the tuesday after a long weekend blues

this weekend we...

took a chicago architecture boat tour. (so fun, i recommend it for all tourists and tourist wannabes!)

ordered our wedding bands

drank bellini martinis outside

wore shorts (him) and sundresses (me)

cuddled with fredward

watched an embarrassing amount of A&E Hoarders and Obsessed

ate way too much candy (who needs to fit into a wedding dress in 18 days? me? oh.)

it was all around a great long weekend. but now i'm back at work, creating pivot tables and charts and graphs and sorting data. le sigh.

brooklyn row houses

i adore this print by claudia pearson.

and i cannot wait to be married in brooklyn just 20 days from today.

you better Belize it

i used to love airports.

when i was little, going to the airport meant going to dinsey world. as i got older, going to the airport meant a school trip to london, a family vacation, college visits. it meant packing bathing suits and eating junk food from the food court. it meant trashy magazines and bubble gum. and going to the airport was fun in the same way that getting ready for any special event was fun -- the anticipation was part of the adventure.

when i went away to college, i chose a school that was almost 1,000 miles from home. airports were exciting because they were just a small stop between two very different lives. and when i chose to study abroad in south africa, the airport was a place to collect myself and think about what i was about to do and later, what i had just done.

and then i started working. having {some} disposable income of my very own meant that i could go the airport any old time i wanted. so i did. i visited friends from home in boston. i went to london for the weekend. i went to thailand with some work friends...a year later we went to kenya and tanzania.

then i got promoted. and i started traveling for work. and all of a sudden, airports meant traffic on the way there and traffic on the way back. airports meant squeezing my liquids into ziploc bags, and sitting on the tarmac for three hours. airports took me away from the people i loved. they meant another night alone in a hotel room. they meant delays and cancellations. they meant power point presentations and expense reports.

i haven't taken a nice, fun trip in a few years. i guess i've been feeling pretty burnt out on work travel, and of course i've been lacking some of the things necessary to take a nice vacation like "money" and "vacation days."

but it sort of makes me sad that i gave up trying...that i gave up even dreaming about places i'd like to see. because there used to be a time when you could ask me where i'd like to go next and i could rattle off a list of 15 different options. and lately when people have been asking about where jim and i would honeymoon, i've been all, "i don't know. maybe we'll go somewhere later. maybe we'll just come back here and work."

ummm...who am i?

i think my sense of adventure is a big part of what makes me me. and i want it back.

so fuck it. it might be the worst possible time to take a vacation as far as work is concerned  {is there really ever a good time for vacation?}, but we're going on a honeymoon.

YOU BETTA BELIZE IT!!!!

new york state of mind

our little weekend jaunt to new york was so fun.

we walked around the village. we had drinks on the lower east side. we split a ginormous cupcake and we had a yummy brunch at the montauk club (where we're having our wedding recepion).

i'm looking forward to going back new york for our wedding in just 40 days!

degenerate.

i had my bachelorette party last weekend at the beautiful abbey resort on lake geneva in wisconsin.

and if you couldn't tell from this picture, IT WAS AWESOME.

this girl's weekend came at a perfect time for me. i was feeling overwhelmed and stressy and overall just sorry for myself on friday. but then! my besties came and picked me up and whisked me away for wine and hot tub parties, and yummy food, and wine, and kevin bacon style dance moves, and wine, and jumping on the bed, and wine, and presents. also? wine.

my friends are the best.

one year ago today...

...jim and i got engaged on a rooftop terrace in brooklyn.

and honestly? i've never felt so deliriously happy as i did on april 29, 2009.

to celebrate our one-year engagement anniversary, jim and i had a little picnic in holstein park. we might be far from brooklyn, but didn't you know?

BUCKTOWN IS FOR LOVERS!

63 days...

...until the day.

jim and i have pretty much nailed down all the important wedding details. we're just tying up loose ends at this point.

one loose end i'm working on?

pink or gray shoes? (because lawd knows, i'm not wearing boring old white ones!)

which should i pick?

wedding getaway dress

Bridget Lace Dress - Nasty Gal Vintage


As much as I love the idea of a good costume change (any excuse to collect more clothes!), I don't think I'm going to change out of my dress at the end of our wedding (75 days away!)

I just love, love, love my dress. And I think it needs to be worn to the Brooklyn bars for an after party.

And maybe to brunch the next day?

I kid.

Or do I?

I DO!

(I DO! Get it? I'm practicing.)

one million bobby pins + false lashes

i'm starting to get super excited about wedding plans again!

not that i wasn't excited all along, but june used to seem so very far away.

but it's starting to feel very close all of a sudden. this makes me happy.

i flew back to good old Brooklyn for a quick 24 hours last weeked.

during this time i had my second dress fitting as well as my hair and makeup trials.

(the white poof isn't what i plan on wearing, but i needed something to sort of get the general feel of the whole look)

i wish i could share pictures of the dress because i'm obsessed with it, but jim reads this blog so i can't.

a little more than 3 months and i'll be married! holla!

Meet my OBDTO

Jillian is my Official Bridesmaid Dress Try-er On-er. My OBDTO.

OBDTO responsibilities include trying on dress after dress at store after store.

The OBDTO must be skilled in changing into and out of multiple layers (winter coat, hat, scarf, mittens, thermal underwear, socks, and boots) in small dressing rooms, multiple times in one day and over the course of several weekends.

It is not an easy job.

Thanks for being my personal little paper doll, Jillian!

the emboss boss

my friend caroline and i went to a DIY wedding favors workshop at Paper Source last weekend. and let me tell you what: Paper Source has some magical ability to make even the most un-crafty person (me) want to MAKE STUFF.

and MAKE STUFF i did. look, ma!



basically we learned how to fold teeny boxes (engineers encouraged to apply), emboss, tie bows, etc. the workshop leader was trying to get us to brainstorm ideas for things that could go inside the boxes and i was all:

candy!
cookie!
candle!
small animals!
a goldfish!
hope!

the boxes are cute when they're done, but have you ever tried to nail an eyelet into a teeny tiny hole? have you ever tried to do it a hundred times?

i worry about me, assembling lots of boxes, bleeding, crying, stamping, embossing, and then...having all my guests, pissed about the "hope" i put inside, throwing the boxes in the garbage on their way to the after party. and then i can just see myself scooping up all the discarded boxes, chasing after my guests and screaming DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG IT TOOK ME TO FOLD THIS??? also, YOU LET ALL THE HOPE OUT, BITCHES.

so we'll see if i decide to make little boxes for my favors. i probably will. i'll probably stuff them with locks of my hair.

i already have my wedding dress...

...and the seamstress has already come to my apartment for a fitting and taken the dress away for alterations. so that's a done deal.

but if i didn't have a dress yet, i would want this one.

because it's so fun.

(dress can be found here.)

we registered last night

well, we started to register anyway.

this is the very first thing we scanned.



it's retro style! and it's pistachio! i die!

p.s. the second thing we scanned was the ice cream maker attachment.

p.p.s. i think i'm going to like being a grown up and having grown up things.

my own special STD

ugh, i'm SORRY, but i just can't talk about Save the Dates without making an STD joke. sad, right? there's something wrong with me.

anyways, what do you think of this one?

i'm sort of obsessed with it!

P.S. i've been selected to blog for a wedding website! more details coming soon!

P.P.S. i will probably make less STD jokes on the wedding site.

DJ MiMo in da hiiizzzzy

jim and i are going to interview a potential wedding DJ tonight. i think it's going to be pretty funny actually.

i hope he looks like this.



creepy, right? that's why i saved it in My Pictures as "creepy."

i'm sorry, i'm in a weird mood. i blame my friend Caroline (Hayes, not Sack, not Vaandrager) who sent me this pic over IM today...



...and asked me how i thought it would FEEL to wear them.

anyway. DJ, yes. band, no. this was one decision i made a looooong time ago. bands are nice, don't get me wrong, but can i share with you a small sampling of songs from my shuffle playlist this morning?

Badly Drawn Boy - Above You, Below Me
R. Kelly - Ignition
Jennifer Lopez featuring Ja Rule - I'm Real
James Taylor - Mexico
M.I.A. - Paper Planes
Ra Ra Riot - Too Too Too Fast

show me a band that can sing James Taylor AND JLo and i will consider them.

but i sort of love it how some people are very open about their feelings on decisions we've already made about the wedding. not about the DJ...everyone thinks this is the way to go...but a few ppl have made comments about how terribly loooooong and boooooooring our Catholic ceremony will be. this makes me laugh because...wait...you're complaining about the actual GETTING MARRIED part? you just moved to be B list, dude.

please help me with my STD

i wasn't going to worry about sending out Save the Dates because...meh. but i've already heard people say that they know someone else getting married on June 19 (the nerve!), and technically this is a destination wedding for about 90% of our guests so it looks like we're doing them (Save the Dates i mean, not our guests), and we're doing them soon.

here are some designs i like:

(obviously a thank you card, but can be made into a Save the Date.)

which one do you like best? anyone have good stationary store/website suggestions?

hearts!

yay yay yay!

today has been fabulous for the following reasons:

1. we booked a seriously awesome wedding photographer today!

when jim and i sat down to think about things that were most important to us in the wedding (notice how i said THINGS because obviously the most important part is the actual "getting married" part and of course the people who are with us when it happens), kick ass photography was way way way up at the top. we just LOVE pictures. (something at the bottom of my priority list? flowers. i couldn't care less about the damn flowers.)

2. operation "Stalk-A-Priest" has finally paid off!

jim and i may have found someone to marry us. here's hoping that he's still up for the job if/once he learns that i am pro-choice and a FIERCE supporter of gay marriage (sorry, but separate is NOT equal...haven't we been over this before, America?)

3. had a lunch of garlic chili green beans and simple baked tofu from the Whole Foods hot food bar.

also picked up a loaf of organic whole wheat bread which was like a dollar cheaper than the regular non-organic loaves of bread sold in our teeny weeny, somewhat dirty Brooklyn market.

also...tofu and gay marriage? i must be an ultra left-wing nutjob, huh? stay away from me. eeeek.

4. my waterskiing induced soreness has finally gone away and guess what? i can totally lift my arms above my head again.

hearts!

i'm still watching the Loubies on ebay, but i'm keeping my options open

i sort of love these as wedding shoes



simply because they have a heart on the sole.


(Luichiny Pretty Pump)

i might be more excited about picking out my wedding shoes than i am about the dress

yep, it's still raining. but don't worry, i'm done complaining about it. i am much too content sitting here on the couch searching ebay for my "something blue" to complain...


(not the best pic, but these Loubies are pretty perfect, right?)

the peas of june

it's been the most ridiculously rainy month ever. i need to whine about it, OK? (in an attempt to be less bratty, i will sandwich my complaints between good things that are happening right now.)

boo. it's freakin' raining AGAIN

yay. i have timed it so i exit my building's front gate at the exact moment the bus pulls up for two mornings in a row this week.

boo. there was a big leak in the bus roof this morning so even though i was under shelter, it was still raining on my head.

yay. we set a wedding date! june 19, 2010! has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

boo. the rain has stretched out my little black leather flats so now i have to do this weird move where i spread out my toes and curl them and shuffle my feet to keep them on.

yay. started the second disc of the fourth season of Weeds. loves it.

boo. the "toe spread and curl" maneuver doesn't always work. yesterday i stepped out of my shoe completely and my bare foot touched the subway station floor. *pukes in mouth*

yay. we booked The Montauk Club in Park Slope, Brooklyn for our wedding reception!

boo. i totally ate a whole package of peanut butter cookies last night while i was watching Weeds. had to.

yay. i totally ate a whole package of peanut butter cookies last night and they were AWESOME!