Strike a pose.

This past spring, hubs-to-be and I had engagement photos taken by the wonderfully talented and extraordinarily sweet Kaela Lee at Kaela.Mey Photography. I cannot tell you enough about how professional this lady is and how tickled we were with the end product.

Neither hubs-to-be or I adore having our picture taken (I prefer to remain on the taking side), nor can anyone really argue that being photogenic is one of our strong suits. Therefore, having engagement photos taken was not high on the proverbial wedding priority list.

Looking back now, I am so happy we decided to have them done and so grateful that Kaela was able to make us feel totally at ease in the moment. Not only was it a great way for us to become acquainted with the photographer who would be working our wedding, but it also gave us great practice posing and being comfortable in front of the camera. I cannot be a bigger advocate now of having engagement photos done with your photographer before the wedding.

The end product were pictures that perfectly captured who we are and I am so excited for Kaela to be there on our wedding day. (I even used her to help capture bestie's bridal shower!)

And without further ado...

Summer Lovin'.

So this last August, the bestie got hitched and let me tell you it was one big, beautiful family affair! The ceremony got the whole bridal party choked up (including my own hubs-to-be who was a groomsman (-: ), the setting was divine, and we danced the night away to live music on the lawn. Just the way a summer garden wedding should be.

Now the pressure was on that day. Not only was the weather bi-polar, taking turns between 100 °F and torrential rain, but I STILL needed to finish my maid-of-honor toast AND I was doing bestie's makeup for the day. Phew. No problem. I got this. 

Photo by Me

Didn't she look like a gem?! (Mostly because she's gorgeous. But I think my makeup skills helped a little). 

And her something borrowed was a pearl bracelet that my momma had given me!

Photo by Heather Espana

As I had mentioned earlier in my post about bestie's bridal shower, the colors of the wedding were grey and yellow. The bridesmaids wore grey Bill Levkoff dresses and yellow wedges and the groomsmen wore yellow ties, grey suspenders and argyle socks. Cute, no?

Photo by Me

Photo by Heather Espana

Now speaking of that bridal shower, a lot of the pieces I put together were able to be reused at the wedding! Like those yellow chevron table runners that were my first sewing project EVER...

Photo by Heather Espana

...totally got rocked at the bridal party table.

And all those Izze bottles we saved...well I painstakingly de-gooed the labels and washed them out while bestie spray painted them white so that they could be reused as bud vases for arrangements of credpedia and Queen Anne's lace. 

Photo by Me

Photo by Heather Espana

Even the cupcake toppers were reused to decorate the dessert table and my adorable galvanized ice bucket found a second life.

Photo by Me

By the end of the day we were exhausted, but all totally filled with love.

I know, I'm such a cheese.

Photo by Me

 ***Please visit photographer Heather Espana's blog for more breathtaking and stunning pictures!

I got it from my Momma.

So my lovely mother is an obsessive collector of all things antique. In fact, in high school my friends called my parent's house the "museum". Now that I am the happy recipient of these treasures, I'm much more appreciative of her decorative choices (which will likely please her after years of telling me, "Just you wait, your tastes will change when you're older!")

Many are family heirlooms with intriguing back-stories and even more are the result of years of trolling estate sales and antique shops, which is still to this day one of my favorite things to do with my momma (besides having hubs-to-be make us many a cocktail).

I have two heirlooms from my great-grandmother, passed down through the women in my family, which are currently in our unfinished guest bedroom. The first is her vanity which still has its original hardware. One thing however, that I did not get from my momma, is the matching vanity stool which she still refuses to give up. Grrr.

The second is a hope chest that I have used before as a coffee table, but currently acts as a linen chest at the foot of the bed (which still lacks a mattress...oops). I just love the raw wood finish of the piece and each one of its historical flaws.

A lot of the lighting in the house also was originally in my parent's and before that, my grandparent's, and before that...well you get the picture.

Aren't all the Hebrew details super funky!? We're not Jewish though, so I'm not quite sure how it ended up in the family...

Here are a few more things I picked up while "shopping" at my parent's:

Sweet antique bookcase/cat tree

Farmhouse style dining table and chairs

Just about everything copper and Japanese Ironstone china

Estate sale music book she picked out

for our piano

(collective "awwwwwwww")

Metallic tray that I plan on reusing to 

pass out programs at the wedding

 Ok, one more. I promise.

So every single square inch of floor in the house, minus the studio, is hardwood. Hardwood means you need rugs. Lots of beautiful rugs. Rugs however are one of those things that ain't cheap and even when they are, they make sure that they're extra ugly to make up for the cost so you're constantly reminded of what a cheap rug you have. 

So anyhoo, being on a budget we didn't see a whole lot of beautiful rugs in our future. *Cue momma to the rescue!* Apparently she was hiding this beaut in storage along with it's brother which is in our dining room.

There is only one downside to receiving a free 75-year-old Persian rug (and yes, there is a downside). Your white, fluffy, neurotic cat loves to rub herself alllllllllll over it, leaving little soft bits of kitty 24/7.

She's lucky she's cute.

Home, Sweet Baño.

So the hubs-to-be and I are finally settled into the new house! It has been a crazy past 3 weeks of moving things out of storage, decorating on a budget, hubs-to-be finishing up performing in a musical, getting the bestie married off, and going on a rafting trip. Phew.

Which means that the only totally completed rooms in the house are the bathrooms. Figures.

The first is the full bath which required the use of not one, but TWO shower curtains for the wrap-around shower. Now let me tell you that locating an acceptable shower curtain is no easy task. They are either one of two options:

1) Absurdly expensive. Like, you're cute and all, but I have to buy TWO of you.

2) Offensively ugly. Like one of my 13 year old, Twilight loving students threw up all over it. Oh, and did I mention that it still isn't cheap.

So after searching high and low we decided on this:

A super vibrant mosaic design from Cost Plus World Market. We wanted something in the sage green family since the cabinet doors and trim were already painted that color. Plus the bathroom is extra retro, so we thought this might spruce things up a bit.

Not too shabby if I do say so myself.

The next bathroom is the half-bath and was an even bigger challenge, stemming from the fact that someone decided it was a prudent idea to paint the cabinet doors and trim citrus yellow. I guess they were going for cheery?

Since the house is a rental and painting is not an option, I decided what the heck, citrus it is. And I ran with it. Lemons, limes and all.

Some of my own black and white photography on the walls add a much needed contrast.

And how perfect is this! The leftover bouquets and boutonniere of crespedia and lavender from bestie's wedding are a match made in heaven.

Last, but not least: doesn't my great-grandmother's antique shoe mold make the most precious door stop?

Consider yourself showered.

Last June I threw a bridal shower for the bestie who will be getting married this summer. It was intended to be a fabulous outdoor garden party, complete with adorable yellow chevron place settings and day-drinking. Unfortunately, we live in the climatically unpredictable state of Oregon and apparently late June does not guarantee you garden party friendly weather.

So the soirée was moved inside my in-laws house and even though it wasn't what I had originally envisioned, it was still pretty darn cute. if. I. do. say. so. myself. And there was still day-drinking.

I'm a sucker for all things monogrammed.

See, I told you the yellow chevron was fabulous. I couldn't find any table runners that I liked, so I sewed these myself.

 Goodwill find #1: fantastic serving tray.

Mmmmmm dessert. The scrumptious lemon bars (the bride's favorite) were made by my darling friend Lauren. The macaroons were served in Goodwill find #2. And how precious are the raspberries stuffed with chocolate chips served in gold-rimmed teacups (Goodwill find #3)!

The bar! I really should have made both tiers with pink champagne punch because, let's be honest, everyone loves day-drinking. Hindsight is 20-20.

This was the color inspiration for the whole shindig. The bestie's colors for the wedding are marigold yellow and slate grey, so I thought this would be a fun, Spring twist on things. Bonus: we are going to reuse the empty Izze bottles as bud vases at her wedding reception by spray painting them white and filling them with crespedia. Genius. We know.

Nothing like a little food coloring to spruce up some mason jars!

Guests were asked to bring a recipe for the bride to the shower (the recipe cards were actually refashioned RSVP cards from a wedding invitation template that I used for the bridal shower invitations). They also left advice for the bride on little pink stationary in this fantastic silver catchall. Goodwill find #4.

Serious haul, right?

These "Thank You" book marks we supposed to be at each place setting before the rain put a stop to that. Inspired by the bestie's love of books.

Despite the downpour, looks like a happy bride/bestie to me. Mission accomplished.

Photography courtesy of the wonderfully talented Kaela Lee at Kaela.Mey Photography!