E! c'mon really?!

photo from E! Online

The debut of Bridalplasty aired tonite on E! This may be the next new show that I love to hate. As appalled as I was to tune in for the debut episode I could not turn the channel and also could not stop asking myself "are these girls for real?!". I found myself rooting for one of the girls that almost got voted off at the end, she  was also on The Biggest Loser (another one of my fav shows) ..at the same time thinking to myself "why are you rooting for anyone?!". See throughout the whole show I was in this conflict, my gut was telling me no but the trashy tv loving side of my brain kept saying yes! Worst part was at the end of the show, Shanna Moakler tells the first girl she's kicked off by saying something along the lines of "You will get married but it won't be perfect" - SERIOUSLY?!
Not really sure how this show will pane out, will it be entertaining- maybe, will I feel horrible for these girls- definitely.

Back to work tomorrow- why do holidays go by so quickly?!

A Seattle Thanksgiving

Well its been quite an eventful few days. The city of Seattle pretty much shut down due to snow which left me, the brave new englander, the only person to make it into the office. The only thing that made me nervous driving in the 2 inches of snow was the other crazy drivers and bikers and by bikers I am talking  bicycle bikes. There were actually people riding them in the snow! Well needless to say it was a slow work week. This was Russ's first snow- and he was pretty jacked up about it

Wednesday night we ate at one of our favorite restaurants Bizarro - which was featured on Food Network's Diners Drive-ins and Dives! We woke up early on Thanksgiving day to watch the Pats and start our cooking. Thanksgiving dinner was at our good friend's Kendra and Justin's. We were in charge of the potatoes. I made this yummy (if I don't say so myself!) sweet potato dish and of course one of the staples at all turkey-day dinners, your classic mashed. I was so proud of the 6 of us for pulling off our first Thanksgiving without adult supervision (I'm sorry I still can not refer to myself as an adult ha). First Thanksgiving in Seattle = success. I am so glad I had these people to share it with!

Last night we headed to Bellevue to catch Kevin Nealon. Weeds is one of Eddie & I's favorite shows so we were pretty pumped when we heard he was coming to town.

Now I just need to fit in some shopping to make my week complete!

Vintage/Rustic?

That's the theme I envision for our wedding. I just can't see myself pulling it together in a classy way. I love pretty things- but I haven't quite mastered the way to mishmash them together. Take for example our apt. We have some nice things in here but overall I am not happy with the way my decorating came together-but hey it's a work in progress. Maybe its because I am overloaded with all the beautiful blogs I come across- some of these gals just have such a way with design, I am in envy! Another thing with me, my taste changes pretty much weekly, this gets me very scared when picking out a dress. I need to find something I will LOVE for more than a month seeing as you have to buy that thing a year out in most cases! (saying this as I watch Say Yes to the Dress- heart it! boy do I love marathon wedding TV shows on Sundays!)
So back to my vision for the wedding- I have found a few things on Etsy so far that I just love/need.



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I need our invites to include cute little love birds



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Rustic wedding card box



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 I pretty much need this sign (in different colors though). Our venue has 2 rooms so there is a possibility to have 2 weddings at the same time. I think this is not only cute but practical!

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How gorgeous is this garter?!

  

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I want to buy this parasol soon so we can use it in our engagement shoot as well as the wedding day. The creator is giving 10% off the month of January as she is on maternity leave right now so I believe I will be having one of these in my possession shortly!



The last pic of the morning- these cute little guys. Love birds again- they won my heart. xo



Before we DO we MUST

This morning I was feeling a little ambitious and decided to create a list of things we have to accomplish before the big wedding day. With plenty of time before now and June 9th 2012 it still makes me feel somewhat like this:

Ha no really though- this pic just makes me laugh, a lot of the things on the list I am excited about. I mean how could I not be excited to try on wedding dresses?! I am pretty sure we'll be knocking some items off very shortly too which makes me smile and look less scary baby-like!

This said list is located just to the right.. check it out and feel free to send me any fabulous ideas you may have!

I see the sun... on a Saturday in Seattle, unheard of! I must now wake Eddie up and head outside to enjoy it while we can!

London is for Lovers

What better way to celebrate July 4th than in the UK right?! This past July (seems so darn far away now, eek) we spent an unforgettable week in London visiting my older brother Colin.

 The first 2 days were spent running a muck around the city. I could not leave London without a pic in a red telephone booth! This was taken after a July 4th BBQ where we had a few too many "American" beers and of course a few pitchers of our drink of the week Pims! Far left my very handsome brudder, moii in my oh so londonesque dress, & Eddie

Day 3- July 5th bright and early we began the 5 hour drive southish (forgive me I am terrible w/ Geography!!) to Newquay, Cornwall. Newquay is a surf town full of beautiful people and beaches. After the quick 5 hour drive, I snoozed the whole time so it definitely was a quick one, we dropped off our bags at the beach side hostel and were off to check out the town and dine on some good Conrnwall eats.

Before we knew it the sun was about to set so we headed back towards the hostel to catch it on the beach. I was a little peeved when my brother said he was beat and was heading back to take a nap (how dare you nap on our vacation!) After a few comments from moi we trotted on, well not really a trot it was a pretty steep hill to the beach so it was more of a slow paced walk- thank goodness we made it in time for the sunset!

because a few moments later I had THIS on my pretty lil finger:

Colin was not too far at the beach bar waiting to celebrate with us and lend us his phone so we could call the parents! This was such a great memory that I will always hold in my heart.

The rest of the time in Newquay was very relaxing for me at least, the boys tried sufering but I opt'd out. What if my ring fell off my finger in the ocean?! ...After an amazing 2 night stay we headed back to London with a quick stop in Bath.

Back in London we didn't have too many days left to take on the city but we tried our hardest to see and do most the things on our list.



The London Eye!



Les Miserables



The Tower of London

and of course drink tons and tons of Pims!

And there you have it! The story of the proposal and our trip to London! xoxo

Our Song

 My head is filled with ideas for our wedding and I am beyond indecisive. This is OK because The Knot tells me we have 576 days to go- plenty of time to put all these ideas together! There is one thing that we didn't even have to think about which is, the first song we will dance to as husband and wife.

When I think of moments like this:

This song plays in my head:

Pearl Jam's Just Breathe

I have to add that I have the most amazingly talented father in the world. He surprised Eddie & I and played this song for us at our engagement party. I told my mom a few weeks after we got engaged that this was our song and I had no idea my dad knew.

My dad & our friend Frank (also one of Ed's groomsmen) jamming out for us at the engagement party.

Jen & Mike's Jersey Wedding

Jen is a great friend of mine who I met in college (lets go UMASS!) I had the pleasure of talking to Jen pretty much daily while she was planning her big wedding day. She had so many great ideas and I loved hearing all about it, she's one of my main sources for wedding advice now. I wanted to share some of my favorite photos from her & Mike's big day!
Photos by Sean Patrick Photography

I love that Jen got ready at her parents house. Right now its not in my plans but I think it would be great to get ready in the bedroom I grew up in!






flowers by Floral Sentiments

 



 

I'm a Red Sox fan so I can't believe I'm putting this picture on here - BUT I love the idea of representing your sports team- and for Jen, the Yankees are her #1.

Eddie & I have been saving corks since we moved out to Seattle. Needless to say we have a lot, I hope to incorporate wine corks into our reception. Jen made these!

Tall centerpieces w/ candy apple favors. A fitting favor for an October wedding

I love the ring shot. Jacin at She Said Yes blogged that you should make a list of all the pictures you want your photographer to take, this one will definitely be included in my list!

This picture just brings such a smile to my face! Jen with her maid of honor who is also the sister of her new hubby.

Jen was a BEAUTIFUL bride. I loved that her & Mike's personality shined through all the little details of their day!

Meet Russ

Ed's off watching the Patriots game downtown so I'm cuddling with Russ and his monkey for the morning/afternoon watching trashy tv shows. I can't even describe the love I have for this little guy- god help me when we have kids because I baby him like crazy -I can't imagine how ridiculous I will be with a child. Well anyway.. here's Russ's story. We'd talked about getting a dog for a while but we never really actively looked. One random Saturday morning I found out Ginger's Pet Rescue was holding an adoption event at a Petco not too far from us. So we decided to go -not thinking we'd be leaving with a pup. We hadn't ever heard about Ginger's Pet Rescue but found out they specialize in "death row" dogs. Most of the dogs at this event were rescued from puppy mills (don't know much about puppy mills? go to Ginger's site and read) Ginger's Pet Rescue = GREAT organization! There were about a dozen our so dogs when we walked into Petco all so cute and helpless which was so sad. Russ was the second dog we sat with and right off the bat Ed knew he was OUR dog. He was the only dog that hadn't been groomed - matted fur and stinking of something TERRIBLE. We played with timid Russ for an hour before we decided there was no way we were leaving without him. We were told he was around 4, a miniature poodle, the daddy at the puppy mill then we were on our way.


Love at first sight

 We've had Russ since April and he has come a LONG way from the timid scared pup who wouldn't wag his tail for weeks. We were told that some puppy mill dogs never fully come around and won't ever like to be pet or cuddled- luckily Russ is not one of them. He's a happy lil guy now and is reliving his puppy days the right way and loving life (so I like to think!).

Trying to figure out a fun way to incorporate him into our wedding day- not sure if our church will allow him to trot down the isle as our ring bearer ;).

Hope everyone out there is having a relaxing Sunday like me!

the big decision!

2 things I am VERY happy about.. 1. finding a perfect venue and 2. not having to search the internet for venues anymore!

We visted home Columbus day weekend with a few goals.. see as many people as we could in 4 days, dance our bums off at a good friends wedding (congrats whip & jon!), and BOOK a venue. While venue searching my plan was to take pictures of all the places we visited and blog about it and that's how I could enter into this whole blog world- huge fail! We checked out only 3 venues as I got lazy and wanted to spend time with my friends and family rather than traveling all over NE to look at venues. First stop was Hawthorne Country Club- immediately turned off as the place had a stale stench that I just couldn't shake. After leaving I was kind of distraught about the whole wedding venue search because at that point we only had one other venue scheduled to check out. Then I remembered The Villa in East Bridgewater- I had briefly looked at it online and sent an email to one of the coordinators weeks prior but never really set a time to check it out. After leaving HCC I thought, hey might as well give the gal at the Villa a call and see if we can swing by, luckily we could! We were greeted by Lauren the sweetest girl ever. She brought us out a delish cheese plate and a cute bride to be bag. It's like she already knew that food & free swag was the way to my heart! We enjoyed our cheese plate while chatting with her in the place where cocktail hour would potentially be then checked out the rustic yet sheek Madera room with 2 fireplaces and the kicker for me- INCLUDED CHIAVARI CHAIRS! I don't know what it is about those chairs but I don't think I could possibly plan a reception anywhere without them! We left The Villa and I had a huge smile on my face and was ready to party down with my favs for the night. Day 2 we woke up slightly hungover, ouch, but that's what happens when you have the most amazingly fun friends ever and you haven't seen them in a while. Last venue-We headed to Lake of Isles which is part of Foxwoods Casino. My first thought upon arrival was "oh jesus no, how am I ever going to decide between The Villa and this place". As the tour continued we were not disappointed, the grounds were perfectly manicured and the view of the lake was beyond beautiful. We left with a TOUGH decision and what made it even tougher was I was leaning towards The Villa and Eddie was leaning towards Lake of Isles. That night I whipped out my handy wedding planning notebook and listed the pros and cons of each. And the Decision...... THE VILLA. I can not wait to start planning my dream wedding here.. June 9th 2012!