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Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Autumn's Bachelorette Party!

Sorry for falling off the face of the earth for the last week....the end of the school is SO hectic (who do I need to speak to about changing that?!?!) but at least I'm not planning a wedding this year!!! 

Anyways, my laziness is full-blown this week, as I crazily try to tie up lose ends in all other aspects of my life....so I'm combining Wedding Wednesday with a re-cap of last weekend, because it's wedding-related! 

So, this past weekend I went up to Chapel Hill for my friend, Autumn's bachelorette party!!

Before going out, we had a "Monograms & Margaritas" shower for her at the hotel!!! It was probs one of my most fav themes EVER!!
{hint, hint, cough, cough Nataleee, you interested?!}


Autumn was so sweet and got all of us these cute monogrammed koozies!!

{side note: I have the worst monogram ever!!! MF?! Ugh.}

Unfortunately, I was too busy drinking delicious margs to take pics of all the cute monogrammed stuff Autumn got! 

But, here's all of us before dinner!

For dinner, we went to Top of the Hill, which is a pretty famous place in Chapel Hill. 


We had to wait a little bit {especially with the torrential downpour that moved our outside patio table inside}, so Caitlin and I decided to have a photo shoot...

By the time our food came, I was SOOO hungry! My lemon chicken pasta was delish!


After dinner, we went out on Franklin Street (which is basically the main street with most of the bars in CH)!! First we went to East End, which was basically dead (all of the students were gone for the summer, plus the storms didn't help!), so we quickly relocated to La Rez! 

I had never been to La Residence (aka La Rez) before (Travis thinks it's "too fratty") but let me tell you...I'm kinda obsessed and it's kinda my new fav. 

It is a facy old house....and this is what it looks like when you walk in:

My kind of bar!! Super fancy, right?!?!

Apparently, its also a nice restaurant AND upon further research, I discovered they actually have weddings here!!! I didn't take any quality pics of the place, so here are some stolen from the internet:




Eeeee just look at that pretty patio!! La Rez is totes on my list of possible locations for my vow renewal that will {probably} never happen in like 20 years! Hahah...

After La Rez closed, we went to none other than the legendary Time Out. It's open 24 hours and the food is especially amazing at about 3AM after a few drinks :)


Waiting for our yummy food!!!


Omggggg....look at that mac & cheese....and fries....and fried okra....yum yum yum yum yum yum yum!!!!!
{please excuse the frizzy hair and the fact that my necklace is twisted....it was raining/storming all night!}


Of course before we left, Autumn wanted to get a pic by Dean Smith. Love it.

And then I discovered, that my husband secretly owns a jewelry store, right next to Time Out!!! 


{Travis' first name is William and he goes by his middle name. True story!}

Hahah...who knew?!?!?

Such a fun time...but now I am paying for it. I am sick from all of that walking around in the rain!!! :( Hopefully I can get it together for my 3-day weekend!!!!! And last 11 days of school!!!!!!

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Wedding Wednesday {THE Dress}

I finally made it back to Hayden Olivia yesterday to pick up my wedding dress after getting it cleaned and restored, and I got super nostalgic for wedding dress shopping!! There was a sweet girl who was there for a fitting and her dress was almost identical to mine! It totally made me want to do the whole thing all over again. 

{sigh. I love this place}

Can married girls go wedding dress shopping??? Please?

In case you forgot, here is my wedding dress in all it's glory:


And here it is now:

Sad day. 
All wrapped up in a box waiting for my daughter {hopefully}.

Anyways, I realized that last year when I did Wedding Wednesdays, I was super sketchy about my wedding dress because (duh) I didn't want you to see it before the wedding!!

So here is my never-before-seen edition of my wedding dress shopping experience! YAY!

First, I went to Virginia with my mom, and my now MIL and SIL to go dress shopping. I kinda liked this dress, but was iffy about the sash...I wanted lace, and this dress had no lace!


A few weeks later, my mom came to Charlotte and I tried on several dresses:





and a few others that are too ugly to show!

I fell in love with this dress:

But I didn't like the sash it came with...and it was oh so plain. 

I decided I wanted to be like Kate Middleton (mind you, this was like a month after the royal wedding) and so we were thinking about adding a lace bolero:


I loved the back...but felt a little too matronly and covered up. 

Then, I fell in love with this dress:

Ugh...I was SOOO distraught! I went with my sweet friend Kathryn back to both stores (of course they were at different stores!) and tried on both dresses again.

We agreed the JLM dress was probs the winner, because I *sparkled* in it. (OMG, sorry I sound like Tierra from the Bachelor!!)

But what to do about the "add-ons"? We all agreed the first bolero was not right...

...so maybe just lace straps?

...or a different bolero? 

...or a snazzy belt? 

...or different lace straps? 

...or a different lace belt? 

It was all so overwhelming, but what I did know was that I wanted this dress! I could figure out what to do with it later!!


So the dress was ordered in June 2011 (almost 2 years ago...where has the time gone?!?!) and I spent the next 6 months decided what else to add.

I finally decided on this sash from Modern Trousseau (its called Sylvia). 
We added a fancy veil (another story for another Wednesday), and my wedding dress shopping was complete! :)

{omg worst look on my face ever in this pic!}

Who wants to go wedding dress shopping again with me?!?!?!? For my....vow renewal perhaps?!?!

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Mother's Day Weekend

I spent the weekend in Virginia with my padres for Mother's Day!!!
We actually had a lot of fun!!!

Friday, I went to see my mom's sports masseuse guy, Dennis. He fixed my hamstring and my knee so I can run again! Yay!!

Then, my mom and I went to her friend, Pam's house. Pam lives in a gorgeous old farm house on like 90 acres!! It is so, so, so pretty! I tried to convince her that she should have weddings here!!



I mean, seriously...how is this place not a wedding venue?!?!?

Plus, she all of these gorgeous flowers everywhere...so if you got married here, you could almost pick your own bouquet!

 

Unfortunately, I did not take any pics inside, which was equally as exquisite. This house was straight out of Pinterest, and I loved it!

After that, my parents took me to a new restuarant called The Fishin' Pig
Don't know if they got the memo that I don't like bacon though....


I know, I know, how can I not like bacon?! 
As tempted as I was to get my "favorite" sandwich, I opted for yummy fish tacos (with no bacon) instead!

{and yes, a side of mac&cheese...obvi}

{my mom and I at dinner}

Afterwards, we went to get fro-yo! Since Mom and Dad were paying (and I can run again!), I loaded up on the toppings...whoops, a little overboard on the chocolate!


We spent the rest of the evening drinking wine....


...and getting Tom and Sue addicted to Downton Abbey! 


My dad's already hooked, my mom not so much...she needs to watch a few more episodes, I think!

On Saturday, my mom and I went to Williamsburg to do some outlet shopping!


I was super excited because there was a Kate Spade outlet and it definitely did not disappoint!!!

Every store seemed to be giving teacher discounts (15%!!!), so in addition to buying some stuff for my mom, I also let her use my discount for part of her mother's day present!! 

After the outlets, we headed back toward Richmond and went to Short Pump


My mom went and got her hair did while I shopped some more!

Then, we stopped at Diamonds Direct (yay, there is finally one in Richmond now!!!). My mom and dad's 30th wedding anniversary is coming up in August and my mom NEEDS an engagement ring upgrade in a major way!!! So, I took matters into my own hands and basically dragged her into the store. This is the ring she found and loved the most!


Her thoughts on this picture: 
Oh, my hand are so wrinkly! I don't want Dad to spend all this money. I don't deserve this. Can I wear it to work where I am constantly washing my hands? Doesn't it look silly with my yellow gold band?

 Can we all please tell her she is ridiculous?!??! Obvi, my dad needs to get this ring ASAP, her hands are not that wrinkly, and I personally think it looks baller with her yellow gold band! 
What do you think??

Anyways, after that excitement, we finished off our day by going to Tom Leonard's, which is kind of like Trader Joe's, except that it's only in Richmond and they have these crazy animals (like the ones at Chuck E Cheese that I used to be terrified of) that sing and dance every 5 minutes. Pretty exciting stuff for grocery shopping, let me tell you. 


We also saw the real Tom Leonard. Who knew he was an actual living person?! Cray cray.

Here we are with all of our purchases from the day! 


We spent the rest of the evening looking through my mom's diaries that she kept while she was pregnant with both me and my brother. They were hilarious!!!

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!! Thanks for a fun weekend (Dad, too)!!!! 


Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Nick and Andrea's Wedding!

As promised, here is a recap of our friends, Nick and Andrea's gorgeous wedding!

As per usual, I was too lazy to bring my real camera along, so all of these are courtesy of my iPhone. Sorry for the sub-par quality. Maybe I'll learn one of these days...

The ceremony was at a super cute little chapel. Look at those handsome groomsmen!

This turned out blurry... but still so presh of Andrea walking down the aisle with her dad!

I took this after we threw rice at the newly married couple....Andrea, you are GLOWING! :)

The ceremony was held at the Charlotte Country Club, and it was BEAUTIFUL!!! 




Instead of a plated or buffet meal, they had food stations! This side was salads and some sort of sliders (that I had about 209487 of!) and on the other side was shrimp & grits!

The cake was also super yummy!! I think it was some sort of lemon (??) with strawberry filling??? I think?? But it was delish

First dance...so sweet!

Cutting the cake!
I loved the chandeliers that were in the ballroom! 

Ok, so this is such a bad pic (let's be honest, none of these pics are that great!), but I thought the garter toss from the balcony was so cool! The bouquet toss was also up there, but I was hiding with one of my single friends in the bathroom, so she wouldn't be embarrassed to go out there!

Me with my favorite groomsman! He cleans up so well :)

With the beautiful bride! 

So, when I met Travis, he and Nick were roommates, and they ended up living together for like 3 years! I know Trav was honored to be a part of his special day :)

The 4 of us! 
(I tried to do the red-eye corrector, which is why some of our eyes look a little psycho) 

These lovely ladies were my dates for the evening...

...because there was a lot of this going on with our husbands/fiances/boyfriends! 

UGH. Boys. Stop checking the scores of the games!!! 

The send off 
(there were some sort of popper things...I did not get one though bc I wanted to take pics haha) 

Afterwards, we headed to Selwyn Pub, where "everyone" was going....AKA TJ, Crystal, Travis and I were the only ones from the wedding there. Hahah, we still had a good time! 


Congrats, Nick and Andrea!!! We had so much fun and your wedding was so, so beautiful!!!