thursday

to: my lovely readers
re: thanksgiving.

have a fabulous turkey day and best wishes to you and yours -
I've decided getting skinny for the wedding is a perfect new years resolution; no need to worry about it now, plus its hard to focus on things like that when there is stuffing in front of my face.
no posts till monday since i will be up in the heart of maine, and my parents have dial-up.

xoxo
c

Speidi Returns...

OMG, I cannot believe this happened. Absolutely ridiculous -
She's crazy.
and not to be totally mean but she looks a little bit preggers in this pic (considering how tiny she actually is).

free things!!

La Petit Chic is featuring a FANTASTIC giveaway today. A Wii and Wii Fit!
Check it out!!

delish...

in the words of the infamous carrie bradshaw:
'hello lover'....

d'Orsay Pumps by Louboutin

picture perfect...

I can finally cross one item off my never ending list of things I have not done yet...

Fabulous Photographer ......CHECK


I've been very excited to talk about this for awhile, but I didn't want to jinx anything. Now that I have sent our deposit in and secured our date I am very excited to present our photographer Erica Lyn. We are extatic to have her photographing our event, she came with excellent referrals from previous clients and was ......wait for it..... affordable! (a.k.a. I will NOT have to sell my first born child to be able to have amazing wedding photos.)
We are getting:

6 Hours of Coverage by Herself and a Secondary Shooter,

Unlimited Photographs Taken and a DVD with all High-Res Post-Processed Photos,
Unlimited Photo Retouching,
an Online Photo Gallery
(100) 4x6 Prints in a Black Proof Box

(3) 5x7's and

(2) 8x10's

For the amazing price of under $2000! We may need more than 6 hours of coverage, but each additional hour is $125, which seems very reasonable. She is based out of New York, but she and her family really enjoy Maine and try to make a trip out of it each summer. They are going to travel up through Maine in August and take amazing pictures of the Glossy Wedding on the way. Since she is using our wedding as an excuse for a vacation with her family, she is also not charging us for travel fees!! We are pumped, well to be honest, Mr. Gloss doesn't really care - but he will be when he sees the great pics after!

I'm totally in love with the bright colors and romance in her photos!!

Everyone says its very important to meet and 'click' with your photographer (no pun intended)....we did not. We have exchanged countless emails and I can not imagine being anything but totally happy with her (and her photos!) but everyone says a physical meeting is really important.
Did you meet with all your vendors in person? Did you meet with any you thought you were going to love, and didn't?

advice por favor...

Ok ladies, (I'm assuming no males are reading this blog), I need your help. I think I've looked at all the 'pre-made' wedding websites and while some of them are actually not half bad; they lacked a personal touch. I am DIYing everything else....why not a website too?

So our goal is to have a website before we send out our Save the Dates...and that deadline seems fast approaching. I've come up with two options, one more fun, one a little more formal, and put them below for your vote. Mind you these are just sample pages - colors/images will probably change....I'm just looking for some format/layout advice.

Option 1: My "Wedding Binder" is a small black moleskin notebook which I carry everywhere with me. This was the inspiration for this site -


Option 2 : I need to find a better background photo for this one; it needs some more color I think; and a different frame around the picture....but what do you think?

Help!

STD's...

There are SO many great creative and unique options out there for Save the Dates now! I fell in love with many before we finally decided on ours -

Saw these on Brooklyn Bride and totally fell in love with them:

from here : (they placed all the relevant info on the back)

My issue with these is that Mr. Gloss refuses to have e-pics taken. (But I think I could convince him if I really wanted too.) I'm such a sucker for a Polaroid picture!

We could have done something like this with super cute baby pics and MOO!
from here : bonus, no e-pics would need to be taken

And then there is always the idea that everything should be perfectly coordinated:


(But I had no idea what our final invitation suite would end up looking like at this point in the planning process and even if I had it probably would have changed by now!) and the STD is allowed to be way more fun than the actual invite, right?

What do you guys think? Did your save-the-date coordinate with your invitation suite?

blogging break

I will be taking a blogging break for a few days. There was a tragedy in my hometown this weekend, leaving two people dead - one my old teacher and the other the father of one of my bridesmaids. She and I grew up together, and her family became mine. I wont go into details, but their absences will be a huge loss for the small community I grew up in.

These are things I think about when bad things happen:
Live each day to the fullest.
Family and friends are the most important thing in the world.
You don't have to be strong all the time; someone will be there to catch you.

I'm tired, I'm ready for the weekend - I really, really don't want to be at work right now. I have so much to do and no brainpower to make it happen.

dear santa, round one...

Dear Santa,

If you have been watching you've probably noticed two things:
1) I've been a pretty good girl this year.
2) Margaritas are my BFF.
That being said, let me present item No.1 on my dream christmas list.

Also Santa, if you cannot find the time to locate the Jimmy Buffet Margarita Machine (a.k.a. The Ultimate Party Machine), please place happy margarita dreams in the heads of our wedding guests in hopes to inspire them to purchase it for us. And by us I mean me and my friend Jose Q.

xoxo
C.

recommendations please!

image from here

When I was younger I used to read every night before I went to sleep. I don't read as much anymore, well not books anyways, due to massive amounts of blog stalking and wedding planning. As my addictions to soduku and Ipod solitare wither down, I am left with some valuable time on the T everyday which I would like to fill with a good book. I just finished Kite Runner and will probably grab A Thousand Splendid Suns tomorrow since that is the sequal - (I think).

But I'm curious - have you guys read any good books lately? I'd love a good recommendation!

a little eye candy for a saturday morning...

coordinating something blues?
oh jcrew, how you taunt me with your fabulous shoes.