All that Glitters

As I mentioned the day before, this blog has been my "happy place" as far as being able to post inspiration and whatever catches my eye. Since my trolling began, there are a few sites that I regularly frequent, so I thought I would share some.
But before I do, I was having a thought today about what the "ideal" wedding is for a woman. When I was searching through dresses, I came across a few duplicates of the Sex and the City Dress. Now, don't get me wrong, the thought definitely crossed my mind if that was the route I wanted to go, but really, what would be personal about that?

It is unquestionably a beautiful dress, but I think it takes away the point of it being a day about you and your husband; rather, it is a day you got to wear the "sex and the city" dress.

However, I surely have my ideas of what a "bride" looks like. For not having liked my former step father at all, he had a mother that had some beautiful old gowns and a classic bridal portrait. I wish I could find that picture, but it has been stuck in my head as what a "bride" looks like.

Call me old-fashioned, but I love all of these pictures! I will say that when choosing my dress, I kept in mind a classic style.

Now, for the sites that I am a little obsessed with:

The Princess Blog is one of those site I happened upon that is an explosion of color and happiness. The girl that keeps it has a an affinity to the color pink and Disney World.

Another of the sites that I look at is Ghastly.

It is actually a girl that is a few years younger than me that I went to high school. It is a little angsty at times, but I appreciate her point of view. About 20% of her blog is pretty dark, but otherwise, interesting photos.

That is all for now.

Ohhh, and I heard back from Anthropologie and they are selling me the poms for around 15 poms/$25. It's not quite free, but a hell of a deal considering they normally cost about $10/pom or take about an hour to make just 1.

I'm picking them up today!

Even though it was 2 degrees yesterday in Chicago, I decided to face the cold and go downtown to see one of my lovely friends I made abroad, Emily. It was nice to catch up with her, as it had been way too long. We talked a little about the wedding planning, and after we parted ways, I stopped off at Anthropologie to take a look at the holiday sales. Within the first minute I picked up one of my favorite things that I already own:

Of course, the one I already have has an "H" on it, but I picked up a "J" one for Jonathan.

With wedding talk fresh on the mind, I looked up and saw their huge decoration for the season, paper poms! Now, most people don't get too exited by paper poms, but as a bride who is looking to make their own and know how much tim it takes to make just one, the sight of hundreds was beautiful!

I immediately found the manager and inquired how they dispose of such displays. She them told me that one customer had already laid claim to some of the poms for her wedding, but that because there were so many of them, there was a high probability that I could have at least some of them.

Hey, I will take what I can get!

Here are a few examples of poms used in other weddings:

I think they would be great as isle runners, like this:

I hear back from Anthropologie tomorrow, as the store designer is in and will be able to tell many how many she can hold for me.

Last night we finally got to watch a movie I had heard of, but never found the time to see in theaters. For one, it had a limited release, so there was one theater in Chicago playing it at times that I was normally working.

It is a film following the editor of Vogue, Anna Wintour. Apparently, she is the inspiration for the book The Devil Wears Prada. What's funny is that her office even looks like the office they designed for Meryl Streep in that movie.

Anways, the documentary was amazing and had such a great way of telling the story of how their biggest issue of the year gets put together.

One of the more interesting people in the movie was Grace Coddington, who is the creative director. She is in charge of the main photo shoots for the magazine. Above is one of her shots that she actually used one of the documentary guys to be in a shot that made it in the magazine. 

I also like Grace because her job was to think of the most beautiful and creative things, and put them into pictures. It is probably one of the hardest jobs to do.

This movie also sparked my love for all things pretty and reminded me of one the vogue shoots that will remain in my mind for awhile.

When Sophia Coppola's, Marie Antoinette, came out, Vogue did a shoot at Versailles with Kirsten Dunst.

I'm pretty sure that the last dress inspired my wardrobe on using red, white, and pale blue as primary colors at the time the movie came out.

It is all so pretty! One of the things that I have loved about planning this wedding and starting this blog is all of the beautiful things that I have found in life. Not just in things off of the internet, but in nature and daily life. I have started to pay more attention to it all.

 I think next time I will share some inspiration sites that I have found.

Oh, and last thing, I have to mention that I climbed a 5.11b today, which is a pretty big deal, in my book. It was hard, but realizing that I could do it was amazing!

I have tomorrow off, so hopefully that means another blog post!

They have arrived!

 The shoes that I had mentioned before came in the mail last night and I am pleased to say that they fit like a glove! Betsey Johnson is one of my favorite designers, but normally out of my price range. Luckily, I found the last pair on Overstock.com in my size for $35.99, market down from $180.

So, besides the shoes being amazing, I love the packaging. So did Boo.

Notice the leopard print wrapping.

 That is a dangerous heel, but I will find a way to wear them! And, yes, the soles are pink!

The cats took an interest to the new additions, too. They look a lot more shiny in the pictures than they do in reality, but I love them!

Another new thing to mark off our list is that we finally registered somewhere! I was hesitating doing so, since it is a little discouraging to not have a lot of space to put gifts in. If we were moving to a bigger place or buying a house it would be different, but we will probably be living in a small place or moving to God knows where in the next few years.We decided on Target, but we are still interested in registering one other place, to give guests more variety. Off the record, we would just really like help with the honeymoon!

Well, off to bed! See you all in the new year!

Merry Belated Christmas!

I hope the holidays has treated everyone well, so far! We just got back from Iowa today, which was nice and relaxing. Even though I didn't get a chance to travel back to Texas yet, Jonathan's family has been so good to me and I feel more and more of a bond with them. It was also nice to share a few of the wedding details with them, as I don't speak to them too often.
One thing that his brother liked was my decision about men's suits. I have never been a big fan of putting the wedding colors on men. I think black and white is the most masculine and formal way to go. My pet peeve is putting super feminine colors on men when it is not on their own accord. I have also always loved the skinny tie look on a man, but it might look silly on a bigger guy.

I am still debating on whether I even want to have boutonnieres made for them. I had looked into making a dried herb boutonniere, which is pretty easy to make, considering my semester of floral design in high school.

These lead me to my other thoughts of the moment, flowers.

The theme of the wedding (yes, I have a theme) is bringing nature indoors. Partly, this theme was chosen because of the way that Frank Lloyd Wright designed houses in this area, and since we are getting married at a prairie-style house, it only seems appropriate. Also, I just wanted the event to feel more natural to the surroundings and try to fit with the season.

One of the flowers that I see in a lot of neighbor's gardens is hydrangeas.  What is nice about these flowers is that they naturally come in a range of colors, they are fuller bodied, and they don't cost too much. I really like the idea of bridesmaid bouquets to be either white or pinkish colored hydrangeas, and for mine to have a few other types of flowers, along with them.

One last thing, I think I finally found my shoes! I don't want to jinx it though, because I haven't tried them on to see if they fit yet. I was wasting time on facebook the other day and those sneaky adds lead my to Overstock.com, where I found the last pair on sale, size 9.5. I normally wear between a 9 or 10, depending on the brand. I don't have a pair of shoes in this brand yet, so fingers crossed that they fit!

I will keep the update in those when they come in the mail.

Until next time, kids!

I'm a mean girl, and I like it

Lots of useless thoughts that I thought I would share today.

1. The title not only references reality, it also references the amazingness of what Perez Hilton revealed to me...Lindsay Lohan is strapped for cash and is selling her "gently" used clothes on the Lohan family website- no joke.
Turns out we wear the same shoe size. I wonder though if the garments are as genuine as they seem. I would be dissatisfied if I couldn't find some traces of cocaine and fake tanner stains. Jonathan joked that if I buy something it would be a stipulation that she not clean it first. Sounds gross, but I'm tempted.
For those of you who don't know, my freakish minor obsession with Lindsay Lohan goes back a good ways, so needless to say, I am very tempted to buy at least one thing.

2. I think I have decided on bridesmaid dresses and have taken a deep breath out. I basically chose a color and fabric that I liked (barely peach, silk taffeta) and asked the girls to chose a style. Here are the three choices:

Notice the subtle differences, yet collective in the same way. I also really love the color!

Fitting for the occasion. I think that most of the aesthetics of this wedding are more satisfying to me than they ever would be for Jonathan.

3. Now for the mean girl part. So, I was doing a little FB stalking and came across this atrocious wedding. Granted, they were not professional pictures, but you get to see enough of what is wrong. No amount of touch-ups could hide the ugly!

First of all, I will say that the majority of the pictures I left out for discretion's sake, considering that taste is taste and some people just don't have any. I feel bad for them. However, there are some glaring notes to take away from this wedding.

Biiiiiiggggg  #1:

No douche bags aloud.

Notice the use of the "shocker" in this photo. In a wedding photo. If I knew anyone did that in my wedding photos, I would take a knife to that pinky finger.

#2: Awful staged photos.

Another thing to notice about these pictures is the abundance of sunglasses in a seemingly shady backyard. Really? You feel like being Mr. Cool at someone else's wedding? Then again, this is a great time to mention the emasculating  color choice of this whole event.

Another one of those painfully awkward photos.

#3: Killing it with Color

I'm sure all of those bm's loved that dress. I mean, look at the detailing on the bottom! And the flower girls? I hate to criticize children, so I will blame the bride and their parents instead. The pink makes me want to vomit pepto bismal.

#5 Hobby Cakes gone wrong.

She made flower girl cakes....cute?

Ah, the grooms cake. Nothing says I'm so proud to be getting married like homage to an 80's cover band that stirs up images of girls in leopard unitards writhing on the hood of a mustang convertible.

Thus, my rant is done. I'm sorry if this was your unfortunate wedding.

 kind of.