Run For Your Life

(Photo credit: AMCtv.com)

I've never been able to get "into" running. Maybe because my high school PE coach used to tell me I should just roll over and die I was so out of shape - that kind of faith in another human being really motivates. Give me a workout DVD or spin class and I will do the shit out of those - but for some reason I can only handle like five minutes of running.

In order to try and force myself to start running more, my fiance and I signed up for the Run For Your Life 5K. If you're not a zombie loving freak like everyone seems to be these days, it's a 5K zombie-infested obstacle race. You start the run with three health flags and can pick up hidden health along the way. If you survive all the obstacles, and the walking dead, with at least one flag, you're considered "alive" and your time will count. Don't make it through? Congratulations, you're now infected.

Considering when I get frightened I curl up into the fetal position, I probably won't make it a few feet past the start line, or at least until the first zombie starts chasing me - I'm an easy target. And my loving fiance has already warned me he won't wait for me. In any case, because I'd like to say I beat this challenge like a badass, I'm going to attempt to do some training so I'm not a complete waste.

The race takes place August 4, 2012 in our area. Be sure to check out RunForYourLives.com to see if there's one near you!

Wedding Inspiration

Here's some of my favorite wedding blogs and sites that have given me the greatest inspiration for my own wedding.

Style Me Pretty - a great blog with tons of cool ideas and photos of other real weddings. After a while, all of the posts start to look the same, but it's great for getting started and finding cool ideas to make your own.

Green Wedding Shoes - a similar blog to Style Me Pretty - tons of gorgeous photos and DIY ideas

Wedding Bee - My go-to site for DIY, budget concerns and advice on etiquette and the like.

BHLDN - What girly girl doesn't love the idea of an Anthropologie wedding boutique? This was where I started looking for gowns - I didn't end up getting my gown from them when it all came down to it, but I go on every few days just to drool over things and see what's new. They have a delicious selection of bridesmaids dresses - and I'm happy to say my girls will be wearing dresses from here on my big day!

Tessa Kim - GORGEOUS veils and accessories for the big day.

Project Wedding - a great hub for wedding information, vendors, and decor ideas.

Hope this helps get you through the week! This weekend is my bachelorette party and I can hardly wait until Friday to see all my bridesmaids!


xx

Europe, you are missed...

I've been fortunate enough to have traveled quite a bit. It was important to my parents that my brothers and I were well-educated, well-traveled, and had open minds. They encouraged travel, learning other languages and trying new things on a regular basis. Because of their generosity, I was able to attend my first semester of college in England with an amazing friend, and later return to Europe post-graduation to travel all over with another best friend. Here's a few photos:

Pret-a-Manger was my favorite place in England. It was a quick-stop for sandwiches, sushi, salads and juices to go. Everything we had there was delicious! Anytime Ashley and I ventured into London, we'd always make a stop there.

My best friend Ashley and I having tea on campus. Looking back now, we were quite brave for venturing out at barely 18 and in our first semester of college all the way across the world.

A visit to Ireland over one of our winter holidays. Dublin was an incredible city - full of the nicest people I've ever met (a rarity considering most everyone hates Americans) and incredible food and drink. I'd love to settle in Dublin for a while.

A small village outside of Dublin that we ventured to. It was completely picturesque - small homes, stone walls and rolling green hills. Pretty much the exact picture one gets when they imagine Ireland, right?

Seeing Imogen Heap in December 2005 - just after her second solo album, Speak For Yourself, was released. It was a tiny, intimate show with some great little opening bands and lots of dancing and singing along. Imogen is stunning in person.

This photo's from my later trip to Europe. Florence was an unbelievably romantic city. Every little alleyway and cafe and coffee shop felt like the perfect lover's retreat. I wished I'd had my boyfriend at the time, now my fiance, there with me. It's definitely on our list of things to do as soon as we can afford it!

A lovely shop in Rome, Italy.

The Roman Colosseum - it's frightening to think of what went on in the Colosseum, but it was incredible to get to see it in person. Such a beautiful piece of history still so intact.

The Parthenon in Greece, and one of my roommates throughout the trip - who has ended up becoming an insanely good friend, Meagan.

This is apparently illegal. Haha! Luckily, since we were a group of cute girls, the police didn't bug us much. We had to sidle up next to a shady looking old man and pay him to give us the bird feed. The pigeons went crazy, as you can see from this picture - but it really was a fun experience.

Versailles Palace. We got to tour through Marie Antoinette's stomping grounds. It's such a stunning palace, with everything trimmed in gold. The gardens were equally as gorgeous, though I've been told they are thinking of opening one of the old guest quarters as a hotel.

A cathedral in Prague, my all-time favorite city. I've dreamed of going there before getting to visit in 2009 and the three days I spent there wasn't enough. Full of gothic architecture and windy cobblestone roads, it feels like something out of an Edgar Allan Poe novel, though I suppose Kafka is more fitting.

embrace who you are

Sure, the title is cheesy. I felt cheesy writing it - but I mean it. All of this introspection I've been doing lately has really led me to this one little thought - people should just embrace who they really are. Obviously, if you're embracing being a pedofile or a person who is cruel to animals, I'm probably not talking to you.

I spent years of my life trying to be the person I thought every one would like. My speech, my attitude, my dress and my world views would change with each group of friends I had, each relationship I was in, and each trend that occurred. I constantly wondered why I ended up with friends who never got me - I never felt good enough. The older I've gotten, the more I've realized what I like and what I want to do and that I'm allowed to like and do these things. I no longer judge people for their decisions I used to deem weird.

Here's some things about me that I'm embracing full-force. Don't like it? Too bad.

- I hate the beach. I don't like going to it. I don't like the sun, the sand, the people, the sticky air. I effing hate it. Does that make me a poor sport? Do I turn down opportunities to hang out with friends because they're going to the beach? Yes. Does that make me feel bad? No. I don't have to do what I don't want to do and neither do you.

- I love horror movies. Cheesy, gorey, bad acting, good acting, no story plot, I don't care. It's practically all I watch anymore and anything else, to me, is a waste of time.

- I prefer my dog, and all dogs, to just about any person in the world. I value animal's lives over people's lives and I don't feel one bit bad about saying that. Animals have an innocence that no human being can ever encompass - and I feel insanely protective of that.

- I think it's weird when girls can't get along with other girls. It shows bad character. I used to be one of those girls - but I've since grown up.

- I don't like exaggerations. If I tell you you "always" do something, you'd better believe I'll have at least three examples of specific incidents and I expect the same from others.

- I love the color pink and anything glittery. I'd probably decorate my room with My Little Ponies if my fiance would allow it. I'm a super girly girl and I don't pretend not to be.

- I don't like camping! No part of not showering and sleeping on the ground sounds fun to me.

- I'm perfectly content to be marrying the guy of my dreams and spending the rest of my life with him. I don't believe in divorce and I don't like the pressure that the media puts on people to cheat or to look elsewhere for affection when things aren't 100% great at home.

- I love Kate Middleton

- I don't like art. I don't get it, can't do it and can't get into it. I'm not creative and I'm okay with that!

- I'm really old fashioned and not all that fun. I like going to bed early and I expect men to open the door for me and treat me like a lady. I like to dance and hang out and have a cocktail or two but when I'm done I'm done and I don't like people pressuring me to stay out.

- I appreciate good manners - like Emily Post good manners.

- I do what my parents want me to do. They are always right and have never steered me in the wrong direction. Any time I have veered from what they think I should do, it has always been a mistake - hands down. To me, it's the ultimate sign of respect to do what your parents expect of you. They have done without their whole lives so that I could have the things that I have. Granted, not everyone's parents have their best interest in mind, and that's a sad fact.

I'm sure there's a ton more where these came from, and I'll let them form their own posts another time perhaps. In the mean time, I'd love to know some things you've embraced about yourself recently.

What I Want Wednesday

Let's face it, life's a little more fun when you have items in mind you want. It gives you something to save for, to drool over, and to get excited over. Sorry for ending with a preposition. Here's a few items I'm lusting over right now:

(Dress from FreePeople.com)

(Tunic from FreePeople.com - how cute is this?!)

(Running dress from Lululemon.com)

30 Things I'd Like To Do (and a few I already have) Before I'm 30, Pt 1:

As I hit the end of my 24th year of life, I've been spending some time looking at a few of my accomplishments. Along the same vein, I've also been spending some time figuring things out and deciding on some things I'd like to continue to accomplish. Some are serious, and some are silly. Here is the first part of my list of 30 things I'd like to do, and may have already done, before I hit 30:

1. Be less catty: Women are practically born and bred to tear each other down. I've always admired friends who took the high rode and refused to gossip about another girl, or who always recognized the good in other people. It's not cool to be mean, and that's something I've been actively working on.
2. Travel the world: This one's in purple because I've done quite a bit of this! Though I don't think one can ever be done seeing the world, I've certainly seen enough of it at this point to feel okay until the travel bug sets in again.
3. Eat two Chipotle burritos in one sitting: Sounds fun, right?
4. Run, run, run: Like math and tomatoes, running is something I've avidly avoided my whole life. I'd like to learn to embrace it and make it part of my daily routine
5. Host a dinner party: Like, a real dinner party. With formal invitations, properly coursed meals, place cards and corresponding wines. I think the art of entertaining is somewhat lost these days and I'd love to have a group of friends that wanted to help me bring it back!

There you have it, the first five off my list of 30 things to do before I'm 30. :)

All Things Wedding Stationery!

I realize I've hardly commented at all, save for a brief mention here and there, about my wedding. While a lot of the details I prefer keeping private, I do want to share the wonderful experience with various paperies I've used for my wedding stationery.

Save The Dates
The Save The Dates (usually abbreviated as STDs, but I can't bring myself to use that) are a really fun addition to wedding stationery. They are especially appropriate if you have guests coming from out of town/state, or if you are doing a destination wedding, so that your guests can prepare appropriately. The selection is virtually endless, as far as design, customization and size goes. I've had girlfriends who've done magnets (SO cute, but a little pricey) and those who've stuck with traditional paper. My fiance and I used Minted, a popular online paper company that offers everything from wedding invitations to customized everyday stationery. We went with the following design and customized it to fit our needs:

(Photo credit: http://www.minted.com/ - obviously this isn't ours, this is the sample featured on the site)

My experience with Minted was nothing short of perfect. They are efficient, quick, and high quality. They also offer a choice of 100% recycled paper, which was important to us, since my fiance is quite the environmentalist. Some other great sites for ordering Save The Dates online are:

• Wedding Paper Divas - link, here (my bridal shower invitations are from this site, though since they haven't been sent out yet I decided not to share them)
• Zazzle - link, here (more exciting stuff about Zazzle in a sec!)

Wedding Invitations

I loved picking out invitations, and my mom and I took our sweet time doing so. In fact, they are in the final processes of getting finalized and printed as we speak. We really wanted a thick, weighty paper with gorgeous type, a direction card, of course the RSVP card, and a beautiful French envelope/sleeve to put the invitation in prior to the actual outer envelope. We found all of this and more with Smock Paper. Smock offers letterpress invitations and stationery (letterpress being one of the more expensive, but chicer, methods of printing) that are completely customizable and very modern. The following examples are not what we went with, but are some of the choices that Smock offers on their website:

(Photo Credit: http://www.smockpaper.com/)

We loved the range of choices, the beautifully thick bamboo paper (again, a huge plus to my fiance and I) and my favorite part -- custom postage stamps! Smock designed a PDF format of the stamp that would match our invites and be personal to us, and we used Zazzle to order the stamp itself. It's little personal touches like that which I think really make the invitation special!

Smock Paper wasn't cheap - luckily, my parents are traditional and are funding the whole thing (thanks, guys!!!), but it was important to us to not scrimp on such a big day. There are plenty of options out there that are just as nice for much less -- you just have to decide what is important to you, the bride, and what's not so important.

Questions or comments? Leave 'em below!