporated, pour into crust, freeze for 4 hours or until firm.

This dessert is super light and still tastes exactly like regular key lime pie. I'm off to the store to pick up my ingredients now!

Favorite Spring Things

I've seriously been lacking in posts lately, sorry! We're dealing with the impending move, less than 2 months!, trying to clean out our apartment via craigslist, and weekends full of graduation activities for the little brother and sister.

To try to get back into the good graces of my wonderful readers, I thought I'd share with you some of my favorite things this spring.


My sister gave me a super easy and low calorie key lime pie recipe (see post to follow!)
I am officially obsessed with Jack Rogers, especially after learning that Jackie O made them popular in the 60s, I cannot stop wearing them. My most recent love is the cork and gold version, they go with everything!


I also bought my first pair of RayBans--I love the retro chic feel



Recently, all I want to drink is white wine, which I used to loathe--Particulaly sauvignon blancs and viogniers, I love the crisp fruit taste and semi dry finish (also for anyone who has been watching the Hills this season, have you noticed how Brody is always drinking white wine whenever they are out? It's so bizarre and girly, haha--I hope someone calls him out on it)


I cannot get enough of this everyday cardigan by J Crew, I shamefully own it in 3! colors, but its super comfortable and pulls any outfit together...

Honeymoon Ideas

We are in desperate need of honeymoon ideas! With Bryan starting his MBA program in August and the wedding in November we'll be aiming for either a Thanksgiving week honeymoon or sometime in late December. It's a weird time of year weather wise so I'm pretty sure we want to do something beachy and relaxing. Right now the contenders are Key West and St. Lucia, but I need your help with more ideas! Please let me know if you have any amazing honeymoon recommendations or can offer a review of Key West or St. Lucia.



Thank you thank you and have a wonderful weekend!

Engagement Photo Shoot

Our spring engagement shoot on the UVA campus--








All pictures by Beck and Call Photography!

Sketch my Dress

This is the only picture I could find of my dress online---beautiful isn't she? I'm sure this was done by someone's boutique or seamstress, but it still helps!



We took our engagement photos on the UVA campus last night and had so much fun. Our photographer is great and I can't wait to see how they turned out...tune in for a sneak peak next week!

Spring Things

Now that spring is officially here, I thought I'd share some of my favorite things so far this season. I love the nautical and safari trends so it's been a lot of neutrals for me lately, though I like throwing in some fun accessories to liven things up a bit.


These are J Crew's 3 inch chino shorts, perfect all spring and summer long--I love pairing these with my J Crew Chambray shirt along with a string of pearls.


I think aviators are universally flattering and add a little glamour to any outfit.


I have lived! in this shirt so far this spring. When it was colder I wore it with black leggings and tall boots but now I pair it with shorts--so comfortable. The boyfriend fit makes it feel very gender neutral, like something Katherine Hepburn would wear.


I used to be a Jack Rogers virgin but this spring I decided it was worth spending a little extra to wear these metallic sandals with everything all spring/summer. They only took a few weeks to break in and now feel wonderful.


I found this shirt at Target from Merona, I love 3/4 sleeves and the nautical pattern had me at hello. Perfect with white jeans or shorts.

I said yes to the Dress

So I found my dress, after a few weeks of searching around Richmond in bridal boutique after bridal boutique, I found the one that I'm good with. I didn't have tears, hot flashes, or "the feeling" but me and my dress, we're cool, we get along alright and I think we'll jive pretty well when it's go time. It's a weird experience trying on dresses, I will say. I wasn't sure what to expect but after the first appointment, when you will do something embarrassing guaranteed because you've never stripped down to your skivvies in front of another lady while she dresses you, it's all good. Theres only one way to work out the kinks in your dress shopping etiquette, just go and get it over with.

Anyway, back to my dress--which I love!! It's a Marisa, who I'd never heard of, and I'll just describe the thing because, well, I can't find a picture of it online to save my life. It's a strapless, sheath fit style dress with all over alencon lace that will be a cream/ivory color. There are buttons down the back only half way down with a smaller chapel train we will be bustling as soon as humanly possible after the ceremony. Now I just need to find shoes/jewelry/and a good tailor in Nashville!

I'm honestly relieved to have found a dress that I really like. After trying on close to 100 dresses I was getting scared there was nothing in my price point that I would like...I have expensive taste--it's not my fault! So now on to other wedding details like locking down the DJ, finding some invites, and choosing bridesmaid dresses!

On the bridesmaid note, I emailed J Crew to see if they could send me a few fabric swatches to compare and they got back to me immediately saying they'd be putting them in the mail today. Yay! This is why I love you J Crew.

More to come--we're headed to Nashville tomorrow! Have a lovely weekend.