{champagne & desserts party inspiration}

Moving to Chicago was and still is a big transition for me, but one thing that makes the whole situation a million times easier is that we were lucky to move here along with two of our best friends, Josh & Heather,  who happened to get into the same MBA program as Chris!  Heather's birthday is coming up in a few weeks and being that she is one of the girliest girls that I know, I thought a champagne and desserts themed ladies night would be the perfect way to celebrate.  

Here's a little inspiration board I put together for the upcoming fete:

More details from the party to follow- including some yummy champagne cocktail recipes!

{paint decisions}

When we moved into our new place, the walls of the living/dining/kitchen were painted a taupe-y tan color which is probably a great neutral choice, but it doesn't really work with our style.  The below picture is how the bar looked when we first moved in against the original paint color.

{please excuse the low quality iphone photo}

And this is how it looks after we had the entire living/dining/kitchen painted in a light grey called Graylyn Crest from Ace:

While we love this color choice, we have been debating if it would make the bar set up look better if we painted the small wall it sits in front of a dark bold color.  We originally considered a deep majestic navy blue, but we already have a lot of navy throughout those rooms in the form of a huge area rug and our curtains.  So now we are leaning towards a deep hunter green or potentially a more bright saturated emerald like one of these options:

In the meantime, we have decided to set the bar up, have a few cocktails and live with the current light grey for a couple weeks while we figure out what would look best.

What do you think? Paint it a bold color or leave it as it? 

{our wedding: the little details}

In the time that we were engaged, I think I was consistently following over 20 wedding blogs on a daily basis (my favorite one being this one).  Since we nailed down a lot of the big vendors early on in our engagement, I became obsessed with looking at all those little details that wedding blogs capture so well.  Here are some of my favorite little details from our wedding:

  {the rings attached to my bouquet were my Grandmother's wedding rings and 

they also served as my "something old" & "something borrowed"}

 {my mom embroidered our wedding date in blue thread and sewed it into the back 

of my dress to serve as my "something blue"}

 {I created these little mint green hearts to be sewn inside all the groomsmens' jackets 

as well as a special one for Chris with our wedding date.  I followed the same method I used to create these bags}

 {maybe this one isnt such a little detail, but I definitely want to share details on the ceremony backdrop we created by following this tutorial.  It was originally supposed to all hang down like a solid back drop curtain, but hours before the wedding we almost got rid of it completely when we realized the wind was making it look incredibly messy.  Our amazing bridal party fixed it by making it into a pulled back curtain!}

 {for our guest book we asked our friends and family to write us little messages from the categories: past (a memory) , present (marriage advice) and future (an idea for our 5 year anniversary).}

 {little gold heart garland I created for the back of our chairs at the head table}

{my favorite macarons from Bottega Louie served as a great platform for our ring shot}

{these swans might be my favorite thing ever.  I purchased the pair almost immediately after we booked our venue (get some for yourself right here).  They hung out in the smaller pool next to the cocktail hour and then stepped into the spotlight during our day after pool party the next day- here & here}