Pamela and I were both lucky enough to wear the wedding dresses of our dreams on our wedding days. I think we can both attest to the fact that while we first envisioned a picture-perfect shopping experience, dress shopping can be stressful!! I've put together a few tips that can help take your stress level down a few notches, and help you find the perfect dress! 1. Do not, under any circumstance, try on a dress that's over budget. Why put yourself through that?? I had a consultant accidentally put me in a dress that was $1,500 over budget! She panicked when she found out how much the dress was, but thankfully I didn't love the dress, so crisis averted. But what if I had loved the dress? It's not worth the agony of trying to re-work numbers to try to afford a budget-busting dress. Trust me, you'll find something at your price point you'll love; resist the urge, and don't even try a dress on that falls outside of your price range. Try on those crazy dresses that you know … [Read more...]
(Mostly) D.I.Y. Bathroom Remodel
One of my guilty pleasures is getting sucked into Fixer Upper marathons on HGTV. My parents used to love HGTV and I hated it when I was younger! Now, I love looking at all of the real estate and getting decorating ideas from Chip and Joanna Gaines. After a long marathon of Fixer Upper, I got the remodeling bug, and decided that the hubs and I could totally redo our bathroom ourselves. We were actually able to do 90% of the things I wanted to update ourselves, but had to call in the professionals to replace the vanity top. Here is what we were able to do on our own: New Lighting This was the first thing we replaced. Our old bathroom had Hollywood lights across the top of a sheet mirror (that we also replaced), and it just made our bathroom look outdated. We searched high and low for a fixture that was as big as our old fixture, but finding something we liked was hard!! Once we found the fixture, Dave decided he could install the fixture himself with some help from YouTube. … [Read more...]
5 Tips to Finding the Perfect Bridesmaid Dress
I get it, bridesmaid dresses, in general, suck. Shopping for them isn't fun when you're the bride because you are constantly trying to consider all of your bridesmaids' tastes and body shapes. It's stressful. You don't want to put anyone in a dress they hate, but at the same time, it's your day and all of your bridesmaids agreed to stand up there with you! Here are a few tips I used when I was trying to navigate the tricky waters of bridesmaid dresses. Try not to pick a God-awful color. If you have several wedding colors, try not to pick the most obnoxious one for the bridesmaid dresses. No one wants to feel like they look ugly when they're standing next to the beautiful bride. If you are open to it, maybe consider asking your bridesmaids what color they would feel comfortable wearing out of the colors you've selected for your wedding. I'm sure you won't get everyone to agree on a color, but at least your bridesmaids can feel like they are working with a considerate … [Read more...]
Juicing and Souping
Cleansing is probably one of the hardest things I have ever done for a few reasons. First, I love food. Second, I don't particularly love the texture of juices. One of the key reasons Katie and I are so close is our palate (my one year old is willing to try more diverse foods than we are). So, when my nutritionist suggested a cleanse to get back on track for summer I immediately asked 'does a donut cleanse count?' and she (shockingly) said no. She suggested a soup cleanse that I could get on board with. Three days, a juice for breakfast, soup broth for every meal and if you really needed a hard boiled egg for a snack. I was impressed with myself that I did not feel the need to snack and the soup was actually extremely filling. I made 2 different kinds of soup (chicken noodle - no chicken or noodles, and tomato) and ate them consistently for the cleanse. I lost almost 5 pounds (that I'm sure I'll gain back) and felt wonderful at the end. Definitely the kick start I needed! The … [Read more...]