Vanity Fair inspiration

Did you see the preview of Vanity Fair's August issue? Blake Lively's dress is to die for. Well, all of the dresses on these gorgeous girls are beautiful. Love, that it is on the beach. Such an inspiration for this destination wedding bride.

I'm not afraid to admit that I loves me some gossip girl. That gray suit that Penn Badgley is wearing? Totally what we are trying to find for J. We need a 3 piece gray suit. Easier said than done. We might have to end up getting a custom made suit.
Pictures from Vanity Fair

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Makeup!!

I am a makeup junkie. I can never get enough of it. Here's a crappy cellphone picture of of my makeup shelf that J put up in the bathroom for me. That's 3 traincases full of makeup, two cans full of lipgloss, lip liner and lip stick and then a brush can and brush roll bag. But actually I have more. Below that is a drawer that is full of even more eyeshadows, lip glosses, lip sticks and brushes. And because I travel so much, I bought enough back up brushes and make up to never have to unpack my travel makeup bag. AND my purse is full of makeup. OK I know, I have a problem. I have enough makeup to last 3 lifetimes. What can I say. I loves me some makeup.

If you can notice the traincases and cans, they are all Stila. I have 3 brands that dominate my stash: Stila, Bare Escentuals and Smashbox. I have already mentioned that I'll probably be doing my own makeup and so I'm not too worried about not having the right colors or the right tools. I've been playing around with my looks trying to decide what to do for my wedding.

I've decided this is the look I'm going for:

Bright eyes lined with dark liner, full lashes, peachy blush and light pink lips. I'm also in love with her hair and hope that I can get mine to curl like that.

So even with my arsenal of tools I have one slight problem... I think I'm gonna end up looking greasy, especially outside in the sun. I fear that my pictures will make me look like this:
Help! Any tips?

Mila Kunis: The Superficial
Ziyi Zhang: Getty Images via About.com

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a two shoe bride

I am a two shoe bride, but only because back in the day when I was planning on having my wedding in Seattle, I had wanted red shoes. Mainly because in my culture red is typically worn at weddings and basically means happiness.

I found my perfect pair at the Jimmy Choo store on a visit to New York and wore them at my very first bridal dress appointment. After it was decided that we were getting married in Jamaica, the thoughts of the red shoes went out the window and they have sat in my closet since.

I decided to take them out for a little photo shoot. I wanted to copy the idea from my post about The Heels. Turns out these are the perfect heels for this shot! Aren't they pretty?


And here is what they look like.
Turns out, I have no need for them and feel bad that they've just been siting in my closet for months. I am planning on putting them on ebay so email me if you'd like me to send you a link to my auction or if you are just interested in buying them, let me know! I paid $640 for these so please only reasonable offers. They are new, only worn on the carpet of the bridal salon and are a size 5.5. I know that there is somebody our there to take these beauties to a new home! They deserve to be worn! :)

P.S. I am also selling these Louboutins. They are a size 6 and sadly are too big for me. :(

I am a shoe-aholic that buys shoes that aren't my size and keeps many pairs of unworn designer shoes in my closet. I need you to help buy my shoes so I can continue feeding my addiction! :)

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Adorable

If J and I decide to have children, I only hope that mine will be as adorable and as stylish as this little one.

Precious. Just precious.

Awww... The little Chuck Taylors with the dress make for such a cute combo.

From the genius Phillip Lim. Go to 3.1 Philip Lim to see more adorable-ness.

Which reminds me, did you ever see the shot that Scott Schuman (The Sartoralist) took of his little girl?

He didn't even ask her to pose that way. She just brought it. Big time. Too dang cute for words.

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Splashes of Pink

Thanks to all the fabulous commentors about my purple/gray color scheme, I have updated it with hints of pink. I went from wanting a really deep shade of pink to this more fuschia color.

What do you think? Is this it? Should I stop fiddling with my colors? I haven't bought any reception decor yet because I want to wait until I finalize my colors. Maybe I should start...
Oh and my sister loves the dress. She's going to Saks this weekend to try it on. Let's hope it works out!

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my color scheme

As you know from my Pretty Purple post I was thinking about changing my sister's (MOH) dress from pink to purple. I spotted this dress yesterday and fell in love with it.
I actually have a version of this dress but in black with sleeves. It's one of my favorite and most comfortable dresses. It's lightweight and fun but still formal enough for a wedding.

If I go with this dress, it changes my entire color scheme. I never really had one set but was pretty sure it would involve pink. Now that purple is highly likely I needed to change things up a bit and I think I came up with something that just might work.

I'm still torn because as much as I love pink, the purple and the grays look so good together. I told J that I'd create another board with the other color schemes that I was thinking of so he could help me choose. I'll post them soon so I can hear your opinions too!

Dress from PinkMascara.com

Board pics: pillows: Velocity Art & Design, invite: Ceci New York, Gucci Suit: men.style.com, Flowers photo by Aaron Delesie Photography

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Yay for gifts bags!

I wanted to thank all my girls for coming out to Vegas for my bachelorette party, but I had a small problem in that I could not carry a whole lot to fill gift bags for 9 girls. I pondered food for awhile, like custom made cookies but that didn't pan out. I really wanted to stay away from the gross, cheap typical bachelorette party stuff so I scoured etsy for days looking for something cute that I could personalize and came upon these custom mirror favors by AbbieRoad.

Totally adorable and just a great idea as who couldn't use a little mirror to keep in their purse? For the ones above you choose from a variety of brides and grooms and then they can be customized down to the hair color, skin color, lipstick, flowers, everything to match you and your wedding.

I definitely liked this idea but wanted something sassier since this was going to be in Vegas. I contacted Abbie and asked her if she could custom design something, unfortunately I was only about a week away from leaving and she could not produce something so quickly. She sent over a design she had previously created and I requested wording, hair color and color changes, along with adding a martini in the design. Now to be honest, I wasn't completely in love with the girl on the design, as she wasn't really my style, but I figured it had to do in the short amount of time that I had. I was however impressed with the turnaround time with Abbie as she came up with the design, had me approve it and put up an etsy listing all in one day.

So here it is!
And here is what I recieved:

I was happy with the quality, the mirror was not blurry or cheap looking and the design was placed really well. It was a bit smaller than I expected but a perfect size to keep in a cosmetic bag.

After I received the mirrors I went on a hunt to put them in something and came upon these adorable cosmetic bags in all sorts of sizes, colors and patterns. I forgot to take a picture with all 9 of them but here are the remainder that didn't get passed out (I wasn't able to give it to all the girls since not all of them weren't staying in the same room as us, but not to worry, everyone will get theirs!)

And then I added a lip balm and lip gloss and there you go! Light and easy to pack in my suitcase. The girls loved the mirrors and had a blast picking which bags and what colors of lip gloss they wanted.

I found the bags at Target, they are by Sonia Kashuk. I literally bought their entire stock, it was really lucky that they had exactly nine. So to prove a point, it really is possible to buy cute bachelorette gifts bags that don't include penis straws and matching tshirts!

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Beautiful Yellow Wedding

Going along with my post about black, white and yellow weddings, I found this wedding that Jessica Claire shot.

I absolutely adore the ribbon belt on her dress.
Love the men in their black suits and yellow ties.
And check out the reception decor. Every detail is so beautiful.And one more fun picture. Check out their awesome cake!
Go to Jessica Claire's blog for more pictures.

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Gucci inspires me yet again...

I've never been much of a yellow girl. Because of my skin tone, I hardly wear yellow and I've always just gravitated towards purples and pinks which is definitely where my wedding is headed. However, I've been noticing a lot of black, white & yellow combos in fashion lately and I was perusing Gucci's Spring 2008 RTW collection and found myself lusting over this combination in their dresses.
Look how lovely this board from snippet & ink goes with the dresses.
I also love this board from Polka Dot Bride

I'm still going with pinks, but love that I've seen several weddings incorporate this color scheme. I just see this as modern and pretty whereas the pink is modern yet sassy. And I like being sassy! :)

picture credits: Gucci via style.com, snippet and ink, Polka Dot Bride

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Pretty Purple

I fell in love with this wedding because of the gorgeous shade of purple the bridesmaids are wearing.

I went on a hunt for fabulous purple dresses in case I wanted to change my mind and have my sister wear purple for my wedding. It turns out it's a harder task than I thought but I did find this lovely Vera Wang. Isn't it pretty?

I've been behind on my google reader and just saw that Elizabeth Anne Designs is having a Purple Week on their blog! Great timing, go over there and check out more purple goodness.

Wedding pictures by Fred Egan
Vera Wang via Brides.com

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Finally! A Marchesa wedding gown

I have to admit I have an embarrassing obsession with UK gossip mags. I just find them totally and utterly amusing. They say things in there that could not be said in any of the US mags and they always have some great stories about awesomely trashy stars like Katie (or is it Jordan) and Peter.

In the past year and a half, I've been to London more than 20 times (that 8 hour flight is nothing to me compared to the 21 hours to Singapore!) and every time before I come home I buy a ton of trash mags to read on the plane. I've even asked one of the executives at my company, who's based in the UK, to bring them over to me when he comes to Seattle. I know, sad, right, but oh so entertaining! (and even funnier, he really does bring them over for me!)

Moving on to the point of this post... One of the girls that is in every one of those trash mags is Colleen McLoughlin who happened to wear a Marchesa wedding gown that cost 100,000 GBP which is roughly $200,000! I've been waiting to see some pictures of the Marchesa bridal collection that I blogged about a few months ago. I guess this is the first one to have come out.

What do you think? For the Marchesa lovers out there, does it live up to their usual beautiful concoctions? Personally, I think it's really pretty but it sure didn't exceed my expectations. Especially for that amount of money!




Go to Catwalk Queen for more details of her wedding.

Picture credits:
1 - Catwalk Queen (OK! magazine via Red Carpet Fashion Awards)
2 - Perez Hilton

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My Vegas Bachelorette

My bachelorette weekend in Vegas was fantastic. I think that it has to be a rare occurance to get such a big group of girls together and not have any drama, but we did it and had a fabulous time!

My sister, my MOH, bought me all sorts of fun stuff to wear. Nothing involved a certain part of the male anatomy as I like to think I'm a bit too classy for that. ;) My sash and tiara were a hit all night and it ended up matching the (very last minute) dress I bought for the night. I actually totally felt like I was on my super sweet sixteen. ha!

My sister also got me a HUGE plastic diamond ring that had a blue light inside that blinked. Everyone loved it. It was fun out in the dance floor, plus nobody could lose me with that thing blinking all night. I don't have many pictures since my friends were in charge of all the picture taking so when they send them to me I'll make sure to show you guys the huge rock that I got to wear all night!

I've got some catch up to do at work and have also run into a little problem with my wedding resort so gotta get that sorted out but will be back to blogging soon!

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Inspired by Gucci...

Lately, everything I look at is wedding related. Even if it has nothing to do with weddings, I somehow change it into a "how to incorporate into a wedding". It's a disease, I think. Anyway, I was perusing the Gucci website and came upon this lovely frock (which BTW is on sale for $799!) and thought that this would make a cool bridesmaid dress for a fun modern wedding.

I was thinking a black and white theme with splashes of hot pink. And here's what I put together!
photo credits (clockwise from top): Monique Lhuillier via Brides.com, Christian Louboutin via net-a-porter.com, Gucci.com, theknot.com (click for more details), theknot.com (click for more details)

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The Heels

I adore shoe pictures, and most often it is the front of the shoe. I've come across a few that showcases the back of the shoes and just love them.

Here are a few of my faves.

The front of the shoe always makes for a good picture, but the heels themselves can make a pretty picture don't you think?

Photo credits: 1) Amy Squires 2) Fred Egan (his new blog) -Behind the Camera (his old blog where I found the picture) 3) Jessica Claire

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This is for Guilty...

Guilty of What Guilty and Baddie Did Next requested a picture of J with hair after I mentioned it in my Mr. Style-ish post below. Here is a picture of us taken I think in 2002 at my sorority dance. I actually had to scan it in, can you believe we didn't use digital cameras back in the day? I don't even know what I'd do without one these days!

The boy looks so mad, doesn't he? He used to never smile in pictures. This was in his longer hair days. The pictures of him with short spiky hair are buried somewhere at my parents house.


So what do you think? Better with hair or no hair? And what's up with my make up? I can't tell if it's the flash or I really did put on my make up like that so I could look like a ghost.

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Follow me and I'll follow you...

I've done it! I've gone and joined Twitter. Anyone that wants to know what I'm doing at any time of the day, please join me! I have to get used to actually updating what I'm doing, but reading what everyone else is doing is quite fun!

And all of you on google reader, come out and see my new blog layout and the new twitter widget!

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Dancing on tables may or may not occur...

I'm a huge fan of Gilt Groupe, the online sample sale site that I previously blogged about. Kate, who is also a huge fan, blogged about the Notte by Marchesa sale they just had and I happened to score one of the dresses! I'm hoping that it will fit as I'm planning on wearing it to my bachelorette party (in Vegas!) this weekend.

I decided to get to a little polyvore-ing action and put together the outfit for the big night out. It's definitely not your typical Vegas kinda outfit. I mean when I think of Vegas, I think of mini skirts and sparkly tops, only because that's what I used to wear on my crazy Vegas trips back when I was a young twenty-something. But now that I'm an old twenty-something, I'd rather wear Marchesa and Louboutins.

So here it is, a LBD with some fun accessories to liven it up! You can't see it on this picture, but the puffy sleeves have little black rhinestones sewn in to give it a bit of a sparkle. Well, I guess I needed an homage to my old sparkly top days! :)

P.S. if you are not a member of Gilt and would like to be, you can email me and I'll send you an invite. Oh and I do have to mention that Gilt has fabulous men's stuff as well. J ordered about 5 things from their Trovata sale and loved it all!

UPDATE: the dress was not so cute. the sleeves were a bit TOO poofy. Need a new dress. ASAP.

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Mr. Style-Ish

I was tagged by one of my favorite bloggers, Kate's Wedding, (who is also the newest member of the Wedding Bee!) to do a five random facts about the Mister, so here it goes.

1) The first two years that I was with J, he had hair, first it was short and spiky, then it was long(er) and spiky and then he decided he hated dealing with his hair so he shaved it all off and has had a shaved head ever since. So no, he is not balding, he has a full head of hair that he shaves twice a week.

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2) The boy is religious about keeping his shoes in perfect condition. He uses a toothbrush and all sorts of sneaker cleaners and even his own concoctions to clean his shoes. For his dress/work shoes, he has shoe trees in all of them and stores them all very neatly in their boxes. His sneaker collection is also stored in boxes but instead of shoe trees he stuffs them with tissue paper. He's always been like this, because when we go visit his parents, his mom will pull out his shoes from high school, that he wore, but still look brand new. It's crazy.

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3) Our new car is his baby and the most annoying thing is that he doesn't trust to park next to anyone (because he's convinced everyone is out to door dent us) so everywhere we go, we park in the farthest spot possible. And if it's a corner spot, even better so there's only the chance of having one car park next to us. So this means we park at the farthest corner spot that he can find. This also means that me in my 4 inch heels are ready to kick his arse by the time he finds the spot that he thinks nobody will park next to.

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4) The first time he met my parents he wanted to look nice so he went out and bought a really nice pair of Coach shoes to wear. (This was when we were in college, so it was a lot of money for him.) Well, he didn't realize that my family never wears shoes in the house and he had to take them off at the front door. So, he was a little disappointed. Well, little does he know my mom, she did indeed go out and check what kind of shoes he had worn and she told me later on that she liked them very much.

5) He grew up with a dachshund named "Hummer" which gets a laugh everytime we tell people that. The story behind that is J was about 4 years old when he and his mom went to pick up the new puppy. On the car ride home the puppy was crying/whining and J asked his mom why the puppy was humming. :) Hummer lived to be 18 years old!

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I think all of my bridal blog friends have already been tagged so I'm going to go and tag a few of my new favorite bloggers... I'll give you the choice of 5 random things about yourself or 5 random things about your significant other!
Mrs. Priss , Autumn Mornings, My Super Sweet Fashion Diary , i'm not really a diva , Tam's Thoughts

p.s. none of those pictures are mine, or are of our stuff. :) Just had to do a quick flickr search for pics since I don't have many pictures on this computer.

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My dress is here! My dress is here!

My dress shopping experience was long and arduous but I'm happy to have waited a bit longer and found the perfect dress. I finally had my "moment" with this one and just knew it was the one. Here it is!

Not the best picture but not much space in our loft to take a picture of a huge wedding dress!

It's an Alvina Valenta and it's a pretty light ivory color. I love that it's a dropped waist as I don't see that style too often. I tried on a lot of A line's and loved the shape, but most of the time the dresses ended up swallowing me up and you could barely see me. And then I loved mermaid style dresses because it was form fitting and more my style. So this ended up being the perfect combination of having that poofy gown on the bottom but the structure in the chest to waist that I don't get lost in.

Here it is on the model so you can see what I mean.

And my favorite part, the buttons all the way down the back of the dress.

So I know that this is not really a "destination" type dress as most destination brides go for the more simple, sheath type dress but I just knew that I had to have this dress. Besides, I'm getting married on a cliff overlooking the ocean so this is appropriate for that right? :)

Picture 1, 3: styleish
Picture 2: Brides.com

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the Man's ring

Ever since the first time I laid eyes on J, I've loved his style. J is just simply a stylish man who knows what he wants and what looks good on him. When it came to his wedding band, he wanted something that was totally him, but he also wanted to design it himself. He wasn't into the typical wedding bands so we looked into alternatives and ended up choosing jade.

We went to a jade jeweler that did custom pieces and J described his ideal ring to the jeweler, a thick black jade band with his last name engraved in Kanji (J is Japanese and incidentally his last name literally translates to "black rock"). The jeweler then sent off the design to be created in China and it arrived in about a month. The ring is beautiful and so fitting for J. I was happy to get him something that he would be proud to wear. I'm actually thinking of getting a smaller version made in pink jade for me.

Here it is with my rings. It's not the clearest picture to see the engraving, but I wanted to point out that it's not the typical engraving where they carve it into the ring, it is actually carved out so that the characters are above the surface of the ring. If you click on the picture you can see a bigger size and see a little bit more detail.



The jeweler we worked with is T.S. Lin & Sons and they are based out of Honolulu, Hawaii. Let me know if you are interested and I can send you their contact info. I rarely see men with bands that are not gold,silver, platinum or titanium so I think that this is a really great alternative. It might not be typical, but it's totally us.

pictures by styleish

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