Hooray for Summer! And for Kate Spade! Yet another Kate Spade sale! I hope no one ever pays retail price for Kate Spade items considering there's a new sale every couple weeks. Love it!
I hope everyone has a happy and safe 4th of July weekend!
As you all know, I love to recycle so it makes me extra happy that when I'm done with my MAC makeup containers I can not only bring them back for them to recycle, but I get free stuff too!
As I've mentioned before, when you bring back 6 empty MAC makeup containers (can be any of their containers.. foundation, blush, eyeshadow, bronzer, powder, etc..) you get either a free lipstick or a free eyeshadow. (Free eyeshadow is only available in the MAC stores. If you go to a MAC kiosk in Macys or any other department store it's just a free lipstick). So I always go to an actual store since I'm not a big lipstick wearer and I've gotten about 3 or 4 free lipsticks from them through this recycling program, and never really use them.
So I went the the mall and traded in 6 empty containers and chose my free eyeshadow. This time I chose the color "shroom" and so far I love it! It's very pretty, but also subtle enough to wear at work too.
Yesterday was H and I's first wedding anniversary and neither of us can believe how quickly the past year went by and everything we've done. We reminisced about our honeymoon to Vegas and Fiji, our move to FL, and building our house. It's been an amazing year and we look forward to what is yet to come.
1 year and 1 day ago
1 year ago having dinner on the beach in Fiji
Can't believe we're closing in 3 days! Whoo hoo!
We went to dinner on the lake at a beautiful restaurant that doesn't charge a corkage fee if you bring your own wine or champagne. Couldn't be beat!
On the way home we saw a beautiful peacock just hanging out so we stopped the car and I got out and took a picture. Seriously.. what did we do before we had cameras in our cell phones? Actually.. what did we do before we had cell phones?
I can't believe I told the whole story of how I got a new Kate Spade bag for free and in case you missed it you can find it here and never came back with a picture of it when it came in. One of the many things I love about Kate Spade is how fast their shipping is. It was ordered on Friday night and it got to me on Tuesday afternoon.
It's such a pretty bag, but I honestly haven't started using it yet. I've kept it looking pretty in the packaging it came in and will transport it to our new house that we're closing on in 6 DAYS and then I'll probably start using it. I still can't believe how this all happened and how lucky I am to have such a great boss.
Also, I promised in my last post I'd come back and give my review on the Sephora brand bronzer that I decided to try out after using MAC's Refined Golden bronzer for several years. Drum roll please...... the results are I love it! I'm saving over $10 with this bronzer and I honestly love it even more than MAC's. It really blends well after I put on my foundation and it feels lighter and more natural on my skin than my old bronzer.
Just like the description on Sephora, it's a melt into your skin bronzer that blends effortlessly thanks to the silky micronized pigments. I highly recommend it even if you've been faithful to another bronzer for years and years like I had been. You can find it on Sephora's website. I ordered mine in the color "Aruba" since it looked the most comparable to my MAC Refined Golden bronzer.
And I thought everyone could use a little cuteness to complete their Friday afternoon. H and I went to get ice cream the other night and remembered that they have a sign saying "Free Doggy Sundaes for any dog that's present at the time of purchase". So we brought Roxy so she could get her free doggy sundae. Absolutely adorable!
... when you receive your long awaited Sephora purchase in the mail! Why is it that you always seem to run out of a bunch of your fashion and beauty supplies at once? Seriously! I never just run out of blush.. I run out of erase paste, blush, bronzer, and highlighting powder all at once... and of course right before we close on our house next week!
So, I placed an order last Monday for everything but the highlighting powder and it arrived today at work. Yippee!
I love Erase Paste! Thanks to heredity no matter how much sleep I get and how refreshed I am, I always have dark circles under my eyes. *Sigh* I've tried many creams and concealers over the years, and then I discovered Benefit's Erase Paste at Sephora. This is my 3rd jar in the past year, so even though it's a tiny jar, it lasts several months and the best part.. it works!
I've been using MAC's Refined Golden bronzer for years and years and years, but I decided to try something new since I needed bronzer and I was really close to the $50 purchase for free shipping so I decided to try out Sephora. I'll definitely come back and give a review of it compared to MAC.
Just like the bronzer, I had always used MAC's blush, but the last time I ran out of blush, I gave Sephora's brand a try and I love it! So I ordered it again, but next time I'd like to finally try out NARS that everyone raves about.
Freebies! My favorite part of ordering from Sephora online is the 3 free samples with every order, plus I had an offer code so I got a free sample of Super Goop as well which is a shea butter 30 SPF lip balm. I also got a sample of Daisy by Marc Jacobs, an exfoliating mask, and a sample of Twirl by Kate Spade. Believe it or not, I've never sampled Twirl before. It smells yummy!
Happy Fathers Day to all the dads out there! I wasn't able to be with my family today, but I was able to talk to them for a bit and I know I'll be seeing them in less than 2 weeks.
One of my favorite pictures of my family. The 4 great men in my life..my dad, my grandpa, my brother, me, and my H at a Yankees game on Labor Day in 2009.
My favorite pics of me and my dad are from my wedding last June
We were laughing about something that I don't recall...
So, back in April I did a blog post for my Wardrobe Wants and one of them was the Kate Spade Sugar Hill Medium Seraphine bag.
But then I found out about a 40% off outlet sale, and picked up my new Kate Spade bag there instead. Found here.
Well we were getting ready to go out last night with a bunch of people from my work, and as we were on our way out the door, I turned to H and said, "Should I bring my big bag, or just use a wristlet?" He of course didn't know the answer and said to do whatever I wanted. I figured I needed a lot of the stuff in my every day bag, so I just decided to bring that.
We started off the night at a mexican restaurant that is near the train tracks, and every time the train goes by people cheer and do "train shots" of tequila.
Fun times!
We then went back to my boss' house to hang out in his game room, shoot some pool, drink his alcohol, and the boys to smoke his cigars...
I was playing a rather terrible game of pool (I'm rusty to say the least) and we heard some commotion and look up and like it was in slow motion I saw my boss' wife tip over a large glass of red wine all over my purse.
She felt terrible and immediately started cleaning it, and my boss just casually says, "Don't worry we'll get you a new one". My jaw dropped, and I tried politely declining saying not to worry about it, but he was adamant and went and got his lap top and pulled up the Kate Spade website and told me to pick a new purse. SERIOUSLY! I was still in shock from the spill, but in even more shock that they were so casually offering to replace it. All the girls gathered around in awe that in a matter of a few seconds I was able to just be hanging out and then be picking out a new Kate Spade bag. So after going through the website and asking everyone's opinion, I ended up picking the bag I had been lusting over a few months ago. It's being shipped to me at work so I should have it sometime next week. Incredible! I seriously have the best boss ever! I just felt so bad, I mean I know his wife didn't mean to spill the wine, it was an accident, and to just get a new designer bag out of the deal is just unheard of to me! I thanked them profusely throughout the night and told them they were too much. On the way home, H and I reflected back to my decision making skills before leaving for the evening and taking the big every day bag as opposed to the wristlet which wouldn't have stained due to the different types of material.
I saw the "Wedding ABC's" over on Joyful Rambling's Blog and thought it was super cute and a fun way to remember my wedding day which I can't believe was almost a year ago already! This time last year I thought our wedding day would never get here, now almost a year has passed. Craziness!
Attendance
~We invited over 150 and ended up having about 110 guests. It was so amazing to look around and see all of our loved ones in one room.
Bridesmaids
Champagne with strawberries before getting dressed
My younger cousins were my Flower Girl and Jr. Bridesmaid. My maid of honor was my best friend from college who introduced me to my H and my other 5 bridesmaids were friends I've made over the years spanning from middle school, high school, college to the present including my sister in law.
Catering
Catering was included at our venue and we chose to do stations instead of a sit down dinner. H and I are always hungry after we attend weddings with a sit down dinner so we wanted our guests to have more variety and the ability to go back for more. We had 4 stations.. a carving station with prime rib, ham, and turkey, a summer grille station, a tuscan station, and a pasta station. It was displayed beautifully and was delicious!
Our cake was also included with the reception package. It came out beautifully, but wasn't what we had requested. It was supposed to be 4 tiers and have gold ribbon at the base of each layer to add some color. I was disappointed, but what can you do at that point?
Dress
I wore Maggie Sottero's Adelaide gown. I loved the beading details on it and the lace up back and how it hugged me in all the right places. I didn't want to get "lost" in my dress from it being too big and I didn't want an overly trendy gown which would outdate our photos in a few years.
Coming down the aisle with my dad
Engagement
We got engaged on February 13th, 2009 and had a 16 month engagement. If we could go back and do it again, we would have had a shorter engagement. It felt way too long, but it was a necessary evil since the outdoor venue we wanted on the water is in high demand in CT since it's only nice out enough for outdoor weddings for a few months a year.
This picture is from our engagement party on April 4th, 2009
Flowers
Our flowers were done by Jane at Just for You and she did an amazing job of bringing my visions to life. I wanted a lot of roses in our wedding colors which were gold, light pink, and cream mixed with candlelight for a romantic glow. There aren't any gold flowers, but she did a great job of finding roses that looked champagne.
I asked for all roses, but since the wedding I have fallen in love with peonies! If I could go back and do it again, I would have asked for a lot of peonies.
Roses and dahlias decorated the garden gazebo we got married in
Groomsmen
H had his younger cousin as our Ring Bearer, 6 of our closest friends including my brother (2 were my close friends that H became close too as well) and his cousin as his Best Man.
Honeymoon
We flew out the day after the wedding to Las Vegas and stayed at The Mirage for 2 nights, then we rented a car and drove to LA and flew out to Fiji for another week. It was the best of both worlds.. we got to celebrate in Vegas and then relax at an intimate resort in paradise.
Infinity Pool at Bare in Vegas
Our Honeymoon Bure in Fiji
Dinner on the beach in Fiji
Invitations
I looked everywhere for invitations and couldn't find anything remotely close to what I was envisioning unless I was willing to spend an obscene amount of money (which wasn't happening!). So after seeing a lot of the girls on my local knot chat board make their own using supplies from Cards and Pockets. I ordered a few samples and worked with Bonnie in their customer service department (who is awesome BTW..) and ended up with my perfect vision which was a pocketfold in our wedding colors with tiny butterflies and our monogram square closing the invite. I designed everything and sent up my designs and had them do my printing and then I assembled everything with double sided tape.
Justice of the Peace
An old friend of the family who is also an elder at the church that H and I were attending before moving to FL officiated for us. He also led the marriage study we participated in leading up to the wedding.
Keepsakes
Instead of a traditional guest book, we did a guest book frame that had one of our engagement pictures in the center that we now hang up on the wall in our home.
and for the guest's favors we had a candy buffet which was a huge hit!
Ladies Night
For my bachelorette we had a joint party bus up to Mohegan Sun and once we arrived we split from the guys and went to Margaritaville and Ultra 88 while H went with his guys to some other bars and to hit the tables.
Music
I would have loved to have had a string quartet for the ceremony, but it was much more cost effective to have our dj also do the music for the ceremony and cocktail hour as well as the reception.
Our DJ did an amazing job and kept the dance floor packed the whole night, and there was even a surprise performance by H and one of his GM's.
Newlyweds
Can't believe we're only newlyweds for another few weeks!
Old, New, Borrowed, Blue...
Something Old: My earrings
Something New: My dress, bracelet, necklace, garter, etc..
Something Borrowed: My mom let me borrow my nana's pin that we pinned to the stem to my bouquet.
Something Blue: My new married initials on the bottom of my shoes
Question Popping
H was so sweet.. he met with my dad over breakfast and asked for my parent's blessing before popping the question to me. He originally wanted to wait and pop the question on the beach in Cape Cod, then he moved it up to our weekend trip to MGM Grand at Foxwoods and then once he had the ring in his possession he ended up popping the question that night in my room before going to dinner where we had our first date.
Reception
We had our reception at the same venue we had our ceremony and cocktail hour at Waters Edge.
Shoes
I wore gold heels from Online Bridal
Trash the Dress
No, I didn't trash the dress.. actually I haven't even gotten it cleaned yet.. yipes!
Unique
We had a lot of unique things at our wedding. We didn't have table numbers and did table names instead of places we've been together. The guest's escort cards were post cards of the destination their table was named after. If you picked up a post card from Aruba, you were sitting at Table Aruba and there was a picture of us in Aruba at the table.
Table Yankee Stadium
Our sweetheart table was "Table Fiji" in honor of our honeymoon destination
Our candy buffet, flip flop basket, out of town guests welcome boxes were all things our guests had never seen before.
Vows
We did traditional vows, but we also wrote our own vows that caused me to cry halfway through saying mine.
Wedding Woes
I apparently didn't eat or drink enough fluids because I felt really sick while we were taking pictures before the ceremony. I ran off thinking I would be sick (thankfully I didn't) and my mom had to unlace my dress a bit (which was laced up too tight) and put a cool washcloth on my neck and back and my amazing wedding coordinator got me crackers with peanut butter and gingerale. My mom and MOH said as soon as I started eating the color rushed back into my face. So ladies, remember to eat on your wedding day amidst all the excitement!
X-rated
I'm not sure I know how to answer this... haha
Young Kids
Our flower girl was 10 and our ring bearer was 8 and they were the youngest kids at our wedding.
Zzz's
Our venue was also a resort so we had complimentary accommodations which was really nice to just retreat upstairs after the reception. Our servers even brought up 2 fresh pieces of our cake and had our toasting flutes out with a fresh bottle of champagne. Perfect.
Wow.. this was long, but it was great to share our amazing wedding day and I can't wait to celebrate our anniversary in a few weeks!
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