I {heart} New York

(found this great picture here)

We are leaving Wednesday morning for NYC! Midtown Manhattan to be exact. My husband will be attending the American Bar Association annual meeting and I'll be SHOPPING. Yay! Oh and sleeping in! I probably won't post much , but I'll be back with pictures and all sorts of fun stuff. So the dozen or so people who actually read this will have to wait to see all the fun stuff I find! 

I'm going to try on my dream dress at Vera Wang while I'm in town and I'm planning on scouring the town for ribbon, fabric and other crafty items, so I'll have lots to report. We're also going to eat here, here, here and here. Yummy! 

Anybody have any other suggestions of not to be missed places?

Using the Internet for more than shopping!

Using the Internet to plan a wedding (vow renewal) just got a whole lot easier. There is another wonderful resource out there and it's FREE! 

The brand new Elizabeth Anne Designs Library. It's full of contact information for vendors from around the country, organized by type and then by state, so it's super quick to navigate. That's great, because let's face it...when you're sneaking planning time at work, the quicker the better. Another wonderful feature is that they have vendor reviews by other brides from around the country. That's probably my favorite feature, if I had to pick just one.

Please stop by EAD and let Ami and Rebekah know how great the new features are. They deserve all the praise in the world. They did all of this and they both work full time! Their blog is also a constant source of inspiration for me and one of my first reads everyday. Thank you Ladies. Keep up the amazing work. You know I love y'all!

Love it, Want It, Need it!

I've been coveting this wonderful piece from Roost for about a year and I think I'm finally going to break down and buy it. It will look wonderful on the buffet with some sort of mimosa/champagne punch during our goodbye brunch, don't you think? I love it! Now I just have to figure if I want the large or the small...any thoughts?

(from Scarlett Alley)

Daily Candy finds...

(from here)

I love it! It's so much fun to get neat products and great ideas in your inbox every morning. I subscribe to the Everywhere, Kids, Atlanta, Dallas and NYC editions. The NYC edition has really helped me find some great places that I want to check out on our trip. 

This treasure showed up in my inbox this morning and I'm in love. I think it looks like a beehive and I love bees! When I trade up from my West Elm chandelier in my dining room, this might be what I go for. I love the white/ivory one. It's looks so soft, but strong at the same time. Does that make sense? 

I also think that they would look wonderful hung en masse over a long dining table at a barn/farm venue. Yummy! 

These are from a great store called RianRae. The owner, Jeni Crawford, has spent the past couple of years searching for all the wonderful products that she features and it has paid off. I've already found a dozen fun things to put on "the list" that I keep around for hubby to choose presents off of. We long ago figured out that he was a horrible present buyer, so he asked for a list and it seems to be working. 

A great blog...

you might not be reading!

via in(side) the loop

I have to take a minute and pay homage to the fantastic-ness that is Courtney of In(side) The Loop. She lives in Houston, but has been known to jet off to NYC to get her hair cut at the drop of the hat, knows how to (correctly) install a kickass outdoor shower and just happens to have worked for some of the biggest names in fashion. Not to mention that her and her husband are darling. She just had her "Golden" birthday and her sweet husband planned her a surprise party complete with real invitations. Stop by and see all the cool stuff she's doing. I'm super jealous of the outdoor shower they just built! What a great solution when you only have one bathroom in(side) the house! 

These are a few of my favorite things...

Oh how I love the Crew!

I think it's safe to say that I'm a huge fan of JCrew. I'm actually a bit dorky about JCrew. I get very excited when the new catalogs in the mail. It's a happy day in our house! My daughter and I both look through it. She's four, so I think she's mostly on the princess lookout, since everything should have them in them if you ask her. 

The first dress is actually a dress that I'm looking at for the vow renewal. It's so simple, which would be great for the beach and it's under $400! Score! The shoes I both want in gray, since I'm a major fanatic. Before we were doing a beach ceremony, we were looking for a farm/barn venue and I wanted to wear a dove gray gown. The last dress is what I'd wear to the fabulous 30th birthday party that I'm sure my husband is planning for me right now. My "Golden" birthday is this year on August 30th and I think a rockin' gold dress is very fitting. If you have to turn 30, it should be your golden birthday and you should get to wear that dress while drinking tons of champagne with all your best friends. But, since it's $600 and not something you can get a ton of use out of, I think I might have to pass. But you never know...I've put it on my list of things to seek out in NYC next week when I'm there with the hubby for the ABA meeting. If it calls to me, who am I not to answer?

So many colors...

so little time.

After all that work on my board, I came across this fantastic board on Snippet and Ink. I love the colors together and I'm not really a huge red fan. I am a huge fan of poppies though, so that could be what is pulling me in. Anyway, I think this would be perfect for a beach event and I think it is just the non-beachy beach look I'm trying to figure out. I would like to add a little bit of lime green in there though, since I love the idea of using actual limes in our flowers. Would that be too much? Please let me know what you think. 

If you don't read Snippet and Ink (are you crazy?), you have to stop by. Kathryn is insanely talented, super nice and the site is full of ideas and new posts every day. It's a great read and probably my favorite blog right now. It's the first one I read each morning.

                                                  

(Snippet and Ink)

Be warned though, you will get sucked in for HOURS and your to-do list will be twice as long after you see all the great ideas on there. Also, the sources for all the pictures are there, so now you have to go!