Wedding #43654765 and more New House!

It was another packed wedding weekend combined with moving the fiance out of his apartment and into the new house! However, we have lots to do before we actually are sleeping there. He'll be all settled in there before me, but even so...LOTS of cleaning and painting!

Rewind to Thursday: Rehearsal Dinner Time!

My roommate from college, Erin, got married this past Friday and I was one of her bridesmaids.

Rehearsal Dinner - Me, Erin, and my roommate/other bridesmaid (she was also a roomie in college)The wedding was at a hotel in Manchester, NH. They had a beautiful ceremony...
(I am the middle bridesmaid, aka the tall one haha...I'm only 5'6" but the other two were cute shorties!)

Bridal Party! I LOVED these dresses:Again I am in the middle.

Sometimes I feel like hotel wedding food is less than thrilling, but I was really liking the selections that night! Including the refreshing sorbet course after the salad:Actually before that even was fresh fruit, then salad, then the sorbet...then dinner; I had the grilled salmon
My only other gripe with some weddings (this one included) is that you eat hors d'ourves, salad, and whatever else, then the main course...i.e. a LOT of food at the point, and then without a pause they slap dessert at you.

I LOVE dessert, but then you get painfully full...but did I mention there was a chocolate fountain?? :)Like you could resist?? RIGHT!

Then like 2 seconds after I ate most of this...came cake...oh wedding cake how I love theewith a melty heart shaped piece of vanilla ice cream! I was hurting at the point, but had a few bites of cake with very minimal frosting intake haha. Somehow I kept picking at the melty ice cream...luckily for me the waitstaff was really antsy to clean up so I had them take it away before I could go any further.

I was still SO full though...*sigh*... THANKFULLY I am always on the dance floor the whole night and this was no different. I was even sore the next morning from dancing haha!


Saturday!

Saturday we headed back down to Massachusetts to move Brian out of his apartment, and I also had my first dress fitting!! Heheheh I LOVE my wedding dress :) The bustle turned out to be very involved but that's okay because it looks amazing.

Sunday:

Brian and I headed back up to his apt for a final cleaning, left the keys, and headed to the house for MORE cleaning.

SO. MUCH. CLEANING. I'm pretty sure the previous owner swept the floors and that's about it. It didn't look bad at first glance but we spent hours just scrubbing the bathroom and kitchen and still aren't finished cleaning all the insides and outsides of the kitchen cabinets!

At this point I had crapped out but Brian wanted to finish this cabinet :)The sink!More kitchen:The Bathroom - this is going to be my first project! We are taking out that vanity, medicine cabinet and the toilet and getting new ones, plus adding some shelving/storage space above the toilet. It's pretty small so we'll have to be creative!The "office" aka the "red room" aka Full of Brian's stuff for the meantime!The Yellow Room! Future Dining Room - we are adding crown molding, chair rail, replacing the fan with a chandelier, and of course re-painting.Don't mind the old box spring, its from Brian's bed (soon to be guest bed) and it doesn't fit upstairs. Nothing a hack saw can't fix! Haha

The "Living Room", I guess it could be a great room as it's open to the kitchen, Also filled with some of Brian's stuff including the CRAPTASTIC couch that is SO temporary! We hate that thing. Also our sweet TUBE TV...no flat screen for this boy yet :(

One of my favorite features...A Fireplace!!! I've NEVER had one and ALWAYS wanted one :)

Mom came over and planted us our first tomato plants
There's a cherry tomato plant, 2 beef steak, and 2 "early girls"....mmmmmm tomatoes!

Another awesome feature is our little outdoor Cabana!That structure has 2 ceiling fans with lights, and a perfect spot for a little outdoor fridge! Hello BBQ's!!

More yard:And it keeps going to the right...we have a pretty decent side yard too! About 1/3 acre total which is awesome considering we are only 15min to Boston still!

My mom is wonderful, but for some reason she always makes baked goods at times when I really need to watch it!But seriously how could I not have a piece of this BLUEBERRY cake! Just a homemade white cake with blueberries and buttercream...oh yeah.

Roses!

Just a little sneak peak...these are the gorgeous rose bushes that are currently in bloom at my fiance and my new house!!

It's so funny because the other day I was thinking how I wanted to plant rose bushes at the new house, and now I don't have to!

We finally closed yesterday, and now we are property owners...crazy. The place is still empty, but we're moving Brian's stuff in this weekend, then going to town with cleaning, painting, and getting it all ready before I move in :)

The other night, along with designing my wedding band (!!!!), we visited a possible locale for the Rehearsal Dinner!Our rehearsal is in the Church right near my apt, so I'd love to be able to have a (somewhat) affordable rehearsal dinner in Boston.

This restaurant is The Daily Catch...they have a location right in the North End of Boston and this larger location right on the harbor near the Seaport area.

Check out the view!!
If the weather is nice we can have it out in their courtyard, which would be so perfect.
The food is Sicilian/Coastal Italian...they are famous for calamari! It's soooo good.

After meeting with one of the owners, we decided to stay for dinner.

I wanted something not so heavy so I got the Littlenecks Siciliano (cooked in a white wine sauce, lemon, garlic, and herbs)As well as the Seasonal Grilled Vegetable sideBrian went with Mussels Marinara (all their pasta dishes are served right in the pan!)
Mmmm.

Now we just need to sit down and crunch some numbers, but I think this place would be fabulous! If anything I need to remember to get myself down here again some summer evening.

Apparently I was craving Italian again Tuesday night, as was my roomie. She picked up some Trader Joe's Turkey meatballs. These are great little balls-o-protein to add to a nice meal with some whole wheat Rigatoni and Muir Glen Fire Roasted Tomato Sauce!As simple as this was, it tasted SO Amazing for some reason!!! Really hit the spot, esp with some grated Romano cheese on top!
Breakfast this morning included another TJ's item: their new ORGANIC Greek Yogurt!

I guess now Oikos has some competition, and I do NOT know why but the Organic Greek Yogurt's I've tried are MUCH thicker than the non-organic?!??! Anyone know why???It tasted great, but much much thicker. I enjoyed this with a drizzle of maple syrup, some ground flax, sliced strawberries, and granola.

Fun Weekend Trip

I had a mini vacay of sorts this weekend!

My roommate and I headed down to Connecticut to her parents house. The main reason was that we were going to the Dave Matthews Band concert on Saturday night in Hartford. We have been going to Dave shows since we became friends in college...and we totally used to be those people who went both nights...and maybe more than 1 city. I guess we've "grown out of that a little"...only 1 show a year :) It's still fun but it's expensive, and this weekend we even had thoughts of ditching it because the thought of being smooshed in with thousands of drunk people just didn't sound as appealing as it had in the past haha.

Friday night we helped out at her Dad's company's 125th year anniversary party...a pig roast! It was pretty fun, unfortunately I was working the registration table so no camera.

Saturday, I got up and decided to go for a nice run around the neighborhood. Her parents live in a really cute neighborhood with lots of scenic "New England" houses.When I got back I was searching the cabinets and made myself a little cereal medley...it was quite a "Vanilla" breakfast, but in a good way :)

I've had Heart to Heard but not the others. They were all really good, but I'd prefer the TJ's Vanilla Almond one to be more of a granola type in some plain yogurt; it was the sweetest.It was a GORGEOUS day! We had plans for manis and pedis. We are both in our friends wedding this coming Friday and this was the only time we could squeeze in a pedicure. We walked down, hit up Starbucks for a treat, um hello Mint Mocha Chip Frap Lite!! I haven't had a Frappucino in ages...SO GOOD!

This was heaven:Sitting in a massage chair, a glorious pedicure, Body + Soul magazine, and my Starbizzle. Does it get any better??

Well it continued with the awesomeness, when I moved over to the manicure area and the TV on the wall had on the Food Network. How did they know?! I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Barefoot Contessa while getting my nails did.

We then continued our walk to a super cute place for lunch called Truffles. Dining Al Fresco of course!I chose this to sip:Delish...peach, but not sweet.

I also ordered the Mediterranean wrap: Baby Spinach, artichoke hearts, tomatoes, cucumber, red onion, Provolone, and their Zesty Mediterranean Spread.

I got it minus the cheese, and added their Garlic Lemon Hummus.It was AWESOME!! I think the spread was like a tzatziki...tangy and delicious.

I love how it came with little side bites. I ate half of the pasta and a bite of cake. I loved the flavor of the wrap that I actually was NOT in the mood for cake!? Weird for me.

Tequila?

Later we were headed to the concert. We were running a little late to meet a bunch of my cousins who had been their tailgating all day. We weren't really in the mood to tailgate so we got their closer to the time to go in.

However, I did get an urge to drink. Now let me preface this by saying that I HARDLY drink ever...maybe at weddings, and I do enjoy tailgating at homecoming, but other than that sometimes I'll have a glass of wine or beer but may not even finish it.

Well, I had a random urge to get ever so slightly buzzed haha. I also didn't want to drink a lot of actual liquid which...that = shots.

I may or may not have purchased a little bottle of Patron, a lime, and a few packets of salt hehe.Well yeah I had a few shots...but it hardly did anything, weird. Oh well probably better that way haha. I did have a beer when I got there, did get a little buzzed, but that was that.

It was so fun! Such a great show!! As usual :)

This morning we got to take her dad's convertible out to breakfast. It was such perfect weather again!(that was such a gorgeous house!)

This weekend totally felt like a mini vacation!

Well tomorrow we CLOSE on our house!!!! Crazy!!! Tomorrow by this time I will officially be a homeowner?!?! Craziness.

Back to the grind tomorrow...at least it's just a half day for me ;)

Your Presense is Requested

Wedding Talk Time: Invitations!!

I mentioned in my last post that I picked up my beautiful invitations!

I'm going to start by saying picking out the invitations was honestly harder for me than picking out my DRESS!! There are just SO many options out there, and so many stores had the same ones and nothing was really clicking. I wanted something classic but not boring, and not what everyone else seems to be doing right now. There are so many trends out there with wedding ideas and I am trying my best to stick out just a little.

The moment I turned the page and saw these I knew immediately that's what I wanted. They are soft and beautiful, but at the same time elegantly simple. It's hard to convey the quality of the paper over the computer screen, but its all thick, soft, ivory paper.

NOTE: Hopefully you can click on the pictures to make them bigger!

The inner envelope has an oatmeal colored lining...it almost looks like linen, but feels like a very thin tissue.

Obviously I had to block out the pertinent information...I'll share my Venue and all that good stuff AFTER the wedding :)

My mom and I were both really happy when the lady said the proper etiquette is to write Mrs Richard (last name)...instead of my mom's first name, Mary. So it's like having my dad on the card too :)

Reception Card: can't WAIT to share my reception venue with you...it's SO gorgeous!

I'm really not liking what the yellow "white out" is doing to these babies!

Mediterranean Chicken or Chilean Sea Bass??

Here is a better close up to show the edges of the paper...

all the cards have that rough/natural edge

Beautiful Paper and a Colorful Dinner

I was famished after dance class last night...so I needed food fast!

This was a Joseph's Organic whole grain tortilla with:

• Sabra's Roasted Pine Nut Hummus
• Feta
• a couple shakes of hot sauce
• baby spinach
• cucumber
• red/yellow/green bell pepper slices
• ribbons of carrot
• sliced tomato
• red onion

So pretty!Roll up, and eatSide dish: little sweet potatoSweet Treat... roomie and I decided it was high time to purchase an Angel Food cake from WF's. Such a quick, light, delicious dessert. It's the best with fresh whipped cream and berries...but in a pinch some Chocolate Hazelnut butter will do ;)
So I sent my precious envelopes off to Cali to be written out! Now I have a real deadline to finalize the guest list...Friday! Ahhhh! Why is it so hard?!