Thanksgiving Weekend in Pictures {a non-wedding post}

My friend Chelsea came for a visit all the way from Washington state :) I miss her already. We had a lovely time hanging out by drinking wine and shopping for make up. She's amazing with beauty products and convinced me to buy Benefit Erase Paste. I've decided I love it. A dang good purchase.

 

Me, My Sister, My Mom on Thanksgiving Day

This is me and one of my flower girls, my cousin Lora on Thanksgiving Day. She had her fifth birthday last week and she is absoultely adorable.

This would be my other flower girl, Lenna Mae. She's Lora's little sister and so precious.

AJR and I made a trip to Lake Gaston with his family for the weekend. He and his dad are fishing.

While in Lake Gaston we went to a vintage shop and found an awesome old type writer. We aren't sure what we will do with it, but we love it. Possibly just a conversation starter piece to have in a hallway table?

I love the keys :)

AJR bought me a vintage evening clutch. I'm really excited about this!

I read The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It was one of those books I always thought I should read when I was in highschool and never did. Thank you AJR for buying it for me this summer :) I started it Friday night and finished Saturday... I couldn't put it down! My two favorite quotes from the book: "So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them." and "I used to listen to it all the time when I was little and thinking about grown-up things. I would go to my bedroom window and stare at my reflection in the glass and the trees behind it and just listen to the song for hours. I decided then that when I met someone I thought was as beautiful as the song, I should give it to that person. And I didn’t mean beautiful on the outside. I meant beautiful in all ways."

{Back to Weddingness Next Post}

AJR likes these

And I like them too.

(From: shannen natasha photography)

And the registry begins

Let me do a little posting on registry. First of all, this is something that when I tell people I am doing they go "Omigosh! Soooo fun!" (Well, if they are of female origin that is). And here is the fun part: Eventually you get really cool gifts. But first you have to choose these really cool gifts and that has proved to be a difficult thing! AJR and I went to Crate and Barrel on Saturday and were a bit overwhelmed with the choices. In fact, we were there for an hour and a half and never even touched the cool gun clicker thingy! We thought we would “look around” before we committed to putting things on the registry, but by the time we even got to the second floor of the store, we were exhausted.

And apparently the second floor is where all the good stuff is, like furniture. ie. Comfy leather couches that we could sit in while we dreamed of owning this trunk as our future coffee table. Anyhow, I decided to come home and do it online, which was a little easier since I wasn’t distracted by all the Christmas displays that were every five feet in the store.

Then last night I went to Bed Bath and Beyond, which is our second place to list our wants and needs for a refined home environment. I actually spent 30 minutes contemplating between towels. I also registered for two towels that were 39.99 each. My conscience is killing me. All the wedding marketing people try to convince you that you need to let guests spoil you by registering for completely unpractical and ridiculously expensive items. The guilt is eating at me. I may have to reconsider those forty dollar towels.

Images from here

Wedding Cake

AJR and I thought about going cake shopping this weekend but have instead decided to dedicate our weekend to relaxation and registry. (Crate and Barrel here we come!)


I wanted to look at cakes online a little bit before I talked to any bakers and I want a cake that looks like this! Bah, I love it.

So instead we will try to go cake tasting the weekend of Thanksgiving. Because one cannot fill up on enough pumpkin pie and must top off the holiday weekend with sampling wedding cake!

P.S. Sarah (my roomie/Maid of Honor) is the one that found the blog I stole this image from. I am now obsessed with Ruffle.

Bride Wars

So... I know I already posted today, but who says I have to stop at one post per day!?!? Psshhh, Not I.

Last night I walked into my living room to see the movie "Bride Wars" playing. Naturally it's about weddings and naturally I had to get sucked into it, because well... it's about weddings. Duh.

Anne Hathaway is in the movie and the dress she wears is O.MI.GOSH.TO.DIE.FOR.  My mouth was visibly hanging open with drool when I saw it. Seriously, it is drop dead gorgeous and I just had to search for it this afternoon. The dress was from the 2005 Vera Wang Wedding collection and it is just mouth watering (as I demonstrated with my reaction to it last night).

I couldn't find a picture of the back of it, other than a girl that posted about it on Wedding Bee. This lucky girl actually wore the dress in her wedding. Ahhhh-mazing.

So why am I posting about dresses when I already have one? Well, here is what happened. When I went to that bridal store last week and found my dress, I realized that there are a MILLION gorgeous dresses that really aren't anything like the one I would choose to buy for my wedding. For some reason, now that I don't have to stress about my dress, I can take pleasure in browsing and actually appreciate the beauty of many other dresses.

Okay, I feel like this post is getting a little boring, but to add to the boringness... update on my dress: Last night I took it to Oksana, my Russian seamstress that I may or may not have a girl crush on. She says things like "Ze Dress!" and "Oy!" and gets right down to business when you ask her questions about alterations. She pinned it all in since it was about 3 sizes too big on me and we talked about some options regarding the slight changes I want to make to it. I go back December 4th to make more progress after she takes it in. I'm so excited!

DIY Table Runners

I LOVE table runners. Seriously, they are just better than plain table cloths. I like that they expose the table but are still a nice little spread to lay your centerpieces over.

I think the place we are renting tables from are going to be round tables. I'm not so sure runners look good on round tables. Darnit. Maybe we can change our order...

I found this DIY table runner on Style Me Pretty. I really wish I had a sewing machine. It's my goal to become more crafty. Perhaps I shall make it a New Years Resolution. I also think I fell in love with this DIY project because I love burlap. Don't ask me why, but I just think it's cool. It can come off as artsy and organic yet masculine. I still find it pretty in it's own way, and totally do-able for a wedding.

Materials

One bolt of 54-inch wide burlap (you can use less, but 21 runners took the full bolt)

Teal Blue Thread

Directions

1. Cut fabric in lengths of 14 feet, two inches.

2. Cut in half lengthwise so that each strip is 27 inches wide

3. Turn the ends and sides under one inch and hem

4. Stitch with a zig zag stitch (my mom used the largest zig zag, about a quarter of an inch) on her machine and chose satin thread)

5. Iron flat

So... Who wants to let me borrow their sewing machine? I don't even care if these are for the wedding... I just think they would be fun to make!

"I'll put a Flower in your Hair..."

I am still completely infatuated with the idea of using succulents in the wedding. They are so beautiful! And they last forever... unlike all other traditional wedding flowers that will brown and die within 24 hours. Okay, they don't actually last forever but you can have them cut in a certain manner so they are easily replantable. And even if you aren't able to do that, they will still keep for weeks afterward. I am definitely infusing my bouquet with them! And how sweet does it look in her hair? That is gorgeous!

This image was taken from an amazing wedding I found in my inbox from Green Wedding Shoes. Everything about that wedding was incredible... I may have to put it under my "Favorites" and come back for ideas!