Vera = love!

Ok so I know I'm getting married in a little more than a month. And I have the most perfect wedding dress that I love. If none of that were true, however, I would be going crazy trying to find this dress! I am so in love with it! I always thought I wanted a white dress but this is the first non-white dress that I've seriously lost it over. I am in love with the shape of it...the fitted bodice with the asymmetrical neckline and the flowy, goddess-like bottom. Ugh, this is the first dress that I like as much as, if not more than, the dress I currently have. Why do I have to read bridal blogs??

Vera Wang Spring/Summer 2012.

Requisite "Stuff I NEED for the summer" post!

I love the summer. LOVE. And what's not to love? Sun, tan skin that's blemish-free thanks to the sun, warm weekends spent in the park or just walking around enjoying being OUTSIDE, free-flowing clothes that don't make you feel like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (or the tire guy from the Michelin commercials), gardening (and if you don't garden, enjoying all the fresh produce that the warm weather allows us to have locally), the beach and running around in the waves, I can go on and on! It is my favorite season and unfortunately the shitty New York climate shortens it to a mere 3 months. I also love my city, though, so I will take what I can get (and when all else fails, I can take a mid-winter breather in South Beach and justify it by claiming it's solely to visit my parents). Every year I get so excited for the roll out of summer clothing and accessories because it's how I wish I could dress all year long! Here aresomethings that I HAVE TO have (or, in some cases, things I've already bought!):

Wave Break dress, Free People, $98

Bought this in grey. I want to wear it as a dress, not just as a cover-up, but I'm still trying to figure out the bra situation.

Beaded Geometry Bag, Anthropologie, $228

LOVE. Why is this back-ordered until 5/16!?

Jayde Boyfriend Shorts, True Religion, $176

Everyone needs a good pair of cut-offs! Not necessarily these but I like the length.

Tye Dye to the Max dress, Free People, $168

I have been obsessed with this dress since I first saw it, unfortunately I am 5'2" and I don't think the material is that hem-able.

Haleigh dress, Dolce Vita, $242

So, I guess I have a hippy/Mexican/tribal pattern theme going here. Whatever! Wish this weren't $242.

Nyle sandals, DV by Dolce Vita, $68

Fun beaded flat sandals.

Dipped Shrunken Sweatshirt, WILT, $127

I love light-weight comfy sweatshirts for cool summer nights.

Slinky Yarn Mott Street Pullover, LA Made, $92

More comfy-ness.

Virgo Dress, LA Made, $79

Effortless, throw-it-on-and-go dress. I like that it's racerback, too.

Fernanda Wedge, Juicy Couture, $150

So I don't like Juicy usually at all, but these are really cute. I love espadrilles and I like the black and natural colors woven together, it's a little different.

Horoscope Tote Bag, M Missoni, $29

Fun tote bag for the beach, plus it rolls up small so it can fit in your regular bag.

My life.

Complete with pizza & pikachu, this is the story of my life.

I want to be the girl with the most cake.

A couple of weeks ago we had our cake tasting for our wedding cake. To be honest, I was looking forward to this more than any other pre-wedding happening. I had contacted Betsy from Nine Cakes because 1. she works mainly with buttercream frosting, and 2., because her cakes look like this:

So we had been emailing about cake flavors and icing flavors, we were going to be tasting some hazelnut frosting, some green tea frosting, mocha frosting, peanut butter frosting, almond cake, chocolate cake...god I can't even type all of this without getting insanely hungry. Basically, I imagined that she would be putting heaven on plates and serving it to us. Which, luckily, is exactly what she did. It was insane. She even threw in a surprise flavor, caramel buttercream with sea salt, which sounds weird but was the most perfect combination of salty&sweet I've ever had. That with the almond cake was my favorite, by far. Brian of course loved the chocolate cake with peanut butter buttercream, which we all knew would be his favorite before we even tried it. I almost wish it weren't such an easy decision so we would've had to eat more and more cake before we could figure it out.

So, the cake part is done. Each "vendor" (look at me, I'm so official now, I know all the wedding terminology) we get squared away reduces my stress levels by, like, a lot. We're meeting with, who will hopefully be, our photographer next weekend. I have more florists to call since the one I had been waiting to hear back from is "not available" (which I think is her polite way of saying she doesn't want to work with us, I do know exactly what flowers I want so I think I might have smothered her artistic creativity a little). So after that I guess it leaves the DJ/band and ummm I think that's it? Oh and an officiant (another fancy wedding term...look at me). I just remembered today that we need to get our marriage license, too.

New Favorite Song

I don't know how I slept on this song, but "I Love U So" by Cassius is so good!

Does this mean I'm a Gleek?

Ok, let me start off by saying that I'm not a fan of Glee. Bri and I watched it once to see what it was all about, actually we only made it through about 15 minutes, and were left completely confused. Is it a sitcom or a musical? Is it supposed to be serious or funny? I have no idea. I don't get it.

Sephora and O.P.I. did a good job with these nail polishes, though. I don't really know what they have to do with Glee but whatever. I like them.

"I Miss Blogging" somehow became "So I'm Planning my Wedding..."

I can't believe I haven't blogged since September! Tisk tisk, self. I need this. I have to release everything going on "up there" into print and then read it over and over and obsess over it. Otherwise the past is a total blur and I have no documentation of where I have been and how far I've come.

Anyway, so much is going on! What most people have been asking about lately is how my wedding planning is going, which is weird, but good, because I've had to talk about it so much and it's actually making me more excited. I guess the most notable update is that I'm now planning my wedding sans full-service wedding planner. Which is insane because when I go back and read this post I can't even believe it turned out like this. I don't even know where to start with that story. I guess I shouldn't have mentioned this first, since now I'm going to go on a total wedding rant, but whatever.

I don't even know where to start with this story. She started not being as amazing and proficient as she claimed to be almost immediately. She wouldn't be in touch for weeks (almost full months) at a time, she would take weeks to write back to emails (and sometimes would only write back after I emailed again saying, "Hey, yeah, so, I emailed you over a week ago..."), so I started getting stressed about that. Oh, and that monthly to-do list that I was so excited about? Never received even one! I got more stressed when I went to buy my dress and everyone who helped me kept saying that I needed to find a venue really soon. Then four months had passed and we still hadn't gone to look at a single venue. When she finally made appointments for us I had to look at venues on my own because she was busy/sick/etc. (not part of the contract). When I went to one venue, they had canceled my appointment with her and she had never told me. That was really awkward because I was literally walking through a FUBU photoshoot to check out the space. The girl showing me the place and I both had no idea that FUBU was even a brand anymore, but they are, and it happened.

That night I emailed my planner to tell her I fell in love with a space and we wanted to book it. She started the email with, and I quote, "We have a bit of a miscommunication I need to clear up:" and went on to tell me that on the date of my wedding, the date that she was sending me on venue appointments regarding, the date that we had been discussing since August, she was planning another wedding that had been booked before she even met me. My head pretty much exploded. She offered me her assistant, who I didn't even know existed, and when I declined she said, and I quote again, "I wish you much luck in your wedding planning." AND. She refused to give me my 50% deposit back. Livid doesn't even begin to describe how I felt. I still don't even have the words for how I much I despise her. I've calmed down since then (this was at the end of November), though, and realized that court is there for just this reason.

It was honestly a blessing in disguise because now I'm working with two girls who are AWESOME. I ended up contacting the venue that I loved on my own and booking it anyway. The woman who runs the space (it's called Smack Mellon) put me in touch with them. Anna and Elizabeth from Just About Married are like fairy god-planners. They are so much like us! They only offer day-of planning so I have to be way more hands on, but I'm loving it. They have referred me to so many great vendors (and great people!) so far. Yesterday we went for our tasting at Three Brothers Butcher BBQ, which doesn't sound like a classy wedding caterer, but they are! They're catering company is called CaraLeo Catering and they are incredible. I can't even believe the meal I had yesterday. I'm literally still full. The menu and the way they cook is all that we wanted and more. We didn't want fancy small plates with puff pastries and pate or anything like that, just simple, good food that has a definite Italian style. I can't wait to see their proposal, I would LOVE to have them as our caterers. We brought some of their BBQ stuff (wings and ribs) to our friends' football party afterward and everyone said that they're so stoked for our wedding. Nice! Anddddd I just made an appointment today for a wedding cake tasting! Look at me, I can work 6 days a week AND plan a wedding. I'm a:


So, now we have the date, the venue, hopefully the caterer, hopefully the cake, I have my dress, things are falling into place and it's good.

This was supposed to be a life post, not a wedding post. I don't want to become one of "thoooose people" who only talk about their weddings. WELL, people who post pictures of their babies all over facebook ARE worse, but still...don't want to even be comparable. I promise to space out the wedding updates from now on so it doesn't get gross.