Wedding Wednesday*: Bridesmaid Attire

Now that Christmas is over, I need to make some major headway on my wedding to-do list. There are save-the-dates to be sent, wedding website to be worked on, registries to be made... all kinds of fun stuff! First up is to go bridesmaids dress shopping. I'm thinking that our first stop will be J. Crew. But before we look at pretty pictures, let's start with what I know to be my criteria so far.

1. I want navy.

2. I want short, but not too short.

3. I want a fabric that won't be too hot since it will be August.

Oh, and I want the bridesmaids to be happy, obviously. That being said, there are a few dresses that have caught my eye in wedding-blog land...

{Photo by Jill Thomas via Style Me Pretty}

This is the J. Crew Cotton Cady Erica dress, and I really like it. It's simple and strapless, and I like how the texture of the fabric looks.

{Photo by Missy Cochran via Style Me Pretty}

This is one of my all-time favorite weddings, and I'm sure that I've linked to it in other posts. The bridesmaid's dress is the J. Crew Silk Tricotine Sophia dress. The fabric is lighter than the first and there is more coverage up top. I really like the back, which you obviously can't see in the photo.

I'm torn on which one I like better. I can't wait to see how our shopping adventure pans out!

*I get that today is Thursday, but all the days have been running together for me lately. I meant to post this yesterday, but obviously that didn't happen. Oops.

merry christmas to all and to all a good night!

If I could go back and time and tell myself something, it would be to make sure you get all your shopping done before Christmas! I'm about to go brave the stores, wish me luck!

{Christmas 1990}

Being Christmas, I've been thinking a lot about my friends and family, particularly the ones that I'm not going to see this holiday season. I'm thinking of all of you, if you're reading or not! I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday. Merry Christmas!

Winter Break

I'm home! I finally turned everything in and headed home on Wednesday. Since then, I've been eating a lot of my mom's chicken soup and trying to fit everything Christmas into the ten days that I'm home before the actual day.

{circa 1994}

On Thursday my mom and I got in a little bit of shopping before the snow came down too much, and then I reenacted the scene above (minus the little bro- he didn't get home until the next day.) I still have a ton of shopping to get done. It's been really busy, but it's been so fun to catch up with family and friends. I love being home.

Brian is still chugging away at his finals. I can't wait until he gets here! Until then I'm going to frost cookies and put glitter on snowflakes (I never knew how to make six-pointed snowflakes before!)

I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season! Only one week till Christmas...

so close, and yet, so far

I can smell winter break. Every time I step outside. Every time I smell my peppermint mocha. Every time I hear Christmas music (which is a lot thanks to my Pandora station) I wish with all my might that I was done with the semester.

This week I haven't been doing anything except for finals. I only have two things left to do: grade papers and a major paper/ presentation. That is all. I'm hoping to head home on Wednesday. Here's to hoping, right?

Finals this year really haven't been that bad (especially compared to last year and the year before). But it's been so dragged out. I hate the marathon of this. Yeah, it's been nice not to pull any all-nighters. But I've been stressed about this final project for way too long.

Maybe the next time I blog I'll be on the other side of finals! One can only hope...

Winter Workouts

I went to the gym tonight for the first time in at least two weeks. I don't usually skip it for so long, but between Thanksgiving and then that cold I got, I just hadn't made it there. I had to force myself to go tonight. I am so unmotivated to work out in cold weather. I think my body goes into hibernation mode and just wants to curl up in a blanket.

The other issue of going to the gym in the cold is what to wear. I don't like to work out in long pants. It seems like too much of a pain in the butt to wear pants over your shorts and then take them off. And my capri-length workout pants are really frumpy at this point. The best option seems to be something like this:

{Target}

BUT, as comfy as these look, I am concerned that they will a) look bad on me and/or b) present some PL difficulties. I see other people wearing similar things to this all the time, but my only experience with stretchy pants (like I'm assuming these are) is that both a and b were VERY true.

Do you have a winter workout outfit that you love?

Friday Randoms

All day I've been looking outside looking at how cold it looks. It's been the perfect day to stay in my sweatpants all day. I've been trying to write this paper about my hometown (which is actually a really fun paper to write) but I haven't gotten anywhere all day.

Last night my roommates and I (minus one) ventured to our last "Lighting of the Lawn" where they basically turn on all the Christmas lights on the main part of our campus. It was cold but so pretty. We milled around and ran into people we know, took pictures, and had a fun time. All of the a cappella groups perform and then everyone counts down to when they turn on the lights. Then we all sing our school song and sway together. I hadn't been since my first year due to bad weather, and I had forgotten what a cool experience it is. It made me realize how much I have loved my time here. I can't believe that we are graduating in less than six months!

Finals are upon us and while this semester is a piece of cake compared to previous semesters, I still have a lot of work to do. My weekend will likely be spent doing a lot of writing. I'm so ready for Christmas and for schoolwork to be over! I've been having difficulty putting together a Christmas list this year. I want/need some things but I just haven't decided what they are exactly. Perhaps that will be how I stall this weekend. Happy Friday!

Wedding Wednesday: The Dress

Ever since I got engaged, one of the most frequently asked questions I get from people is regarding The Dress. Have I purchased it, have I thought about it, what my preferences are. Well friends, on Saturday I took the big plunge and bought My Dress. While I won't post pictures of it online before the wedding, I did want to discuss my experience with the whole process.

My mom and I went shopping twice before we purchased a dress to narrow it down and see what I liked. My experience was that I couldn't pigeonhole what I liked by style, fabric, or some other criteria. The dresses that I would end up choosing at the end of the day were often very different from each other. The four dresses we had narrowed it down from on our most recent trip were pretty different from one another. One was lacy, one was beaded, one had a ruffled train all the way down the back. Some were strapless, some were not. Of the four dresses, I decided that I liked two better than the others. My mom had a definite favorite that was not one of those two. That one was a style preview that only came in the size too small for me (my mom and I were dumb and somehow found ourselves in the wrong size, so I tried on quite a few dresses in that size. Some of them fit, though!) And my first thought when I tried it on was "This is too small." The tailor came out and confirmed that it could easily be left out. My mom loved it so I decided not to eliminate it just yet.

On Saturday we loaded the van with my dress-shopping posse (i.e. my grandmother, future MIL, and bridesmaids minus one) and headed back to the store. After we finally wrangled my final four and then some into the dressing room, I started trying them on. I tried on my least favorite and eliminated it. Then I tried on the one my mom liked. I loved it. Then I tried on the two I had liked originally, and while I liked them, they didn't strike me the same way as the first time I had tried them on. I kept going back to that one dress. Even though it didn't fit just right, I felt better in it than all the others. So after much deliberation, as in trying them all on five times and taking a kajillion pictures, I went the dress that my mom originally had liked.

Because it was a style preview, we got to take the dress home with us, and then we will take it back a few months before the wedding to get it altered and steamed. This means that we can sneak peeks at the dress, which has been lots of fun. I haven't tried on the dress at home yet, but I'm sure I will at some point.

I'm so excited to finally have my dress! I absolutely love it. Wedding dress shopping is always described as this dramatic, "love at first sight" experience, but it didn't really work out that way for me. I was really glad that my mom and I went to narrow them down beforehand and that I got to have a lot of people there with me to weigh in on the final decision. It made the experience really fun. I wish I could post pictures or describe it more, but I think that's going to stay off the blog for now. If you have a good wedding dress shopping story, please share!