Golden Girls

After what seems like forever, I've finally found jewelry for my sister and BM R! You see, it's not that we couldn't find jewelry we liked, it's that we found TOO much jewelry we liked. How do you narrow down hundreds of awesome pieces when the choice is left up to you... and you've never done this before?

A marathon shopping trip (6 hours in new wedges - ouch, dummy!) a few weeks ago turned up a few possibilities. BM R, who trends toward classic and blingy, was coveting this lovely pair:

Nadri CZ Drop Earrings via Nordstrom

April Showers

For April Fool's day, my parents arrived for a little visit just 60 days out from the big day. With my sister. And my cousin J, who's never visited us before. But nothing funny was going on. When I tried to pin down activities for the weekend, they were vague and indecisive. Bridesmaid R and my FMIL had been unusually quiet in the previous weeks. And poor Mr. Pain au Chocolat had been stressing all week about preparing the house for my family, stockpiling food and scrutinizing every corner of the house. What is going on?


My (surprise) bridal shower!

Bridesmaid Dress: The Color Reveal

The bridesmaid dresses arrived a few weeks ago and I am just now getting around to picking them up. To explain, the shop is 45 minutes away and the weeks leading up to the holidays have been a bit, ahem, hectic. I also wanted my local bridesmaid, BM R, to join me. She's a wedding expert and my advocate when I'm being too polite... so if the dress, color or something else was not as ordered, all would be fixed.

*Tangent Warning*
While the dresses were retrieved from the lower level, BM R and I browsed the bridal gowns. (You won't mind the distraction, will you?)

Mmmm, texture.

Get ready girls!

The bridesmaids' dresses are in!

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They're hanging out at the Ardmore store waiting for us to visit. Maybe when we pick them up, I can try on my dress again. Maybe. I'd really like that.

Oh, and we'll be able to finally see what color yellow the girls will be wearing. When the order was placed, it'd been months since I'd glanced at the one inch swatch. It will be nice to know what color yellow we're working with!

Did the colors of the bridesmaid dresses surprise you when they arrived?

Bridesmaid Revisited

Quick recap: The 'maids and I thought their gowns were all set when we walked out of the doors at Priscilla. They'd been measured, gave their contact information, approved the color and even agreed on the same gown (save for a small difference in the skirt). Then I received an email that changed all of that.

Things happen for a reason. I wasn't feeling the first choice so this setback wasn't actually a bad thing. It gave me a chance to regain control of the creative direction. (That sounds awful, but true.) I knew what gown to order. It was an early favorite that wasn't given strong enough consideration. I didn't speak up even though it was my favorite... Making sure everyone was happy was more important. Lesson learned. Now that we were on the same page, I had their blessing to pick the back-up:

PB 415

Yog-urt

I think that's what I'm going to feel after my first yoga class tonight.

That's me.
It's something I've wanted to start for over a year and just never found the right combination of motivation, time, and people. I'm not a Y or gym membership kinda girl. The whole gym thing intimidates me, which is odd considering how athletic I was in high school. But that was 10 years ago!

It all works out

So... I got an email from my bridal consultant that basically said the information we were given a few days prior was wrong. Wrong as in the dress BM R picked out doesn't come in yellow. She apologized (wasn't her fault) and suggested I come in again to look at the other options.

I shouldn't have picked up the iPhone while on vacation. Blah.

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Shop til you drop

My family arrived for their much-anticipated vacation to tropical, sunny... no wait, they came to Delaware to spend their well-deserved vacation week with me! The last week of June was hot. Like heat index pushing 100 degrees, melt your face hot. We spent three days in a row in air-conditioned shopping bliss (King of Prussia, the flagship Anthropologie in Rittenhouse Square & Christiana Mall); ideal for the ladies, not so ideal for Dad and Mr. P.


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The non-stop shop-a-thon included knocking a few items off the wedding to-do list. Our first wedding stop was bridesmaid dress shopping at the Ardmore (read: upscale) Priscilla of Boston. BM R and I had the advantage of previewing gowns so we came prepared with a list since it worked well before. We were not missing any good ones due to sensory overload! (Ooooo, foreshadowing.)

Easiest bridesmaid shopping trip ever!

Not content with visiting just one bridal store, BM R and I spent the rest of the day (about 8 hours - we're hardcore!) shopping in Suburban Square in Ardmore. We found new stores and old favorites with good deals. We stumbled upon a Priscilla of Boston store and had to scope out the gowns. It is a mere two blocks from the salon where we started the day -- I had no clue it was nearby, as I uncharacteristically did not research the area ahead of time!

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Color duel

I’m a green girl. Celadon, moss, jade, kelly, verdis gris... The largest section of my closet and jewelry collection is devoted to this color. The emerald is my favorite gemstone and diamond cut. British racing green on an old Jag – be still my heart.


swatches via 100 Layer Cake
But it wasn’t always my favorite! The chromatic shift started in my mid-20’s. My old standby, blue, became less appealing as I gravitated toward new green. It’s fresh, full of energy yet calming and a chameleon with tremendous range. (In fact, the human eye is capable of differentiating more shades of green than any other color. Green wavelengths between 507-555 nanometers coincide with the most sensitive visual perception of the eye. Maybe I should've warned you I was about to go geeky on you.)

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It’s a natural (hah!) choice for utilizing in our wedding. I was all about green for bridesmaid dresses… until we found our venue and set a date. Our summer garden wedding is already filled with so much green that a grass green-clad ‘maid would disappear into the foliage. After discussing with level-headed BM R, we scrapped green as a leading lady.

But what to replace it with?

Happy Birthday Bridesmaid R!

May you always be "classy as sh*t"!

Miss 27 Dresses joins the dress hunt

I am officially addicted to dress shopping.

As someone who already loves shopping, the thought of trying on pretty dresses in luxurious fabrics thrills me. The hunt, in store and online, is only bested by trying the pretties on. Once I discovered some free time over Christmas break, my thoughts naturally gravitated toward more dress shopping. Before my feet even hit the floor in the morning, I was on my iPhone pulling up the nearest salon's website then giddy-dialing them for an appointment.

Yes, they could see me that day. Could I come in 2 hours? Uhm, YES!