Five on Friday

1/ Hair. I did it. I chopped my hair off! A whole 10 inches. It was scary at first seeing all that hair on the ground, but now I love it. It's way easier to do than my long hair.

2/Good Book? Has anyone read "Delivering Happiness" by the Zappos CEO? I came across it this week and it looks really good! I love Zappos as a company, they have THE BEST customer service so I think it'd be a great read.

3/New Car! Yes, lots of changes around these parts this week. I turned in my Jetta for a Ford Escape, I LOVE it so far.

4/To Birch or Not to Birch? Anyone who has done it? Like it? I am working on a Christmas list and thought this might be a good thing to ask for, since I love new products, but just can't decide if it's worth it!

5/Friendsgiving. We've started a tradition (all of 2 years, ha!) to get together with our LA/Boulder friends for an annual feast. I'm going with my trusty go-to Skinny Taste and bringing a Garlic Sweet Potato Mash. How yummy does it look?!

Happy Friday All!

Wedding Wednesday: Bridesmaid Gifts

I knew I wanted to make an extra special "package" for my bridesmaids. But, I also knew I had to figure out a way to do that and transport it via plane back to Wilmington. I ended up getting all the goodies out here in CA, then assembling them in our hotel room back there.

Of course in the midst of the last few days before wedding chaos, I failed to snap many pics of the gifts, but I did get a few! I purchased a few things from Etsy, and sourced the rest from Hobby Lobby and DIYing :) I surprised myself with the hand lettering on the bags, and was very pleased with how they came out!

Etsy Shops <3:

tanks from BaileyWicks

linen clutch from Lucse 

earring from For The Maids

Five on Friday

[1] Fall Wear. This week the "Indian Summer" finally broke (hopefully for good) which means I can finally wear Fall clothes! Today I threw on my new fave purchase from Old Navy :)

[2] New Hair, PLEASE! It is time. I have officially decided to chop my hair off. I grew it out very long for our wedding, and I'm just about sick of dealing with it now. Next week I am chopping it all off and I can't wait. Hoping I can do something like this...

[3]Wedding Pics. It feels like FOREVER that we've been waiting for our pics. But I got an email from our amazing photog yesterday that they'll be ready in 2 weeks. Just enough time to pop one into a card and send off for Christmas! I'm loving the foil pressed cards this year. How cute is this one? 

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[4] Plans  This is the first weekend since before our wedding that we do not have one single commitment on the books and it feels so amazing. 

[5] Baking. Hoping in between doing nothing I can find some time for baking this weekend :) Been wanting to make some yummy treats, and lately have such a craving for all things s'mores...don't ask me why! Do you have any yummy things you've baked lately? If so please share recipe!

How yummy does this look? via

happy happy Friday.

Wedding Wednesday: Out of Town Bags

Being that our wedding was a "destination" for many of our guests, we wanted to make sure to let them know how much we appreciate the sacrifices they made to travel (some thousands of miles) away to be with us on our big day. One of the things we did to show this appreciation was the out of town bags.

I created all the stationary tags and stickers here in CA, then shipped them to NC. Once we got there, my mama and I made a mad dash around town to get all the fillings. We included:

Handmade map of downtown Wilmington showing our favorite spots

Waters

"Late Night Munchies" =selection of snacks (granola bars, trail mix, candy and pretzels)

Advil

 

Although they ended up being a ton of work on top of the last few days of being overwhelmed, I would say it was well worth it, and appreciated by all our guests!

a sprinkle & a shower: babies oh my!

There is much to celebrate around these parts lately. Soon after we got home from our honeymoon, Alex's sister brought a beautiful baby girl into our world. Making our total two nieces and one nephew! Although she is 3000 miles away and we haven't got to "officially" meet the newest addition, the weekly photos prove that she is just too cute for words! On top of that, any day now we will meet another one of our nieces, and next month yet another one! I can't express how excited I am for these 3 little wee ones to come into our growing family.

The past few weeks have been ever so busy (as you might imagine) celebrating these soon to be babes.

First, we celebrated my SIL and her little one:

And last week, we had a little sprinkle brunch for my sister and her lil chica to be!

Wedding Wednesday: Invitations

When we got engaged I knew I wanted to handle as much as we could ourselves. A and I are pretty much both passionate DIYers...I love me a good craft. So for our invitations I spent a good bit of time coming up with the perfect design. I was a little overly ambitious thinking I was going to design AND print every single one of them. I succeeded in designing everything and home-printing the envelopes (purchased from Paper Source), but I used Wedding Paper Divas "uniquely yours" function to upload my design and let them do the printing. I was extremely pleased with the end product!

I purchased a stamp off Etsy from Rubber Stamp Press and embossed little tags to add an extra touch (we used this stamp throughout the wedding decor).

This is definitely one of the areas that we were able to save a good bit of money...which was huge because I don't know about you other brides but somehow a handful of other items came in over budget! 

More pics to come once I receive the professional ones :)

Five on Friday!

[1] Wedding Reliving
I can't wait to finally sift through all our family/friend's photos from our wedding (since our professional ones won't be ready for a bit!). I've reserved Sunday for thank you card writing and wedding photo sorting. Can't wait to start bloggin' about this day and all the projects I've been busy with with past year or so!

[2] Oh, Baby!
Tomorrow my sista, mama and I are throwing my wonderful SIL and soon-to-be Niece a shower.  My plans tonight consist of breaking out the new Kitchen Aid (first time, woot woot) and finally using all the fun baking ware I received at my shower to whip up some cupcakes for the special event!

Fun & exciting  fact: my SIL is due end of November and my sister end of December, two Nieces coming my way so soon :) Here's the 3 (or should I say 5) of us on my wedding morning!

[3] Fall
Somehow with our wedding being end of September and not coming back from our honeymoon until October, my mind missed the whole "it's Fall!" thing. Although our Southern Ca weather isn't following along (per usual), I'm excited for Fall activities to come!

Here's to wishing we'd see some of these beauties around these parts soon...ha! We can dream :)

[4] Nashville
Again with my wedding busy self, I have not even had the chance to watch an episode of the new season! I'm so excited to catch up, hopefully this can be part of Sunday plans (I sense a Sunday football/Nashville competition...wonder which will win!)

[5] Gifts on Gifts
As I'm sure all of you past Brides can relate with, one of the (few) exciting things about coming back from your honeymoon is the last few wedding gifts that arrive! This awesome tray arrive this week one of my dear friends. It's the perfect addition to our living room!

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happy almost weekend to all!

Wedding Wednesday: Honeymoon [Exuma, Bahamas]

Well, just like that, our wedding & honeymoon has come and gone. Our wedding was truly greater than I could have ever dreamt and I'm still holding onto the bliss that overcame me that day! I honestly haven't had the time to process how close to perfect that day was yet, and can not wait to see more photos, so I am going to hold off on writing about it for now!

Instead I am reliving our honeymoon which was equally as amazing! My husband (ah) and I went to Exuma, Bahamas and stayed at an all inclusive resort, it.was.awesome.

When we weren't relaxing on the beach [with the most crystal clear water and whitest sand I've ever seen] or laying pool side in between trips to the swim up bar for endless lava flows and pina coladas, we paddle boarded, sailed, snorkeled, golfed on the most beautiful course (well I drove the golf cart and Alex golfed) boated around the islands, and yes even "swam with the pigs," this is a "thing" in Exuma which at first we thought the most bizaree thing ever, but everyone said we had to do it, and it was definitely one of the highlights of our trip!

This was definitely the hardest vacation to come back to reality from. 

I wanna honeymoon every year!