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: