What a Girl Wants, What a Girl Needs

I have been absolutely loving the springtime weather, the blooming flowers, the smell of honeysuckle in the air. I have been absolutely loving time with my family, friends & future hubby. I really love my life.

That being said, there are things I want & then there are things I want!
Here's my dream list of those things (after I get out of the graduate school who pays not based on wants, just needs!)...

Along with the classic list of LV monogram -
The LV Summer 07 Monogram Dentelle Fersen

Sorry, no picture but there is the link - designed by Marc Jacobs with lace...Oh, it makes me happy!

Of course I need an entire room to house all of my things - I would love an entire dressing room in the real Shabby Chic (don't get me wrong, love the Target version, but this is wish list material)



Some fun big DG glasses :These are also fun - Kate Spade Keane ( I would love a designer sunglasses collection)

What girl doesn't need a classic black pump for every occasion?
I would love a classic Gucci bag - I love this tote & the scarf that you could change with your outfit or mood!




Love me some David Yurman, I wouldn't mind a few bangles for mah wrist:

I've been craving those big huge leather bags that the celebrities carry - I really love this Coach one:
What a wish list, wonder if FI is reading this! Haha, note that I didn't even get into clothes - thats a whole another addiction :)

Sidenote

I don't know if you all have heard of him from Comedy Central (& the 7up commercials) - but he is so funny, I downloaded him off of itunes, and nearly wrecked my car I was laughing so hard...here are some of his funny quotes:


You're not supposed to have cake for breakfast, of course, but somehow pancakes slid through. I don't know how that happened. It's like, "Young man you're not having cake for breakfast. You're having fried cake with syrup for breakfast. Now load up on that and try not to nap."

Pie can't compete with cake. Put candles in a cake, it's a birthday cake. Put candles in a pie, and somebody's drunk in the kitchen.

Ever wonder what people got Jesus for Christmas? It's like 'Oh great, socks. You know I'm dying for your sins right? Yeah, but thanks for the SOCKS. They'll go great with my sandals. What am I, German?'

Whenever I'm out of town for at least a week, I feel like I should write a postcard or something. You can be a genius, but when you try and write a postcard you come across like a moron anyway: 'This city's got big buildings. I like food. Bye.

I think his voice adds to the sense of humor...just a funny sidenote for the day!

Thirsty Thursday...

I'm thirsty this morning that is because FI & I went downtown last night for sushi and some early dinner drinks. Definitely needed some water & a little tylenol after a few glasses of wine and beer. But Yum, I love good sushi - of course one of my favorites is the shrimp tempura (way to ruin any chance of healthy - oh well). But we left early because our theater department was running a short play at the restaurant. I have mixed feelings on theater, esp. performance art, I'm in the humanities - English, so I respect & understand it. But I just don't like performance art. There I've said it, sorry, it just seems so cliche at times. Especially when we are trying to finish a good meal & here they come in, clad in black and loud, so we can't hear each other. Oh well, whatever floats your boat, right?
And why do people walk slow, I mean I'm a fast walker, but I just don't understand the people who amble along (esp. on their cell phones) like they have the whole day...I'm late people, I gotta get to work - I always feel like I'm on the highway passing people, here comes my blinker, get outta my way!
Ok enough of that,

Perfectly Pink blogged about some cute LLBean finds today so then I looked at their skirts. I don't know about you all but I live in skirts in the summer (not a shorts gal, they just don't look good on me) but skirts I love. I found this classic chino skirt for $19.95 - what a steal! And they have colors like yellow, pink & navy - perfect & with that price, I can buy all colors. I'll probably be ordering some these this weekend - Ill let ya know how they go!
And for lack for something fun for yall & because lists make me feel good, here is my latest
**Check on priest & his travel arrangements for the wedding
**Email caterer about cake & appetizers
**Mail thank you notes!
**Laundry & clean house
**Make up guest list & addresses for shower & luncheon
**Pick up something for dinner
**Get to the gym
**Watch Grey's
**Probably drink more wine...

A thrill a minute over here, I tell ya!

Going to the Chapel!

This also published under the date, last Thursday, confusing, but here it is now!

Here are the wedding details - so far! I want to keep it as simple and as elegant as possible (the simplicity is hard though, because I see so many great ideas I want to use but I defintely don't want kitchsy ideas everywhere! So, we are getting married in Beaufort, SC (in between Charleston & Hilton Head) mainly because we love the area & my family/ancestors are from there. Since we are having it in Beaufort & the reception is literally a block away from the beach - we are going with a low-country, laid back theme. Now, this doesn't mean we aren't going to be informal with flip-flops - just a different atmosphere than a country club because it will be so close to the beach! We rented a gorgeous home with three stories, three balconies right on the golf course, with a big front yard for the reception (and its pink! ha!) {FI is a little weirded out by putting pictures of it up)- Its a house that is used for big functions, our realtor throws his annual Christmas party there every yeard, so our vendors know the house & the space. We are going to have a Buffet BBQ, fresh shrimp for appetizers & open bar for our guests.
This is just a picture of a live oak with spanish moss, to give you the feel of the area...

OUr rehearsal dinner is the typical low-country boil (usually called Frogmore Stew in this area of SC) with fresh shrimp, corn , sausage and potatoes. We are also doing our alma mater school colors theme (orange, white and purple)This is the Beaufort Yacht & Sailing Club - where the rehearsal will be held - great party space, huge porch, on the water (this picture is a little odd but we were trying to get the whole area in it)
Then, for the reception we will have a huge tent on the front lawn but I love the light that these lanterns add - so elegant



Also, we have a long driveway where we are going to do these votives in bag lights to line the driveway, adds a little touch, I think



Since we will have a big tent, I want to add the paper lanterns inside (where the band will be), so the result will probably look more like this -


STLSarah at the Seven Spot showed the J.Crew ballet flats she picked up for her reception & I just thought why not? These seersucker navy (our colors) would be perfect...I was going to buy ballet slippers anyway, no one will see my shoes, I can't really wear heels with FI b/c he's not that much taller than me & these are so cute!




This is similiar to the tie for the groomsmen - the green is more lime green but we bought them from J.Crew on sale as gifts for the guys

Oh Flowers! I wanted hydrangeas everywhere, in different shades. I love this classic lavender color, these will probably be centerpieces


I love the simplicity of this centerpiece, we will probably do something similar with the clear vase

I love her bouquet - again the simple feel I'm going for...

My bouquet will be this cream colored hydrangea with some pale blush roses in it as well.
Cakes! This is one thing we have discussed but we haven't really decided on, I love this cake with the hydrangeas featured - very pretty
But then I like this one too, we could just use our flowers at the top & we want our monogram on the cake as well, so this one could be really nice to feature that as well
I posted my dress again, but here is a sassy model wearing it - I'm sooo excited about it...I need to decide on my veil & jewelry though,

This hair I love. Now, low country SC in August = extreme humidity and my curly, frizzy hair will just be out of control, so I want to have it up but show off the curl as well, I think this updo does a nice job of that,
We might do these palm weave fans as favors for the guests when they get there - they'll need them!

Thats about it - now we are trying to focus on details & invitations are next on our list!

*Most of the pics are from theknot.com**

Look at me go!

Here are my J.Crew sale purchases, I love these 3/4 length cotton tees, I end up wearing these a majority of the time so I thought I would stock up on some spring colors and then I got the beach sweater in white because I do like a light sweater at night...


Thought this was a fun, lightweight summer skirt, I can wear to class & the office...

Then, last week was our three year anniversary - woohoo! We were so busy though, that I just decided to cook a nice dinner. As you know I'm attempting to create some better cooking skills, so I turned to Martha Stewart!
I wanted to make something basic (I usually turn to an easy pasta to cook for a special occasion)
I made her Perfect Roast Chicken
which turned out so well! I was really impressed (my only problem was cleaning out the "innards" because that was just gross) but pretty easy, cleaned it, stuck in some lemon, garlic and rosemary and cooked for two hours,
I also served some garlic mashed potatoes and Martha's fresh Sauteed Green Beans
which were also pretty easy and great...Then, I made a Pecan Pie (Fi's favorite), a recipe I just found from allrecipe.com - and turned out well too! FI was infatuated and a very happy camper. Now, I did cook all day - so, that probably won't be happening again until Thanksgiving!

**Here is the Pecan Pie recipe I talked about - my grandmother had been telling me how easy it was to make & she was right!
NOTE: This recipe makes enough for 2 pies! It only calls for one crust but mine was overflowing and luckily I had another crust.

INGREDIENTS

• 3 eggs
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1 cup corn syrup
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups pecans
• 1 (9 inch) unbaked pie shell

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Place pie shell in a 9 inch pie pan.
2. In a medium bowl, gently beat eggs. Stir in sugar and flour, then the syrup, butter and vanilla. Fold in pecans. Pour mixture into pie shell. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes; knife inserted in center of pie should come out clean.

Oh so much fun!

I love weddings. They are so much fun and at the expense of being all Hallmarkish - it is so nice to see a wedding truly about the couple & their families getting together to celebrate.
I'll back up a bit and re-cap for you & I'll probably post some pictures later on this week.
My cousin lives in Atlanta and is a medical student at Emory - her husband (!) is a civil engineer in Atl also. They met at GA Tech a few years ago. My cousin and I were partners in crime when we were little & although we don't each other as much as we should now, we have some great memories from childhood and visiting each other through the summers. She is an extremely intelligent woman who is a driven student and doctor. She had a test on Friday, a few hours before her rehearsal dinner!!! Yet, her personality is very laid-back and relaxed, honestly the anti-bridezilla. Needless to say, she did not have the time to plan an elaborate wedding - but I'm thoroughly amazed at what she did - it was a gorgeous wedding. She planned all the events in one park (Piedmont Park, downtown) which reminded me of Central Park & was so helpful for all of the guests who weren't familiar with the city. They had the rehearsal dinner at the Park Tavern - it was a dinner for about 100 people under a tent with Chinese paper lanterns & gorgeous green centerpieces. It was a good size gathering and got people to mingle before the wedding. By the way, she got Perfect weather this weekend too - warm & sunny! Then we had hair appointments, manis/pedis in the morning.
I helped to host a bridal luncheon on Sat. afternoon. My grandmother hosts a bridal luncheon for each of her granddaughters, but she has been under the weather lately, and not really able to drive - so I took over and had a great time helping arrange. She had booked a small conference room in the hotel we stayed at and contacted a caterer for "tea" like food - sandwiches, fruit, petit fours etc. It was really nice for everyone to be able to walk downstairs for the lunch instead of trying to find another location. We had about 35 women and it was just a sweet re-group of everyone. The mothers and grandmothers made some emotional toasts along with a lot of laughs. Since my organizing was last minute, I just went to my local grocery store Friday morning and picked up fresh pink Gerbera daisies and some other fresh white and yellow flowers (sorry, NOT a flower person - have no idea what they were),and cut them short. I have a few short glass square vases and just simply wrapped some grosgrain ribbon around them and set them out. Now, Target apparently has a new wedding section (not just stationary) !!! Yes, I think I literally did a squeal for joy in the aisle. Of course, I got there as they were setting it up so I only got to see a few things but oh, they were good. It seems like there will be a lot of favors (small tin buckets, votive holders) and things like fake rose petals. Oh so cute, I picked up some pink confetti that they had to sprinkle on the tables too. They also, by chance, had some great napkins with pink Gerber daisies on them! And I picked up wooden block letters of their initials and used some more ribbon to tie around them to the door of the luncheon room. All in all, Target helped me out getting some last minute decor done & I'm really looking foward to seeing all that they bring out for their wedding stuff.
Then, the ceremony was absolutely beautiful. She had it outdoors, in the park, with people seated in an ampitheater type setting and the bride and groom on a dock on a small pond/lake, she had one guitar player for music and she wore a vintage looking (Watters) lace strapless gown. Everything was gorgeous! We, the bridesmaids, wore the Emma silk faille dress in a chartruese/lime green. She had a fantastic arrangement of bright orange, pink and green flowers, which really popped with the dresses. Just a beautiful spring wedding! Then, the wedding party walked through the park to the reception at the Magnolia Hall where we had some great food, cocktails & fun music. Everyone, even my sweet little 84 year old grandfather got up and boogied for awhile. My fiance is somewhat of an amateur photographer ( I happen to think he's wonderful, but I am biased) so she hired him to take pictures - he was really nervous but they came out wonderful!! I will post some when he gets them all loaded up. But,even though he was busy most of the time, we just got very excited about our own wedding. She gave us a good lesson in "don't sweat the small stuff" - she had all of the right elements and everyone had a great time. It made me really look at how the weddings are all about the love of two people and not about the monogrammed napkins, that perhaps, no one will remember as much as how great the bride and groom are - cheesy but oh, so true. Well, enough of my gooey cheesiness today.
On a more fun note, you may ask, how does one have time to shop during all of that?? I laugh. Because where there is a will, there is a way. I shopped for a small amount of time in between the luncheon and pictures and got a great little striped tee at Banana for the summer. Then, I also made sure I ordered a few J.Crew sale items before they disappeared. And, we stopped at outlets on the way home. No wonder I'm exhausted! I was excited by the J.Crew outlet because I saw so many great things but I did make a sale purchase online already, so I had to stop myself. However, I think I'm going to make a big summer purchasing trip there because they had so many great shorts, capris, dresses and tees. I did pick up a great little sundress at the Banana outlet for 50.00 - blue with green, yellow and white flowers (lame description, I understand, but no pics online).
Now, I'm back to the grind and with the weather and all of the wedding talk, I'm really ready for the summer. I'll post some pics and hopefully do that wedding post later this week, because now we are are back into full on wedding planning mode with a little more than 4 months left! As all my family said their goodbyes, it was to the tune of see you in August at your wedding. Oh geez, we better get on the ball.

Wedding Weekend (not mine!)

I'm helping host a bridal luncheon tommorrow for my cousin's wedding in Atlanta, so I've been running around getting flowers, placecards etc!
Now, I've got to find a cheap clutch as I don't have one to match my outfits & pack & shower & get to Atlanta - so, wedding posts will have to wait till next week!
Have a great weekend!

Going to the Chapel!

Here are the wedding details - so far! I want to keep it as simple and as elegant as possible (the simplicity is hard though, because I see so many great ideas I want to use but I defintely don't want kitchsy ideas everywhere! So, we are getting married in Beaufort, SC (in between Charleston & Hilton Head) mainly because we love the area & my family/ancestors are from there. Since we are having it in Beaufort & the reception is literally a block away from the beach - we are going with a low-country, laid back theme. Now, this doesn't mean we aren't going to be informal with flip-flops - just a different atmosphere than a country club because it will be so close to the beach! We rented a gorgeous home with three stories, three balconies right on the golf course, with a big front yard for the reception (and its pink! ha!) {FI is a little weirded out by putting pictures of it up)- Its a house that is used for big functions, our realtor throws his annual Christmas party there every yeard, so our vendors know the house & the space. We are going to have a Buffet BBQ, fresh shrimp for appetizers & open bar for our guests.
This is just a picture of a live oak with spanish moss, to give you the feel of the area...

OUr rehearsal dinner is the typical low-country boil (usually called Frogmore Stew in this area of SC) with fresh shrimp, corn , sausage and potatoes. We are also doing our alma mater school colors theme (orange, white and purple)This is the Beaufort Yacht & Sailing Club - where the rehearsal will be held - great party space, huge porch, on the water (this picture is a little odd but we were trying to get the whole area in it)
Then, for the reception we will have a huge tent on the front lawn but I love the light that these lanterns add - so elegant



Also, we have a long driveway where we are going to do these votives in bag lights to line the driveway, adds a little touch, I think



Since we will have a big tent, I want to add the paper lanterns inside (where the band will be), so the result will probably look more like this -


STLSarah at the Seven Spot showed the J.Crew ballet flats she picked up for her reception & I just thought why not? These seersucker navy (our colors) would be perfect...I was going to buy ballet slippers anyway, no one will see my shoes, I can't really wear heels with FI b/c he's not that much taller than me & these are so cute!




This is similiar to the tie for the groomsmen - the green is more lime green but we bought them from J.Crew on sale as gifts for the guys

Oh Flowers! I wanted hydrangeas everywhere, in different shades. I love this classic lavender color, these will probably be centerpieces


I love the simplicity of this centerpiece, we will probably do something similar with the clear vase

I love her bouquet - again the simple feel I'm going for...

My bouquet will be this cream colored hydrangea with some pale blush roses in it as well.
Cakes! This is one thing we have discussed but we haven't really decided on, I love this cake with the hydrangeas featured - very pretty
But then I like this one too, we could just use our flowers at the top & we want our monogram on the cake as well, so this one could be really nice to feature that as well
I posted my dress again, but here is a sassy model wearing it - I'm sooo excited about it...I need to decide on my veil & jewelry though,

This hair I love. Now, low country SC in August = extreme humidity and my curly, frizzy hair will just be out of control, so I want to have it up but show off the curl as well, I think this updo does a nice job of that,
We might do these palm weave fans as favors for the guests when they get there - they'll need them!

Thats about it - now we are trying to focus on details & invitations are next on our list!

FYI

I didn't realize that my commenting name "Britt" didn't link to my blog
"Tickled Pink" (until Mrs. P pointed it out - thanks!)
So, Britt & Tickled Pink are one in the same for future reference - sorry about the confusion!

Working on a big wedding post for later today, so look out for it
Thanks,
Britt ;)

Calling all Preps!

Ok, I'll admit I am preppy through and through but I'm sad to say my preppy wardrobe lacks the classic preppy summer staple:
The Bonanno!
While you all weep, I will say that my college summers included working at the beach or pool and I have just lived in Rainbows all summer. But now, I need to move on!
I really like the Palm Beach Classic:
(I want to get a brown leather, perhaps with a gold whipstich - I need this sandal as a dressier sandal that I can dress up with a sundress or cute skirt & I know that a brown leather will go with most of my wardrobe.)

So Bonanno fans, what are your favorite pair, what are your favorite color combos - which ones do you wear the most?? Please let me know!



Another question about Tote distress!

I have this VV mini tote bag that I love (and when I adore something, I use it all the time!), well now it is getting quite dingy because this bag goes to the store, on trips, to work with me...

And I also have this great Lilly tote (I purchased mine about 3 summers ago, its a mini tote with pink canvas & that great pears/lemons fabric {do yall remember that one? loved it} ) This was my favorite tote & I was living in Charleston that summer and it went everywhere with me - the beach, the bars, work - everywhere!!


As I digress, my totes are quite dingy and I want them to be cleaned - what do you all do to clean your totes? Take them to the dry cleaners or is there a home remedy I should know?
Thanks!