Friday, May 7, 2010

Time

So it's been several weeks since my past post, and practically a month since my last wedding-themed post, but that's because my life has been both hectically busy and dreadfully uninteresting at the same time.

The hectically busy parts have consisted of:
  • The entire process revolved around trying to purchase a short sale
  • Sending out Save-the-dates (no, if you haven't gotten yours yet, don't worry, I haven't sent them yet. Stupid me didn't think to buy envelopes at the same time as the save-the-dates, so now I'm working on that)
  • Finding a full-time job
  • Finishing this terrible semester
  • Doing actual work at work (wtf is up with that?!)
  • Trying to hang out with friends and family
  • Trying to hardcore work under our wedding budget so we might have money afterwards
  • Trying to find simple yet personal wedding bands (rings - not musicians) within our price range (these last two points have been in direct contention with one another - apparently rings aren't cheap - go figure)
The dreadfully uninteresting parts have consisted of:
  • Classes. This semester has been, by far, my least favorite. It has made me never want to go to school again. I want a full-time job. I want to be an adult. Now, this must tell you something about how bad this semester has been, because I have never wanted to leave school before, or to be an adult any time soon, and who ever, sincerely can't wait to have a full-time job?
  • Not hanging out with my best friends nearly enough. Nicole is in GUAM (*coughcough* okfineshe'stravellingaroundEUROPEANDBEINGAWESOMEIHATEHER) and Nikki works a lot and spends a lot of her weekends with Andrew, which is also the only times when Zach and I have time to do things like errands and food shopping and hanging out w/ people because this semester our schedules have been crap because we're both taking multiple classes.
  • Working at work.
  • Doing schoolwork.
  • Job hunting.
  • Not finding gorgeous, personalized dirt-cheap wedding bands.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Forever21

As happens every Spring, I decide that I need more dresses. I love wearing dresses, but I have no where near as many as I would like. I also don't have anywhere near enough money to buy all of the dresses I would like, so I've been looking at relatively affordable options.

I thought that Forever21 might be a good idea, since I have found nice pieces there in the past.

And I did find a few cute looking dresses on their website.

But the number of cute dresses was far overshadowed by the sheer amount of wtf dresses. I can't even call them all ugly, because some of them just make NO SENSE.

Here are pictures of a few of my favorite wtf dresses.

This is an "Origami Satin Dress" in navy blue. Not quite sure what part of it is Origami, but hey. It's part of the "Twelve by Twelve" line, which "offers a more sophisticated, modest fit than FOREVER 21."

Now, I have no idea what that means, because to me, this just looks wrong. I mean, where are you supposed to wear this? It's almost completely polyester and dry clean only, which translates to me: stuffy, uncomfortable and pointlessly expensive and difficult to clean. Plus, do you see those sleeve-things? Those scream itchy to me.




Now, I love mermaids as much as the next girl, and when I was 7 my goal in life was to become Ariel, but that does not mean that I would EVER wear this dress.






If any of you had dreams of dressing like a combination of Xena and a dominatrix, but doing it in a fun, summery kind of way, here's your dress.

If not, I'd steer clear of this dress which has somehow managed to make this size OO mannequin look like a cow.






For those of you who would rather look like a Barbie, though, here's the dress for YOU. There could be no other possible inspiration for this dress than to make the wearer look as much like a Barbie as possible; the biggest flaw, in my eyes, is that the designer hasn't seen a Barbie since the 80s.





This dress is shameful. It's a mullet dress. That is all.










And now we come to... this... dress.

I know when I go shopping, I look for outfits that make my hips and thighs look bigger, and accentuate my boobs to a point just short of painting actual nipples on the fabric.

I can't imagine this dress was designed by a woman. Or anyone who ever saw a woman... or spoke with a woman... or... looked at a woman. Seriously.



And finally, the always classy, I'm-faking-pregnant dress. Because that's ever a good idea.

Zox

Okay, so, I have a lot of music. My goal for the past few years has been to just accumulate music. Because I love it, and you can never have too much music.

Until you get an ipod mini and can only fit a small percentage of your music on it at a time.

But one of the bands that I've been listening to a lot (other than the Two Gentlemen Band - I'll write about them later - I'm madly in love, must see them, and give all my thanks to Nikki) is Zox. Now, I downloaded a lot of their songs after hearing them on Pandora. I can't remember exactly which playlist they came up on, but I'm leaning strongly towards my Dispatch-based one. Because Dispatch is great.

Now, I've been listening to them for close to 2 years now, and have never had the urge to, you know, look them up online or learning anything about them. Because I'm lazy sometimes.

But I just did, and oh my god I'm angry at myself for not doing this earlier.

Mostly because of the list of bands they opened for.

I get angry at myself when I find things that I would have LOVED to do, but missed the opportunity.

Here's a quote from the wikipedia entry on them: They have opened for or toured with bands such as The Black Eyed Peas, O.A.R., Rusted Root, Common, OK-GO, The Roots, Everclear, Dispatch, Live, Guster, Good Charlotte, Gogol Bordello, Streetlight Manifesto, Phantom Planet, Flogging Molly, The Sugar Hill Gang, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Hawthorne Heights, The Living End, Petey Pablo, and Lupe Fiasco, among others.
Now, the above list contains some of my favorite bands of the past few decades. I've seen several of them, but, very unfortunately, never when they played with Zox. This makes me sad.

The end.


Friday, April 9, 2010

Custom Ring Dish


Look at this absurdly adorable Custom Ring Dish on Etsy. I don't foresee a need for a custom ring dish for the wedding, nor do I see room in the budget for something so adorably frivolous. That won't stop me from drooling over it for a day or so.

Maybe there's some way we can diy a similar thing... as a favor? For the shower? It doesn't look like it would be too terribly difficult if we adapted the design to be simpler.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Antique Pink and Sage



I made these two color palettes off of the two dresses one of my wonderful bridesmaids liked. They're both from The Dessy Group again, but this time in Sage.

The first palette was made second, and is a lot simpler. The bottom one is really just a collection of ideas and images that vaguely fit into the color scheme and that I like. The top one is quite a bit more selective.

Ideas? Opinions?


Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Soft Pink and Celadon

After yesterday's post inspired by 100 Layer Cake, I decided to pursue a similar color palette a little more. Everyone knows I love ranunculus, especially when they're soft pink with hints of green in the center. I also like the color of these Dessy bridesmaid dresses, shown in the color Celadon, which is, apparently, a name for a type of ceramic. Go figure.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Pink and Green


For the wedding's color palette, I've been wavering between Pink/Green and Blue/Green. As much as I love blue, I'm leaning strongly towards pink/green.

However, I hate hot pink. And I'm not sure if I want a vibrant pink. I would prefer a softer, paler pink if possible. I've even been thinking of a peach or coral instead of/or with a pink.

I've been on the fence about it, but after seeing yesterday's 100 Layer Cake post, I'm thinking that might be the way I'll try to go.

Guest Blogger, Snippet and Ink writes

I love playing with colors, seeing if I can make predictable color palettes new, or pairing colors that might not seem obvious together. Pink and green is still a favorite for weddings, and I imagine it always will be, but it can come across as saccharine and unsophisticated. Black tones down the sweetness, and makes it all look chic.

Palette: melon-mint green, pale grapefruit pink, black avocado.

Here are a few more color palettes that incorporate peaches and corals that I like.

A gorgeous collection of coral Etsy products.

A really cute celery and peach palette.

A nice peach, orange and aqua one. I don't love the orange, but the peach is really cute.

I also really like this spring-themed collection - the flowers are my favorite part.

All of these palettes are from The Perfect Palette, a delightful blog that has very pretty, creative wedding palettes.

Monday, April 5, 2010

House

Zach and I have been house-hunting lately. I blame my father and Eric, for the most part. It's not Eric's fault so much, because he actually needs a house. But my father? He think it's a good investment. Well, it is, except for the small little problem that I currently have two part-time jobs to accommodate the fact that I'm still in grad school.

However, the fact that it's currently a buyer's market, Zach has some money saved up and he has a good credit score and I have a borderline great credit score makes us actually not in a terrible place to buy a house. Not a big house. A starter house.

We've been looking a lot on Long Island because, for the most part, it's more affordable than Queens. Yes, the taxes are higher, but houses are mostly cheaper and have bigger properties. Towns like Elmont have some surprisingly nice houses that are relatively cheap and the school district isn't bad. We've even found a couple houses in West Hemsptead that are completely affordable, and the West Hempstead school district is apparently really good. I mean, that's not just my opinion, that's according to grades and reviews found online.

Friday, April 2, 2010

Save-the-Dates

I realized today, after looking at a few save-the-date promps, that I can't send them out until I have addresses, and I roughly finalized guest list, to boot.

Frick.

So I've spent the better part of the morning: A. brainstorming/editing save-the-dates, and B. Frantically trying to finalize the guest list, which is, apparently, no where near finalized.

I've done a lot of organizing though, and hopefully once I talk with the in-laws and my parents, I'll be able to actually finish this so we can get these save-the-dates out!

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Hairstyle

Now that I have my dress, I've been thinking about the rest of my appearance. I know that I would like to wear my mom's pearl necklace. I'd like to whiten my teeth. I'm trying to get in better shape (omg when did I get flab under my arms?! That's so not okay!). Of course I'll get a manicure, and I might even try to grow my nails out a little so I don't look like a child.

And my hair. I've been trying to grow my hair out for a long time. Right now, my hair is longer than it has been in years, and by years, I mean since I was about 14. I've also been dying it with henna lately, instead of chemical dyes, because I would love if I could have my hair be the perfect shade of red with something natural, because that's just how I roll.

I've been thinking, and right now my ideal wedding hairstyle would consist of some sort of loose side bun with a flower in it.

My preliminary search for matching hairstyles has pulled up nothing that matches my ideas. However, I'm sure I've seen it done somewhere before, so... I'll just have to keep looking.

These are the closest ones that match the picture in my head:

I think I'd prefer a flower to a clip, but this one is very pretty, and I'm about 99% positive I want a real flower as opposed to a silk one with a feather around it, but this one is also pretty, so there you go. Both are from Theknot.com, go figure.

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Flickr

I've had a Flickr account forever and a day. However, I've never had that many pictures on it. Recently I realized that I had no way of showing someone pictures of me without logging on to Facebook and scrolling through the pages of photos. That was not okay.

To solve this dilemma, I uploaded a lot of photos to a usb memory stick I carry with me most of the time, and posted many pictures on Flickr. There will be more to come over the next few weeks, because there's really only so many pictures you can post in a day.

To be honest, this did begin solely because Facebook was stubborn and wouldn't allow me to upload the pictures of my wedding dress in a timely fashion, while Flickr did. That's when I realized that the dress photos made up about a quarter of the photos I had posted, so I resolved to fix that.

Monday, March 29, 2010

The Dress!


This is it! For more pictures, check out my Flickr (Blogger is being frustrating and refusing to let me upload pictures).

Friday, March 19, 2010

Update

So as of today there are 400 days until our wedding. On one hand that seems like a lot, but on the other hand I know that it will go by quickly. I'm not worried at all though. Since Zach and I have had a long engagement, we've had a lot of time to work out details and what it is we want to have. We've booked the place. I've tried on dresses and gotten a good idea (or at least a much better idea) of what I look good in and what I would like to wear. I've looked at and discussed flowers a lot with my mother, and I'm sure that when we sit down to work everything out, the final results will be gorgeous. I'm sure we'll find beautiful dresses to compliment each of my wonderful bridesmaids. One of our friends is currently working on our save-the-dates, which we hope to be sending out soon. Overall, I think we've got a handle on this.

In the meantime both Zach and I are trying to get healthier and to save money. We hope to be able to put a down payment on a house next year. We went rollerblading yesterday with Sean and Shannon, and I had such a great time! I've never felt comfortable skating before, but yesterday we took it very simply and skated around an empty rink for a while. It was perfect. And the weather was beautiful.

Zach is taking his last locksmithing class tonight, and this will make him a certified locksmith. Pretty fancy, huh? I'm in the middle of my second semester at Hunter, and will be taking courses over the summer. I'm still planning on graduating May 2011, and I might have to do some finagling, but I'm going to do it. Then I can get a job teaching, hopefully in Queens or Long Island so I don't have to commute far. I'm going to be taking my last two teacher-certification tests in April and June, so I'll be certified to teach very, very soon.

I'm very excited about the future now. It scares me a little bit, but I'm excited.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

401

401 days until our wedding.

Holy crap.

That is all.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Dress 4


When I put this dress on, I loved it. However, the more I look at pictures of it, the less I like it. What's that about? From David's Bridal.

Dress 3




I've tried this dress on twice. From my first trip to David's Bridal, it was the only one that I loved, and when I came back I still loved it. However my future MIL and SIL both hated it. le sigh. I still love it, and the more I look at pictures of it, the more I think I love it. I enjoy the way it fits me, I love the way it flows and has layers (which I previously thought I would hate!) and I love the little detailwork on the hip.

Dress 2


I love this dress. Several people have pointed out that it looks very similar to my prom dress, only longer and white. I still love it. From David's Bridal's Oleg Cassini Collection.

Dress 1



This is Zach's favorite dress. I love the way I look in it and I like the detail and the ruffle at the back; however, I don't like that it's made of a heavy-ish satin. For a daytime, Spring wedding, I'd like to have a dress that's more of a lace or chiffon fabric. The dress is in the Galina Signature from David's Bridal.

Friday, March 12, 2010

More Pictures


I haven't been able to get over the wedding that I posted about yesterday. I showed the pictures to my mother and sister, and even my sister liked them! She's my harshest critic, so that's extra impressive. My mother like the flowers, and was pleasantly surprised by the creative and cute use of mason jars and tea cups as vases.

Today, through the use of my keen detective skills, as well as a link through 100 Layer Cake, I was able to find a photo album of the wedding on Martha Stewart Weddings. Squee! I've pulled a few of my favorite pictures from the album, but really, as I went over yesterday, I love everything about this wedding, so it was difficult.

Have you gone to look at the photos yet? GO! Just seriously, look at this last picture and tell me it isn't perfect!?

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Gorgeous Centerpieces






I read 100 Layer Cake daily and absolutely worship everything that they post about.

My absolute favorite thing that they do is the Real Wedding series of posts. There have been 70 so far. And I'm pretty sure that each and every one of them has inspired me in some way. I've spoken about my love of 100 Layer Cake's Real Weddings before, but their most recent wedding absolutely blew me away. I love the bride's gown; the bridesmaid's dresses, while not my style, are really pretty; the setting is stunning; the reception-tent is everything I used to dream about.

But the flowers. The flowers are what captured me and floored me and prompted me to get up off my ass and actually post something serious for the first time in waaayyy too long.

What I love the most about these flowers, besides everything, is the color. And the way they appear relaxed and wild, while still looking neat and put together. I love the rannunculus. I love the poppies. I love the little grape hyacinths. I love that the flowers are in tea cups. And mason jars. I LOVE THEM.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Free coffee sample

Dunkin' Donuts. Dunkin' keeps me blogging. Try Dunkin' Donuts Coffee For Free. Get a Sample


Click here if you'd like to get a free sample of Dunkin Donuts coffee. I've found that when I brew Dunkin Donuts coffee at home, I like it a lot more than the coffee I buy in an actual Dunkin Donuts. I'm not sure why that is though. Either way, I'm getting just a bit of free coffee in a matter of 6-8 weeks, and I love free coffee best of all.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

429 Days!

I just checked on TheKnot and it informed me that Zach and I have 429 days until we get married!

Eek!!


Have you seen our The Knot personalized wedding page yet? Go check it out!

http://www.theknot.com/ourwedding/RoseBuscemi&ZachConnelly


I PROMISE that someday soon I'll actually start adding real content to it, but until then, all of my wedding info is on here. :)

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Briermere Pies


I had a stroke of what I hope turns out to be genius today.

Briermere pies at my wedding.

I've been looking at a lot of amazing and wonderfully inspirational websites, and I've found that the weddings I love the most are the ones that have adorable and personal details like the entire bridal party wearing Converses or having photo walls of other family member's wedding days.

And one of my favorite things in the world is pies from Briermere farms.

So, I've decided, there will be fresh Briermere pies at my wedding.

My top choices are Peach Cream, Blueberry Cream, Apple, Raspberry Cream, Strawberry Rhubarb, and possibly a Lemon Meringue.

Of course, my pie options will be dictated by what they're serving in late April, but since they have a wide Winter menu, I have faith that we'll be able to get lots of delicious pies in April.

Farm picture from the wonderful WallyG's photostream, while the drool-inducing menu was first on Saxon Henry, a fun looking blog. The stunning picture of the raspberry cream pie is from Long Island Foodie, a blog I'm almost angry at myself for not having discovered sooner.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

New Layout!

Look at my lovely new layout! It's absolutely perfect! I found it on this AMAZING Blogger layout site called Suck My Lolly. Isn't that adorable? Even though I think this new layout is the greatest thing ever, I might have trouble resisting some of the other absolutely adorable layouts. I mean, look at this and this and this and this . I want them all.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Details

Here are some of the details that didn't quite fit into my overall room theme of the last post. This is, again, a homage to Design*Sponge because they have SO MUCH GREAT STUFF on their blog and you should go read all of it and look at the pretty pictures.
The absolutely genius and adorable book book... well, I really have nothing witty to say about it. It looks perfect. And I want it. The end.

The desk also looks like the perfect combination of functionality and adorableness. I love the space and the clean white lines. I love all of the opportunities for storage and organization. I love the little candy (nut?) dispenser. I love the giant wall of personalized stuff.


This wreath is actually the reason I found this delightful blog (my wonderful friend Sam saw it and thought of me! THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU). I love that it's not a traditional holiday winter wreath with the holly and the evergreen boughs. I love that it's not a traditional spring/summer wreath with flowers and butterflies. It's perfect. It's late winter. It's the hope of spring.


And the ranunculus bouquet is just gorgeous. I love these flowers for so many different reasons, but I would love to more than anything to have little bunches of them in low vases decorating my rooms. I would LOVE to have a kitchen like this, but it would require me to gain some organization and tidiness skills that I have been lacking for the past 23 years. Maybe I'll find them someday. Maybe not. Either way, gorgeous kitchen. And guess what? The rest of the house is just as cute... wait for it... and realistic looking! It doesn't look like a display house, it looks like a real home that people actually live in. I love it.

Decorating

I've been (obviously) spending a lot of time thinking about and planning the wedding recently, but before all this happened, I was obsessed with thinking about designing a future home. While young girls (apparently) dream all about their future weddings, I dreamed about my future home. I drew floor plans and clipped pictures from magazines of kitchens and living rooms.

I think, if I were to win the lotto, all I would want to do (after buying a house) is decorate that house. And I don't mean buy the newest and shiniest everything. I mean do it myself-paint the walls, find perfect kitschy decorations at thrift stores and garage sales, complete diy renovations of old wardrobes and bookcases.

Basically, what Design*Sponge does. Just look at these stunning pictures.

The gorgeous bedroom with the tree reminds me of what I had when I was younger (except this looks so much more professional!) and is in the same house as the adorable kitchen nook with the chalkboard-paint walls. I love the brilliant idea of using the table base as book storage, because holy moly do I need help storing books.

Which brings us to this gorgeous library. I know it's really only one wall, but a girl can dream.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Real Wedding

Take a look at 100 Layer Cake's most recent post. I'm in love with everything about it. The bride wears a stunning blue dress, because white gowns aren't traditional in her family, and the couple wrote their own ceremony that was intensely personal.

Personal ceremonies and vows has recently become something that I've been thinking about a lot. Since Zach and I basically want to write our own ceremony which leaves out religion and focuses on the love that we share, I'm particularly touched by this detail from their wedding.

"Their ceremony was super personal and focused on well written words and a reworking of tradition.

Listen to this one: 'We put a bottle of wine, two glasses, and a set of love letters (written in secret and unshared) into a wooden crate and then sealed it with nails (each nail was hammered by a family member to show their commitment to supporting our marriage and then finally by us). The crate is meant as an act of reassurance, a romantic gesture–if ever our relationship is in peril, we are to open the crate, drink the wine, and read the letters before we make any decisions about our future.'

Um, shouldn’t we ALL do that for our weddings?? At the very least you end up with a lovely aged bottle of wine."


Friday, January 29, 2010

Westbury Manor


I've found several pictures of Westbury Manor online that I enjoy, but I was a little surprised by the lack of current pictures. For example, I found pictures of the bigger reception room, but they are outdated, since the Manor was renovated 2-3 years ago. I couldn't find any pictures of the smaller room, which Zach and I will be using on our special day.

I'm hoping that it will be a gorgeous spring day when we get married, and they say that in April the entire property is covered with millions of tulips. I'm okay with that. :) I plan on re-visiting the site at the end of April to get a good idea of what it looks like in the Spring, since for some reason we've only ever visited in the fall and winter. Luckily, I have TONS of time to plan, so I'm not worried.

We're also hoping that we'll be able to have the ceremony outdoors, but since it will be the end of April, we're going to have to hope to get lucky. However, I found a gorgeous shot of an outdoor ceremony at the Westbury Manor from a photographer's blog.

(Click to see the larger image.)

And then here are two pictures of rooms that are not ours, and a gorgeous shot of the gardens in what looks like late Summer.

This bride posted a review of Westbury Manor and has dozens of beautiful pictures from her wedding. Go look!


Related Posts with Thumbnails
 
Header Image from Bangbouh @ Flickr