A rose by any other name....

First up don't forget to enter my Giveaway which ends on Friday.

Second up I would like to thank the lovely Gracie for this awesome award:

From what I hear this award is for blogs that have attitude and gratitude. So thanks Gracie!!

Next up, last night my future mother-in-law and I went to meet with a potential florist to discuss wedding flowers. It ended up being a 2 hour meeting and I didn't get home til 9pm. The lady was very sweet and helpful and had a TON of suggestions/ideas hence why the meeting lasted so long. My FMIL has great taste and knows a lot about flowers...you should see her garden, it's amazing...so I figured she would be a great person to take with me. It was a bit overwhelming looking at all the different types of flowers and the different colors/shades so it was nice having a second opinion.

I think we've narrowed it down to using some combination of peonies, hydrangea and roses throughout the bouquets and centerpieces in various shades of light and dark pink and white, which should go nicely with the black and white decor. It's amazing how expensive flowers are considering they die after a few days. Even with small, simple arrangements the pricing came out to be more than what I was hoping to spend. So my FMIL and I are going to continue to do some research and shop around and see what else we can find. I know that whatever we end up with will be beautiful and at least the meeting last night helped me narrow things down a bit more. Oh and the best part was when the flower lady told me that she thought I was 23 and one of her "younger brides" after I mentioned that I'm almost 30. God Bless her!

Finally, I may be having a special guest poster this week so get excited!

Bridesmaid dress update

The bridesmaid dress shopping adventure on Saturday went well. Of the 8 or so dresses that Kelli and Colleen tried on we all agreed on 2 that we liked. Both were Wtoo dresses which is the less expensive sister line of the Watters dresses. Below are the two dresses that we liked the most:

The girls said that both dresses were very light and comfortable and would be easy to dance in. The strapless dress is available with straps which is what we would need for the jr. bridesmaids since I don't think strapless is appropriate for a 13 and 11 year old. And the best part is that either of these dresses in black are totally re-wearable to another wedding, holiday party or even fancy dinner. Right now I'm leaning more towards the strapless one.

The only problem with both dresses is that they are out of the price range that I was hoping for, especially since we need to take in consideration possible alteration costs that would be needed. I plan to call around to some other stores that carry this line to do some price comparison and if I can't find either of these exact dresses for less then I'll just look for similar styles from other designers.

It was good having the girls go with me to shop because now I have a much better idea of what looks good on them and what styles they prefer.

Gimme Gimme Gimme

It's Giveaway TIME!!! Today has been INSANE at work but I'm finally getting a bit of break and wanted to get my giveaway up.

Since my 100th post fell right at the beginning of fall I decided to do a fall themed Giveaway with some of my favorite items to have this time of year.

(Fun basket full of treats)

(Cute little fall purse, it's no Coach but it would be cute to carry on the weekends)

(not really "fall"ish but super cute refrigerator "mood" magnets)

(Yummy smelling Apple candle)

(cute pumpkin candy dish...or ashtray if you're a smoker haha)

(dark colored nail polish...a MUST for fall...though I wear all year round)

(Fall inspired magnet notepad)

Now for the rules, I decided to keep this easy, all you have to do to enter is become or already be a follower and leave me a comment about whatever you want i.e. what you like about fall, how awesome I am etc. I'll pick the lucky winner next Friday Oct. 2nd. Good Luck!

Dress Hunt...Bridesmaid edition

This Saturday two of my bridesmaids and I will be making our first trip to try on bridesmaids dresses. After the stress of trying to find the perfect wedding dress I needed a break for a few months before I had the mental energy to pick out bridesmaids dresses. Fortunately for me all my bridesmaids are tall, thin and gorgeous so it shouldn't be too hard to find something that looks great on everyone.

I already have a basic idea of what I want. I'm looking for short, black cocktail dresses because as cliche as it sounds I really do want them to have the option to wear these again. And you can never have too many LBD's right? Right. Also, since the wedding will be outside at the end of May there is the potential that it could be quite hot so I'm looking for more of the flowy, chiffon type of fabric rather than heavy satin material. I'm also thinking that we'll go with more of an empire waist silhouette since my MOH could potentially be preggers at the time, so we need something that is baby bump friendly.

Here are some examples of styles that I like:

(Ann Taylor)

(JCrew)

(Vineyard Collection)

(Jim Hjelm)

(Jim Hjelm)

The boutique we are going to on Saturday carries Jim Hjelm dresses so hopefully we can try on the last two as well as find similar styles of the first three and of course make sure whatever we find can also come in black. Once we settle on Bridesmaid dresses we'll then need to find two complementary styles for our two jr. bridesmaids (Kristian's nieces) who are 13 and 11. My goal is to have all the dresses ordered by the end of November so that there will be plenty of time for them to arrive and have any needed alterations. Wish me luck!

Don't look a day over 99

Today marks my 100th post! Which is about 98 more posts then I originally thought I would write.

So in honor of my 100th post I've decided to do my very first giveaway!! However I JUST realized I was at my 100th post and I'm still trying to figure out what exactly I want to giveaway. I have a few ideas and should have something definitely pulled together by the weekend and it's going to be HUGE! Okay probably not Huge but it's free shit nonetheless so get excited! And be sure to check back this weekend when I get my ass in gear and pull something together.

You've got mail

I'm FINALLY mailing off my Save the Dates today! I feel like I've been waiting to mail these for the longest time. Part of the delay was pulling together the guest list/addresses and then waiting until my mom had a chance to hand write all the addresses. Her handwriting is MUCH prettier than ours.

I did have my first minor Bridezilla moment last night when I realized that these didn't look exactly the way I wanted them too. I admit I got a little teary eyed (seriously, someone slap me, they are JUST save the dates for God's sake) but I've spent quite a bit of money on them and I wanted them to look a certain way. After K calmed me down and I explained the situation to my future mother in law and got her seal of approval on them I decided to just say "F*ck It" and mail them as is. Honestly I'm tired of dealing with them and as I said they are JUST save the dates.

As promised here are pictures of what I am putting in the mail today:

(personalized stamps from Zazzle.com)

(STD's wrapped in decorative paper)

(actual Save the Date magnet)

Armed and Dangerous Pt. Deux (Pictures!)

As a followup to THIS post I finally received the pictures from my first gun shooting experience. Unfortch we don't have any pictures of me shooting the handguns and looking really badass but hopefully these will suffice.

(Getting ready to take my first shot, look at my focused expression!)

(after my first shot, not sure why K looks so sinister)

(I look like a such a pro)

(He's so proud!)