Me-Time

I had a great weekend, you guys. I hope you all did, too.  Matt was away, visiting a friend of his in Maryland, so I had a girls' weekend.  On Friday night, I stayed in and had a night to myself.  It was the first time in a really long time, and it was quite lovely.  I love my husband, but every now and then, a girl needs to have a couple glasses of white wine and watch some chick flicks.  First I caught up on 2 weeks' worth of Nurse Jackie and The United States of Tara.  Do you watch those shows?  They're absolutely fantastic.  Toni Collette, as Tara, is phenomenal.  Seriously.  You should watch it.  Then I watched Easy A.  Emma Stone was cute enough, but for me, Stanley Tucci stole the show.  He played the father and he was hysterical.  After that, I watched Once.  What a beautiful film.  If you like music, especially organic, raw, beautiful, acoustic guitar music, you must watch this movie.  It actually made me cry.

Anyway, on Saturday, my friend Nicole came down.  We had a lovely day.  We spent a few hours at my house, just catching up and gossipping.  We also went to get our nails done.  I had hoped we'd have time for mani-pedis, but we chitchatted at home for too long, and only had the time to get manicures.  I chose a color that was way out of the ordinary for me:

Purple with a Purpose

Yeah, it's bright.  But I kind of love it.  I went in wanting a dark grey, but I'm glad I went with this.

After our manicures, we went to see Bridesmaids.  Really funny.  You guys should go see it.  At one point, I laughed so hard I was in tears.  Kristin Wiig is adorable and I just love Maya Rudolph,  And what's not to love about a movie about a bridal party gone horribly, hysterically awry?  I really enjoyed this and give it "two very enthusiastic thumbs up, fine holiday fun!"  [name that movie]



Wanna know something funny?  Half of this stuff wasn't in the actual movie.  Anyway, the movie was over and we were starving.  Initially I'd planned for us to go into Center City for some dinner and drinks, but it was raining and neither one of us felt like walking around the city in the rain.  So we opted to stick around where I live and ended up at the Melting Pot.  YUM-O.  Did you know that even if you don't have a reservation, you can eat right at the bar?  Yup, they have fondue pots right at the bar.  Awesome!!!

Sunday rolled around and I ran a few errands and then got dinner going in the crock pot while waiting for Matt to get home.  Sunday night we watched The King's Speech, which totally lived up to the hype, in my opinion.  If you haven't seen it, see it. 

Yeah, this was a movie-fest weekend for me, but I really needed it.  Work has been crazy, and I feel like I've been going at 180% for weeks.  My body was really craving this down-time, so it came at a perfect time.  What do you do with your "me-time?"

Bridesmaid Dress? Check!

The shopping excursion on Saturday was a total success - and a BLAST! I always love catching up with these girls. We rode around in the bus (my mom's VW van) all day - from bridal shop to lunch to bridal shop to Friendly's (mmm...ice cream) and back to my mom's house to hang out and work on our tans.

But I digress...we found a dress! Actually, we found two dresses! One at each bridal salon. Everyone really liked both, and we got all the girls measured at the second shop, but then after some serious soul-searching, I decided I like the first one better and that's the final decision. The original decision-maker was that the second dress came in Peacock blue, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought, "You know...that could be really obnoxious on 6 girls!" Plus, I think the first one will be a bit more comfortable for the girls. So, the decision was made!

It's a Bill Levkoff design, and I love it. I think all the girls are going to look stunning in it. And navy is such a classic, elegant color. I'm thrilled that we were able to find something in one day. I'm thrilled that almost everyone was able to come (we missed you, Stephy)! I'm so blessed to have such amazing girls who are going to be standing up with me on one of the most important days of my life.

Shopping!

This weekend, I'm getting together with almost all of my girls to go shopping for their Bridesmaid dresses. I'm so excited!

We've got a full day planned on Saturday, starting with mimosas at my mom's house to give a good kick-start to the day of fun! Then we are going to a couple different bridal shops, including the one where I bought my dress. After shopping, we'll cap the day off with dinner and bowling - one of our favorite activities from way back in the day!

These girls are pretty much my most favorite people in the world, and I cannot wait to get together and catch up with all of them.

The Girls

My poor bridesmaids. They all keep asking me what I'm thinking of for their dresses, and all I keep giving them is, "Long, navy or peacock blue...I have some ideas." I'm so vague, so indecisive, ha ha. So I thought I'd throw them a bone and give them a look at what some of my ideas are.

I defiitely want them in long. It's a church wedding, it's in the fall...it just seems appropriate for them to be in long dresses. And while I like the idea of letting each girl choose a style of dress that suits her, I also like the look in pictures when everyone is wearing the same. So, all the girls will be in the same dress. Ideally, I would love to find a great dress that is available in the peacock blue color, but I'm finding that not a lot of designers make that color, so it may have to be navy.

I'm torn between two different schools of thought (again): having the girls in dresses similar to mine so that it looks cohesive, or having them in dresses different from mine so that I stand out. I equally like both ideas, so I really don't know what direction to go in. It will probably just come down to whatever the girls find that they (or the majority of them) like, that's what we'll go with. But, that doesn't mean I'm not having fun in the meantime looking at different dresses and getting ideas!!

So here are some of the ones I like if I go with dresses similar in style to mine:

And, if I go with something different:

I know, the last one is drastically different, but I totally love it.

Ok, girls, the floor is open...