Friday Fancies: Royal Wedding Guest

"What? Kate's wearing Alexander McQueen today? What a coincidence! So am I! We just have such similar tastes...ha ha ha."

Royal Wedding Outfit by CharlestonGirlBlog featuring flower print dresses

Linking up to today's Friday Fancies from {long distance loving}.

From wedding dress to baptism gown...

My sister just uploaded some more photos to Facebook, so I had to share... the first one is actually from my wedding dress shopping weekend, but my niece is wearing an "My aunt is the best" onesie...so I had to share. :)

The others are better photos of my niece's baptism dress made out of my mother's wedding dress. It's neat to think one day one of my own children will wear this when they get baptized...

Posted photo again so you could see reference:
My mom and my grandfather on her wedding day.

Much better photo of me and my niece.

Easter Recap

This Easter was a very special one for our family...

My niece was baptized during the Easter service on Sunday. She wore a dress my mom's friend had handmade out of my mother's wedding dress. The bonnet was the best part! This dress will now be worn by every grandchild, great grandchild, etc. in our family when they are baptized.

My mom and my grandfather on her wedding day.

My niece was over all the pictures...lol, poor thing... but here she is in the dress and bonnet made from my mom's wedding dress. It was beautiful. I wish I had a better picture so you could see the detail.

The same friend who made the dress had also recently returned from a trip to Israel. She brought back for my mom a thing of water from the River Jordan where Jesus was baptized. My mom had our minister add a little of the water into the baptism water. So my niece was baptized with that water... very cool.

Afterward we celebrated with a big lunch with family and friends at our neighborhood country club. Then it was back to our house for Easter pictures in the backyard. My fiance and I were stuffed from lunch, packed up the puppy and made the long 7+ hour trek back to Charleston...and on top of that we lost an hour from changing time zones... We didn't get home until midnight.

Blurry photo of me and my niece - stupid camera. I look like I'm squeezing the heck out of her.

Me and my fiance.

In other news... our engagement photos are this coming weekend. We're doing a vintage shoot in downtown Charleston and then a normal shoot on the beach on Sullivan's Island. I'm looking forward to them, but I'm also nervous because I'm hoping for good weather, a good hair day, good makeup day, a skinny day, etc. etc. etc. Again, I would love any tips on how to make the day the best it can be... :)

Here's to another great week! Cheers!

Friday Fancies #21 - Happy Easter

If I was a rich girl...nah nah nah, nah nah nah...

Happy Easter by CharlestonGirlBlog featuring chain jewelry

Linking up to AV's Friday Fancies - a little late though... this is what I would be wearing on Sunday if money was no problem. :)

Did you have a Good Friday?

F21 does Lilly P

What is everyone wearing on Easter? I can't wait to see all of your blog posts with photos of your Easter outfits.

I've got a new Lilly dress packed...not one of the ones I just got off of Rue La La (they still need to be shortened, etc.)...but one I found randomly on a sale rack in the local Belk for only $40! Even the lady who checked me out at Belk said, "Wow...I've never seen a Lilly Pulitzer dress that cheap!"

I don't know the 'name' of the dress, so I don't have pictures...but I'll post some after this weekend. You'd rather see me in it anyways, right? :) Lol...

I just picked it up this week from my alterations place (along with about four other dresses). I'm always in there with more dresses to be hemmed and taken in around the chest and the waist. The owner gave me 10% off this time..and I said, "Oooh, thanks! Guess I am in here a lot aren't I?" And she said, "Yes! Nothing ever fits you!"

Ha... I guess that's what you get when you're short, big hipped and flat chested. Sigh.

On a random note, I was browsing Forever21's dresses recently and came across this dress...

I'm no Lilly expert or anything, but it instantly reminded me of a Lilly Pulitzer dress -- the style and the pretty floral fabric. I'm not sure it could compare to an actual Lilly dress, but for only $22.80 it's definitely a more affordable Lilly-esque option. Ok, who are we kidding, a LOT more affordable compared to Lilly's prices.

The pattern is a pretty, pastel floral.


I think I immediately thought this looked like a Lilly dress because one of my friends wore a Lilly dress on Sunday that was in this same cut/style.

What do you think? Lilly knock off or not even close?

Blessing of the "Feet"

So...this past weekend was an eventful one for me as you probably know. And I did say 'Yes' to a dress. The very first one I tried on...believe it or not. And I tried on a LOT of dresses...but #1 was always #1....and check has been handed over, so it's official!

Yay! Another 'check' on the wedding to do list. Up next -- finishing up building our Wedding Websending out Save the Dates, and FINALLY asking my bridesmaids (only asked one so far, but the rest pretty much know anyways...). I'd like to have these done by next weekend... um... we'll see how that goes.

My fiance and I are going home to Birmingham for Easter weekend, and in addition to fun times with the fam, Easter Baskets, and the baptism of my niece...we will also be knocking out an appointment with the a possible invitation vendor and a meeting with our florist and her 'lighting guy'.

Bring on the wedding stress and let the games begin. :)

In other news...

Sunday a bunch of us went to Blessing of the Fleet in Mt. Pleasant - an event held in Memorial Waterfront Park, right below the Ravenel Bridge. It's a festival held every year to kick off Shrimp Fishing Season and all of the Shrimp Boats parade by and a 'blessing of the fleet' is done over the load speaker. Locals come out and bring blankets and tailgate chairs and sit out in the sun and enjoy life music (East Coast Party Band played this year) and can sample seafood from local restaurants.

The best part about this festival is that it's FREE! Well... really the best part about this festival is you can BYOB and food. So my fiance and I went Sunday, drank some cold beers, hung out with friends, got some sun and listened to great beach music...without spending a dime! Ok..well, I spent $2 because I bought a Blessing of the Fleet koozie.

I totally nauticaled (new word) it up on Sunday and wore my new Forever21 hat and my sailboat Sperrys. One of my friends called me Nautical Nancy... it may have been overkill, but I wanted to dress the part since we were blessing the fleet... besides, I can't pass on dressing up for a theme party. :)

My best friend in her Lilly and shrimp pearls and me in my nautical.

Me and my fiance and our hats.

My sailboat Sperrys!

We were all barefoot pretty much the entire time though - the cold grass felt great on our feet. So we coined the day Blessing of the "Feet" instead.

Afterward, all of the boys went to eat Mexican, and all of the girls went to dinner at Poe's Tavern on Sullivan's Island. I have been there many times, but I've never actually eaten there...I had my first Poe's burger (Pimento Cheese!) and it was delish!

{via}

Monday night was Hip Hop class.... loved this week's dance. You can't see me in this video... I'm off to the side, which is why I'm ok with posting it. :)


Tuesday was Bottles & Brushes - here's my latest painting...

Hope everyone is having a good week... I'm off to take Willow to puppy training classes at the local Petco. I think we're learning 'Roll Over' today.

Is this a sign?

Saturday's weather:

Are you kidding me?? Urrgg..

Please pray that my future family gets safely to Charleston from Greenville on Saturday morning, and please pray that the downtown bridal boutiques will not be flooded!

Oops...Rue La La did it again...

So yesterday I finally got my Lilly Pulitzer goodies from last week's Rue La La sale... and like everyone else has been saying in their blogs and on Twitter, "Wow, that was quick shipping!".

I'm going to preface this post by going ahead and telling you that yes, I got a LOT of stuff. I'm also going to tell you that I had a pretty significant Rue La La credit (due to previous returns) that helped me out, so don't go thinking I'm a bazillionairre or anything. :)

I didn't want to blog about what I bought until I had actually received my items because of my Rue La La Lilly Pulitzer sale history - when it comes to Lilly on Rue La La, I have had rotten luck. Last August I almost lost my shiz when items I purchased were all of a sudden 'unavailable'.

Read here, here, and here.

I will say that Rue La La took responsibility and credited my account, and (which I didn't blog about because it happened later) sent me a $50 gift card to Lilly Pulitzer to help ease the pain I was caused. So I appreciated that immensely...and did so with continued purchases from Rue La La... let's just say I have an Order History with them of about two pages (which is probably why they were quick to make amends with me).

But I digress.

So last week I was a buying machine with the Lilly Pulitzer sale - I bought....a lot....and I think mainly because of my previous Lilly Pulitzer sales experience... I think somehow in my head I justified that probably half of the items wouldn't make it to me, so the more I bought, the more chances I would have to end up with more in the end. Here's what I got for myself....
I also bought my best friend Jtay an early birthday present (a bag and dress she really wanted) because she's a Lilly fan like myself and as a teacher, couldn't get on the sale to get anything. I also bought her another dress that she was going to pay me back for.

"Get to the point!", you say.

So I got my items yesterday and like a kid at Christmas I ripped open the box and pulled out each Lilly item one by one.

But something was missing... {insert expletive here}.

Checked the packing slip... it was on there. Checked online - received shipping confirmation email for it, had 'shipped' status on Order History of Rue La La site.

Hmm..maybe I just overlooked it somehow in the box.

Go through box again, even check in cracks of box (for realz). And it wasn't a big box, lol.

{insert another expletive}

Email Rue La La and (seriously) ended message with "Help!" I tend to get overly emotional about these things. You're like "Yeah, we know...we read your blog."

This morning I got a response from Rue La La that went something like this: "We're sorry you didn't receive your item. We've credited back your order and have given you a $10 credit."

IT HAPPENED AGAIN!!! {insert a few more expletives}

The worst part of all about this? It wasn't even my item...but my best friend's dress!!

Worst part was having to email her and let her know... I'm so glad she'll still be getting her b-day gift from me though..but super bummed this dress fell through. I know it's not my fault (Rue La La!), but I still feel really guilty about it... I wish it had been one of my crazy amount of dresses I had bought for myself instead.

The good news is that her and I can share clothes and I have already told her she can wear ANY of my dresses whenever she wants. So... hopefully that will help ease the pain.

Rue La La was very responsive and sympathetic to me on Twitter - the poor girl who runs that account probably sees my tweets and then inserts her own expletives. "Not HER again!"

Maybe Rue La La will make sure not to mess up any of my future Lilly orders and then I'll leave them alone! :)

I'd like to have a chat with the Rue La La employee in shipping who 'forgot' to put that dress in my package -- She's probably wearing the dress right now!! Or his wife is wearing it... I think there needs to be an investigation! I can see the headline now..."Group of Rue La La employees run Lilly Pulitzer black market by stealing items from customers orders, sell dresses on Ebay for twice the price."

The only other item that wasn't in my order was the "Lillie" sunglasses...

...and I'm dying until I get them. I NEED them...and the Twitter Rue La La lady assured me that I would get them, that they ship separately... so you witnessed this. So, fingers crossed, we will see... but until I'm physically holding them, I won't get my hopes up.
I still need to try all my dresses on and make sure they fit - I did the 'hold up to your body' test and I'm pretty sure they will be ok, although I already know I'll have to get most of them {if not all of them} shortened because I've got such short stubby legs.

It's expensive being petite.

So...if you actually made it through this long post, kudos to you. How is your Wednesday going? Let's hope it's better than mine!

P.S. Sorry if "Oops..I did it again.." by Brittany Spears is now stuck in your head thanks to my post title... it's stuck in mine if that's any consolation. :)

Saturday I will say 'Yes to the Dress'...

....hopefully.

It's hard to believe it's that time - wedding dress shopping. Ahh...I'm so nervous because I'm so insecure and I know I'll just think I look fat in everything and be so indecisive.

But everyone says, "...you'll just know. You'll put on a dress and you'll tear up and you'll say, 'this is the one'. It happens to everyone."

Does it? I'm nervous... what if I don't find a dress?

Any tips for dress shopping? What bra to wear? Should I wear Spanx?

We're making a special weekend of it with all of the family coming in town. I'm going to have a large group with me shopping...which I know is usually frowned upon, but I really couldn't think of leaving anyone out...

Who is accompanying me shopping: my mom, my sister (her 2 month old baby), my future MIL, my future SIL, my fiance's SIL (and my future SILSIL?), and my best friend Jtay (see white swan).

I'm so excited, anxious, nervous.... I really just don't know what to expect.

I have a day FULL of appointments because I want LOTS of options... Luckily, since Charleston is the capital of weddings, there were plenty of boutiques to choose from - White, Maddison Row, Bella Vista, Bella Couture....

I've got so many pictures of dresses saved that I need to print out and take with me. Martha Stewart's wedding blog just posted a lot of pictures from the Bridal Fashion week.

I'm loving these new styles from Vera Wang...gorgeous. I really like the green dress - really. Although I think dancing with your groom would prove difficult since the giant flower is right on the front of you. I genuinely believe that the 'white' wedding dress tradition may be completely extinct in 10 or 20 years - so many designers are making colored or hued wedding dresses these days.

And I'm dying over these new dresses from Monique Lhuillier -- especially this first one. It's exactly what I really want in a dress and it looks so much like my mom's wedding dress that I wanted to wear (but was too big for). It's got that whole Grace Kelly wedding dress look that I love... I'm hoping that Maddison Row already has this dress...but I think it might not be in stores yet... :(

What happened to Reese's wedding hair?

So I loved Reese Witherspoon's wedding dress - Monique Lhuillier of course - but I couldn't help but wonder what the heck happened to her hair...

I mean, some brides look gorgeous with their hair down for their wedding day, and I get that... but it looks like she just woke up, brushed her hair, stuck a veil in it..and that was that.

I think her hair would have looked perfect with a simple gown..maybe getting married on the beach... etc. But her dress is beautiful, and she's wearing a veil... why didn't she do anything with her hair?

And up-do would have been so pretty on her...

Or if you're going with it down, at least curl it maybe...or pull it half up.


But I guess when you're a mega movie star you can look any way you want on your wedding. But my point is... you're a mega movie star with the money to get your hair done...so why not?

Maybe she was just so tired of being all done up for the Oscars and all the other awards shows that she really did just want to brush it and be done with it.

Who knows. What do you think? Do you like her wedding hair or are you with me in thinking maybe she should have had something done to it??

Happy Friday! Have a great weekend!

I got over it...

...the Cooper River Bridge that is. I ran the annual Cooper River Bridge Run on Saturday in Charleston - it's a very popular 6.2 mile race from Mt. Pleasant, over the bridge and into downtown Charleston. There's 40,000 runners...it's crazy!

My best friend and I decided last Fall that we were going to actually run the whole thing this year. We have walked it in the past, but we wanted to finally be runners. After running the bridge about once or twice a week since we set this lofty goal, we were ready Saturday and we did it! We only walked for half of the incline up the bridge {which is about the same speed we could run it} and about a block downtown.

Our time was about 1 hour and 16 minutes -- which to any serious runner probably doesn't sound that great, but we were so proud of ourselves because we aren't runners and we ran the race! :) The winner {always a Kenyan} ran it in 28 minutes...can you even imagine?!?!

So some people dress in costumes for the run, and my best friend and I always dress up for theme parties and races...so of course we dressed up for this one. We decided to be the white swan and the black swan in honor of the movie Black Swan. I was the Black Swan -- I even superglued black feathers and rhinestones on the sides of my sunglasses. :) We got lots of compliments on our costumes while we ran and that was encouraging to keep us motivated to run.

We had on feather boas around our waist during the race,
and you can barely see my feathered cuffs on my wrists.

So..I'm a ballet dancer...trying to be a runner...and because of that, I run on my toes. And yes, it looks silly. But a few of my runner friends have said that it's actually better to run on your toes because it's less stress on your knees and joints. I even got fitted for running shoes that are made for 'toe runners'.

Well, I have high arches from ballet and I run pretty high on my toes, so I guess it's really noticeable... I didn't realize how much until Saturday...during the race like six different people pointed out while running next to me: "Look! That girl runs on her toes!"

Granted I guess that the fact I was dressed as a ballet dancer, tutu and all, probably made it more of a "Wow that girl is dressed like a ballet dancer AND she runs on her toes" for most people...lol...so I'll give them that.

However, there was this one group of girls, probably in their mid-20's, high ponytails, short shorts, etc....running behind us at one point and one of the girls really loudly said {in high pitched valley girl voice}, "Oh my god! Look at that girl's feet...that is so weird..she's running on her toes! Look at that! That is so weird!!" I turned around, running backwards mind you, and pointed to my ears and said right to this girl, "Um...honey, I don't have earphones on, I can hear everything you're saying." She just kind of looked at me stunned, then her and her posse picked up their pace and passed us and kept going. Lol...some people never cease to amaze me.

After the race we headed to Red's Ice House to reward ourselves for being healthy by drinking beer and eating delicious, greasy seafood! Yum!

So how was your weekend?? Do you look 'special' when you run? :)