Something Old, Something New...

Now that all the craziness has died down from my friend K's wedding, I realize I need to get my butt in gear for mine. No more slacking! 

My mom and I have been working on my something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. Here's what we have so far:

Something old:

Lace from my mom's wedding dress. I don't have any pictures yet, but my mom's dress has the MOST amazing lace trim and we will be removing it to add it to the wrap on my bouquet! It's sort of scallopy and even has sort of like a pom pom trim...not really sure how to describe it, but it's so pretty! I'll take pics soon.

Something new:

My dress, shoes and jewelry. A pretty boring something new, but that's all I got. I still haven't found my shoes yet, but I think I did find earrings:

(from White Aisle)

Still need a bracelet though....I'm on the hunt!

Something borrowed:

This is the one that makes me so emotional. I'm borrowing my aunts wedding veil, from 1968. Not only is it absolutely perfect, it also has lace on it from my grandmother's wedding...from 1949! My aunt added some of her lace to her veil and kept it wonderfully preserved. It's a very basic fingertip length veil and the lace is just around the bottom edge. Pictures to come!

Something blue:

A monogrammed insert swatch in baby blue. We are using another section of my mom's wedding dress for the swatch, and then my other aunt is going to embroider my new monogram and the wedding date on it, then sew it into the back of my dress, like this one:

What are/were your 4 special things? 

My Best Friend is MARRIED!!!

The wedding has come and gone...it was absolutely perfect! The thing that's so weird about my friend K being married is that it means I will be married in 4 months. Scary!! 

The weather this weekend was so amazing...actually even HOT. who would think the weather would be hot for an April wedding?  K looked stunning, the flowers were gorg and everyone had a blast.

I could go on and on, but I think the pictures will speak for themselves. And these are just my crappy pics...I can't wait to see the professional pics in a few weeks!

Cutest Flower Girls in the world

Walking down the aisle - half laughing and half crying

The other bridesmaid, L, walking down

Here comes the bride!

K with her dad, looking so beautiful!

Ceremony Begins

The Kiss!

Husband and Wife!

So Happy - I adore this picture!

My turn

Gorgeous View

This is right after all the pictures were done and I was excited to join cocktail hour!

Jake and I with my beautiful flowers

Cocktail hour with some of my favorite girls

Bridesmaid Love

Cocktail hour continues...

Mr. and Mrs!

First Dance - no dance lessons and it looked professional!

During Dinner

Cutting the Cake - I definitely ate 3 slices. 

The girls

The Boys

End of the night - all the girls with the bride

Yeah, there's definitely a ton of pics! I can't believe it's all over...the day flew by. Now it's totally the countdown for me and J....craziness!!!

Busy Busy Busy

I just realized I hadn't blogged in like a week. Besides being super busy with house stuff...MY BEST FRIEND GETS MARRIED IN 2 DAYS!!! AHHHHH! I am SO excited! And I've been helping her with a ton of stuff this week...tying program ribbons, table assignments and dress fittings. I'm off today and we have a day of beauty planned. Mani, Pedi, brow wax, etc. 

The weather is unbelievable gorgeous today and this whole weekend. She is one lucky girl! I just can't wait to see how all her amazing details come together. She's having a very preppy, semi-nautical navy and pink wedding. Tons of tulips, peonies and hydrangeas (I will admit...I'm super jealous she's getting married in the spring and gets to use the best flowers!!) 

So I will be back on Monday with tons of pictures!!! Have a fantastic weekend and enjoy the amazing weather!

Good News!

The house is ours!!! After MUCH negotiation, the seller came to his senses and TOOK OUR ORIGINAL OFFER!!! The message from his realtor is that "he felt beat up by us". Umm sorry that we stuck to our guns and refused to be bullied just because we're first time homebuyers! We didn't ask for anything crazy, we just put in an offer we thought was very fair and wouldn't settle. I'm very proud of us!

He's also paying all of our closing costs, which I'm VERY happy about. And we will get J's commission from being the buyer's agent, so that should be a nice little check coming in for some up-front projects to the house!

Of course you know I'm already picking paint samples and looking at window treatments! I can't wait to decorate and actually fix the house up. Is it bad that when I called my bff K to tell her, the first thing I said is "wow, I need to update my registry! We need so much more stuff now!" haha. And did I mention the 11 closets???

Happy Friday! Enjoy this beautiful weather!!

Grrrr

So we heard back about the townhouse. He countered our offer, $7,000 more than what we offered. And only $4,000 less than his asking price. We thought his asking price was too high to begin with, especially for a townhouse with 2 bedrooms that has never been updated. Ever. So we are not accepting his counter offer. J is actually pretty pissed off about it, because apparently the seller is "too busy" to put his counter offer in writing and told his agent to just email us with the counter. Umm sorry that you are so busy, but we're not going to haggle with you over $7,000. Yes, it's not a ton of money, but it's more the principle. Also, you are a jerk for not countering in writing...RUDE!

So we're keeping our offer firm and if he wants to accept it, he can. If not, we will walk away and find something else. Our offer was extremely strong and we're standing by it. (I mean, you can tell by the numbers that our offer was only $12,000 less than asking price - in this market, I think that's pretty good. Especially for an outdated townhouse that's been a rental property for 15 years!)

Did I mention I HATE real estate???

Wedding Day Purse?

Is it necessary to carry a purse on your wedding day? I had been planning on having my lovely maid of honor keep lip gloss and powder in her purse for me in case i need it. It just seems like one extra thing to carry around that day. I didn't think I needed one. Until I saw this...

Obsessed! It's perfectly yellow and the bow is amazing. On sale right now at J.Crew for $59.99. I'm trying to justify it by telling myself that I can totally use it after the wedding. Plus, I really wanted yellow shoes for the wedding and my mom hated that idea, so I'm resigned to wearing boring white (well ivory) shoes. That totally means the purse would be my fun pop of color!! 

Thoughts on carrying a wedding day purse? Is it just a pain, even if it's as cute as that one???

A Few Things

First....Seaside Prep and Lou Lou in Lilly, I missed you girls going private, but I'd love to keep reading. Can you send me an invite? kimblog19@gmail.com. Thanks!!

Second...as of 9am this morning, we have submitted an offer on a townhouse! Woo Hoo! We went to look at it on Easter after church and liked it right away. It's not perfect, but it's great for us, especially right now in our lives (no kids, etc.) It's a little bit older and has never been updated, but it's well maintained and clean, so we know we can do the updates ourselves over the next couple of years. Plus it's HUGE and has about a million closets. Actually, I counted and there's 11 closets in the house! Including a walk-in in the master...score! Also, it's in our dream neighborhood! Only about 1/2 mile from where we live now, in a great part of town, and we will be within walking distance to about 7 of our friends houses, including one couple who live on the exact same street! And my very BFF in the whole world, K, would be right around the corner, literally a 10 second walk away in the same neighborhood!! They always say, location, location, location. Oh also - 3 bathrooms! We have currently been sharing ONE bathroom for the past 2 years and I've pretty much hit my limit.

So we should hear back later this week and I'm pretty much dying of anticipation. Our offer was less than $10K off their asking price, so I don't really see why they wouldn't accept it. And the house has only been on the market 9 days, so the owners could sell it super quick if they wanted to accept our offer.

Basically, we do feel alot more confident about this one than the last house we loved (especially since we low-balled the crap out of that first house and there was really no chance in hell we were ever going to get it). I think these people will at least want to negotiate with us, even if they don't accept our first offer right away.

Please keep your fingers crossed for us...I'll post as soon as we hear back!!

Ooooh - it also has a fairly large fenced in back yard for the crazy puppy! Sweet!

(this is a pic of what Spencer might look like if we do get the house and she has a nice big backyard to play in! Isn't she just the cutest??)

I love my bridesmaids!!

I have the best bridesmaids in the world! On Friday, I had sort of a rough day at work and I came home for lunch to find a package waiting for me on our front steps. I didn't remember ordering anything (and I started to worry that my shopping was getting out of control if I wasn't remembering ordering stuff!!). I opened the package to find this:

An adorable pink and green make-up bag with my new initials monogrammed on it! And it's from my fabulous bridesmaid C, who sent it as a "just because" gift to say she's so excited for our wedding and she's so happy for me!!! She bought it from the wonderful Preppy Monogrammed Gifts, so it was wrapped up so cute with their signature whale sticker! 

I can't wait to use this, but for now, it's up in the "wedding closet" with all the rest of the fun stuff I can't use until the wedding! I totally love my bridesmaids!!

Speaking of bridesmaids, my Maid of Honor K is getting married in less than 2 weeks!!! AHHHHHH!!! Not too long and she'll be my Matron of Honor! Can't wait for her amazing wedding!!

Happy Easter!

I love Easter - such a fun holiday and it makes me excited for warm, sunny Spring days! We're heading to church in a little bit, then to brunch at my parents house, then dinner at J's parents house. In between those things, we're also going to look at 2 more houses (yes, the house hunt never ends - even on a holiday!!!) 

In celebration of Easter, I wanted to post my top 3 favorite things about Easter:

1. Decorating adorable Easter Eggs

(image from Martha Stewart)

2. Hollow Chocolate Bunnies (for some reason the hollow chocolate tastes so much better than solid chocolate!) 

3. Cute Table Settings. My mom always does something so cute for Easter with fun spring flowers!

(image from Martha Stewart)

I hope everyone has a lovely Easter!!

Engagement Pics!

We got our engagement pictures taken on Sunday and my wonderful photographer has already released them and sent us the pictures! Even though it was slightly chilly, it was super sunny and a great day to take pics! I'm pretty much obsessed with most of the pictures, not going to lie!

Even though it's slightly crazy, I'll probably do a couple posts over the next few weeks with all my favorites because there's quite a few that I think are blog-worthy. These are just the first ones that I stole off our photogs blog :-)

I think the dress was the perfect thing to wear because it really makes the pictures look bright and fun. And I was pleasantly surprised that it was easy to convince J to wear pink! I decided against wearing a cardigan all together because it was warmer than expected on Sunday...I was definitely still cold when we were down by the water and the wind was blowing, but oh well!

HAPPY FRIDAY!!! Hope everyone has a wonderful Easter weekend!

Wow, Payless?

I really can't get over these shoes from Payless. They look like something from J.Crew. $19.99 on sale right now at your local Payless. I don't really get to shop at Payless much because they NEVER have my size in any cute shoes (size 6). I guess all the small feet women get there really early and grab all the cute stuff. Bummer. But I may have to hit up Payless this weekend to see if these are still around. You can't really tell from that picture, but the polka dots are actually light pink. Love! 

Anyone else love Boden?

I really love Boden...I discovered it a few years ago and I have bought several things from them that I love. They have pieces that are very timeless and preppy...I feel like women of all ages could wear it. I know because my mom and I have fought over some in the past.

I got the new Boden catalog yesterday in the mail and was so excited to see that they are offering 20% off on anything, as well as free shipping and free returns until June! How can you resist?? Here's a few things I have my eye on:

I just love that everything is bright, fun and summery!! They are based in the U.K., so they use European sizes, but they have an excellent equivalent chart and everything I've ordered from them has always fit me well. So if you get the Boden catalog, use the quick service number from the back of your catalog to receive the discount and free shipping when you order online!!