Happy seis de mayo!

How great was it that Cinco de Mayo fell on a Saturday this year?!

Such a fun holiday to celebrate, I mean who can contain their hips when spanish music is playing especially after having a few margaritas! cinco de mayo = endless dance party!

This year we decided to try out the Tacos Guaymas block party on Green Lake. And it did NOT disappoint!! Music pumping plenty of bars open, it was a good day/night.

I attempted a festive outfit after stumbling upon these pants at Target. For 22 bucks I couldn't resist getting them in orange and blue! They are actually cropped skinnies and are much cuter in person then on their website! The store was pretty much sold out in all of the colors!

a few margaritas and a quesadilla to the face and I was good to go! Can we talk about how cute these plastic cups are.. I adore anything with a mustache on it! Well except maybe my fiance, I'd prefer he stay mustache free for the time being... 

Meg and I had to take a pic with this guy who apparently thought it was a white party, to be fair he asked us to have a pic taken with him as well....

ohh you like my cross body purse do you? well I recently splurged on this Hobo beaut, BUT I did get it at a pretty hefty discount on Rue Lala. I figured it would be perfect for wearing around Italy!

and this pretty much sums up the afternoon/evening... ran a muck with this wild child.

Completely shifting gears here but I wanted to share the gorgeous hanky that will be wrapped around my wedding bouquet. My mother's coworker embroidered this for me, it turned out so lovely and I can't waittttt to see it in person wrapped around my flowers!!

Fling before the Ring Savannah Style!

This past weekend me and some of my best girls & I met up in Savannah Georgia for a weekend of sun and ridiculousness. 

There was no place I'd rather spend one of my last weekends as a single lady than at this little slice of heaven. We were welcomed to 90 degree heat.. HELLOOOO what I needed SOOO badly in my life right at that moment!

First stop on the agenda River Street! Any city you can walk around with cups of booze is a city I want to be in! We grabbed some margaritas and hit the pavement!

That lady up front, thats my maid of honor, one little ball of fun!

We found this hot spot on top of the Bohemian Hotel and saddled up for a few more rounds. 

Then made our way back to our pad for the weekend.. This place was AMAZING, let me tell you, just take a look at the patio, that is if you can look beyond the obscene beer bong.. hey it had to be done, it was a bachelorette weekend after all!

Moving right along to day 2, we hit Tybee Island, a short 20 minute ride got us to this island paradise. I coulda parked my butt here for days. Tybee was a super cute little beach place, not a whole lot going on in that area though.

This is my college friend Jen & I. She seriously keeps me sane throughout the workweek on gchat. 

After a few hours in the sun, we headed back to the house and cleaned ourselves up, I was ready for the night pimp cup in hand and some pretty jewels around my neck (ha).

We started at Vics on the River for a high class dinner, I ditched my bach garb for this and traded up for a classy proseco drink. Not too many pictures we were taken after this point in the night..

The night ended back in the kitchen where we chatted for hours..

Day 3 we relaxed on the patio then got ready to hit City Market for some sight seeing.. I wore this extremely comfy Victoria's Secret dress.

We quickly ordered some Peach Sangria for our stroll.

 Here we are waiting and waiting and waitinggg for it!

By the end of the day and evening we were all a little rough around the edges.. even though, see that sneaky girl to my left, that's one of my bridesmaids, well see, as I was shoving Jager shots down she was taking "tequila" shots ahem actually WATER shots. JERK. ;)

We stumbled our way home and crashed that night.. 

The next morning we packed up and got ready to say goodbye. We did one last stroll around City Market for some lunch. 

What an amazing bachelorette weekend was had by me!! Seriously nothing tops a nice long weekend away with my girls!! Can't wait to be reunited with them again in ONE MONTH for my wedding day!!!!

Our Pretty Pink & White Invites!

Last Thursday morning I received an amazing package that was months in the making!

.. MY INVITES! and programs and menus but I won't be sharing those just yet! ;) but FYI the menus are my FAVORITE, oh the suspense! 

So now that these little cuties have started to make their way to everyones mailboxes, I had to share!

Upon opening! Pink tissue paper & a sweet card from the designer at Mayla Studios!

The whole invitation process seemed SO daunting to me at first. Luckily for me, I had Barbara of Mayla Studios to turn to. She initially emailed me a timeline that really helped put my mind at ease and calmed any stress! I emailed her scattered thoughts and probably one too many pictures, but she took all the info in and created EXACTLY what I wanted.

Without further ado here they are!

The suite includes: Formal invite, additional info card, map card, & RSVP postcard. All tied together with pink and white twine and the cutest little tag. SWWOOON :)

Whenever we RSVP to weddings I always try to add a little note on the RSVP card, I can't wait to read the ones we get back!

Like seriously, I know I am partial, but how stinking cute is this RSVP card?!?

Parting with oh around 130 of these made me SOOO anxious. I brought them to the postoffice and fumbled over sentences as the postal working had to grab these out of my hands! (ok maybe a BIT of an exaggeration). I was really mostly anxious about getting everyones address's wrong, I need these little babies to make their way to all my friends and family!

Welp, yesterday marked exactly 2 months till the big day. I am trying to soak every moment of the days leading up to it in. Eddie and I are just over the moon excited, its a pretty indescribable feeling! 

So back to the invites if ANY of you ladies are needing an expert in the paper industry shoot Barbara at Mayla Studios an email!!! She made this whole process so painless, and our back and forth emails brought a smile to my face daily! :)

Jack & Jill went down the hill...

A few weekends ago Eddie & I ventured back to Massachusetts for a TOO QUICK weekend that I was SUPER excited for.

Our amazing bridesmaids & groomsmen threw us a Jack & Jill shower!! 

I couldn't have asked for a more perfect party. It was such a great little preview to our wedding reception! I don't think I have ever felt more loved and special and I don't think I ever realized how much my family really does love to dance! (you guys rock!)

 I felt there wasn't enough time in the evening to speak to everyone, eat enough, drink enough, and of course DANCE enough. 

Here are a few highlights from the night

catching up and looking pretty with friends since elementary school!

Umm HELLO cake. My bridesmaid Jocelyn did an AMAZING job picking out this cake. So cute & yummy! I love that she added our colleges.. we both attended state schools in Massachusetts except mine is WAYY better than his ;) 

My adorable flower girls Nina & Gretchen, these girls melt my heart and I miss them sooooo much!!

My mom set up our card table. A cute little suitcase looking box to tie in our theme for our Italian honeymoon fund and some bride and groom flippy floppies!

Bridesmaid Kim put together the gorg bouquet in the back, to the left is actually the mock of MY wedding day bouquet and the right is  my bridesmaids mock bouquet. 

We met our florist Nicole, of Blooms of Hope while were home (actually fresh off the plane after our red eye OY!), she captured our vision for flowers to a T and let us keep the mocks of the bouquets. She won my heart!!

Finding a moment to eat with my fiance! Talk about some freaking gooood food! Catered by The Brick House Cafe. This food is so redic, def a spot that Ed & I miss dearly back home!!

My sweeet sweet mother. She is honestly my freaking rock. Don't know where I'd be without this woman! ...and I'm tots rocking my J.Simps 4 inch heels which is making me look semi-ogarish!

and my far too hip for almost 60 father ;) seriously, without him I'd probably only be a quarter of how cool I am today!

and thats a rap, amazing night, amazing food, amazing friends & family.

XO

Bridal Accessories oh my!!!

Oh my GOODNESS words can't express how excited I was to see my face on one of my favorite blogs, Wedding Chicks, today!! Head on over there to check out the great giveaway from Tessa Kim Birdcage Veils and Accessories.

All photo cred goes to Deyla Huss Photography

Ok, so HOW was I lucky enough to partake in this insanely fun stylized photo shoot, shot by Deyla Huss Photography!?

Tessa Kim is based in Seattle (my hood!) so I reached out to her when I heard she was looking for a model for her new 2012 collection pieces.   I was so excited to be a part of this fun shoot for many reasons but the top 2 being: 

1. I got to prance around in wedding dresses

and 2. I got to see all of her gorgeous accessories first hand!

You may've recently seen her accessories on 100 Layer Cakes Pop-up shop as well as many other blogs and wedding mags! She pretty much rocks, and so does photog Deyla Huss (Oregon based).

So head on over to Tessa Kim's website to peruse, while your there you may see a friendly face!

..oh and if your wondering... I ended up picking this beaut for my wedding day hair accessory!

Tessa Kim's Blush Flower fascinator - Opal. Girls go get yo self one! 

and a lil sneak peak from my hair trial from this past weekend..

The Honeymoon!!

Ed & I each had different thoughts about our honeymoon. 

I, from the get go wanted to go somewhere in Europe, he on the other hand, wanted no part in doing any tourist activities and wanted to plant himself on a beach somewhere tropical!

I totally didn't think I'd win this one.. until one afternoon Eddie mentioned Italy. I couldn't believe my ears, but I quickly said HECK YES and the internet searching began!

When we began our planing we started from the last leg of the trip to the first. We knew we wanted to do some relaxing and beaching and found Positano to be the perfect location for that. 

We booked a studio apartment through Summer in Italy for the last week of our trip.

This is the view we will be waking up to that week. EEEEKkk. Perfection!

When it came to booking the first leg I was SOO overwhelmed. How could we ever narrow down where to go in Italy! We knew we needed to bring in the big guns w/ a travel agent. 

Initially I contacted American Express travel they seemed a bit pricey and informal. We had a much better experience when we visited a Triple A Travel Agent. They got us great rates for flights and hotels and really listened to what we wanted to get out of the trip.

Here's the run down on our itinerary:

Monday we arrive in Florence and will be staying at the Best Western Laurus for 2 nights.

It's in great location and has an amazing roof deck.. something I mentioned to our travel agent I reallyyyy wanted in a hotel!

I mean c'mon can't you just see yourself sipping wine on this deck?!

From Florence we will take the train to Rome staying 3 nights at the Hotel Quirinale.

Train, boat, bus (its a heck of a trip) to get to Positano for 6 nights to stay in our little Villa!

Train back to Rome for one last night at the Marriott by the airport. 

Phew I am beyond pumped for this trip, I couldn't think of a better way to spend our first few weeks as husband and wife!!

We actually made a honeymoon registry through Honeyfund. It just seemed way more practical for us than registering for household things since we do plan to move back East sooner than later and I don't plan on taking much back with us when we make that move!

Making our honeymoon registry was fun too, it made me get on the ball and find all the activities and sights we wanted to see. Its super simple to give a gift, you just select the gift you want and it will prompt you to print a certificate out and bam your done!

4 MONTHS AS OF YESTERDAY TO GO!!

The Maids in RASPBERRY!

While I was home over Christmas I got all my bridesmaids together for a fun (ha yah right) day of dress trying on. Don't get me wrong there is nothing I enjoy more than my best girlfriends company but finding the perfect bridesmaid dress for them has been my least favorite wedding activity! 

I know they would all look great in ANYTHING but I couldn't decide what color, material, length etc I wanted. 

So I went from this idea, soft pink chiffon by Donna Morgan..

To this Jim Hjlem .. silky taffeta in raspberry.

I think all of the ladies will wear this dress fabulously and I'm super excited that I added this burst of color to the day!

Here's my maid of honor Collette, sporting it!

This pic gives a better idea of the color..

Happy Bridesmaids (minus 2)...and no, I'm not nakie here.. I had my wedding dress onnn. EEEE :)

Which brings me to today!

While out racking up the Visa bill, I stumbled upon these in Forever 21. 

At only $2.50 each I couldn't help but scoop them up! I think these will look great in my ladies hair!

(they are much more pinky in person and not that reddish).

Soooo glad I have this one crossed off the list and I think all of the girls are happy.. I HOPE! :)