2015 March

M A K I N G: A cake bunting for our wedding. Well, I’m not making it yet but I plan to soon– with the help of this pretty inspiration here. Going all white though, of course!

D R I N K I N G: Coconut Water. I picked some up at Costco last time I was there and I am loving it. I bring one to school with me each day and drink it at some point when I’m feeling dehydrated. I never drink enough water while I’m teaching and I need to work on that.

W A N T I N G: This Brooklyn apartment. Oh my heavens. Maybe in my next life!

W A T C H I N G: House of Cards. And also, we started Alias and at first I don’t think either of us were very into it, but I feel like it’s starting to get good.

R E A D I N G: I just picked up this book about Venice from the library the other day and I’m excited to start reading. Also working my way through Yes Please and enjoying it very much.

L I S T E N I N G T O: A little bit of this, and a little bit of that. In the car I’ve been flipping through channels lately but at home I like to play WGBH radio. Listening to classical right now and they’ve got a great celtic radio series on Saturdays at 3:00 if you’re into that sort of thing. Turns out, I’ve recently discovered, that I totally am.

E A T I N G: Lots of soup. It’s still cold as ever here. My favorite this winter has been a simple butternut squash recipe. I make it almost every week and take it with me a few days for lunch. So good and easy: peel and cut a smallish butternut squash {I often get the pre-cut!}. Roast at about 400 degrees until soft {about 45 min- 1 hour or so}. Add squash to large pot {a lot of times I just throw it into the Vitamix!} and add one can of coconut milk and 1 apple then stir til smooth with a hand blender– we have this one. Salt and pepper to taste then enjoy!

W I S H I N G: Spring would hurry up and come soon. Daylight savings is this weekend so at least that’s a start!

E N J O Y I N G: The moon tonight. Have you seen it? It’s straight out of a storybook.

H O P I N G: We can get to Croatia for our honeymoon this summer. The planning seems daunting at this point, but also so exciting. I swear I could spend HOURS each night (and quite often do) googling/pinteresting “CROATIA” and sometimes I feel like I’ve made progress and a lot of time I feel like I haven’t. I tried to send out a call for help on instagram last night and got some great ideas so hopefully we’ll make some strides soon!

N E E D I N G: To find bridesmaid dresses that I love. I want each dress to be different which you think would be easy, but is actually proving to be harder than I thought! And I only need three! Looking for ivory and beautiful so if you come across anything like that send it my way!

F O L L O W I N G: elephantine // I have been reading Rachel’s blog for a little over a year now and love the simplicity throughout it all. She has wonderful book reveiws, gorgeous photography, and such a calm peaceful way about her. I am always so happy to see a post from her– sometimes her entries are only a couple of photos or a single sentence, but I enjoy them every time.

F E E L I N G: Tired. Such a long week! And March has no days off or long weekends so I guess I better get used to it– or train myself to get more sleep {I’m a night owl lately!}.

W E A R I N G: Still these boots all day eryday. I don’t think I’ve ever been so dedicated to a pair of shoes in my life.

B O O K M A R K I N G: This post. Forever and ever amen.

L O V I N G: THE WEEKEND! Cheers, everyone!

//
♥ top image by anne mumford.
also, amazon affiliate links used!

Wedding dress shopping is such a surreal thing. You have one hour to try on as many dresses as you can in an entire store filled with the most gorgeous gowns you have ever laid your eyes on and then hopefully, maybe fall in love with one. Overwhelming is an understatement here. But about a month ago I did just that. I found the one and I love it to the moon and my sister loves it, and my mom– well, if wiping tears from your eyes means anything (which I like to believe it does), then we got it right! We found a winner!

We took one weekend and went to 3 places. This worked for me, and I’m grateful– but it’s a lot of brain work trying on those dresses! On Friday we visited Anthropologie in Chestnut Hill where they actually have an entire section of the store dedicated to the BHLDN line. You must make an appointment online and when you do so you mention the names of the dresses you’d like to try on during your time there. I requested quite a few, but some of my favorites were The Persiphone Gown, The Penelope Gown, and The Daphne Dress. {Also, now that I’m browsing the website the Lucca Maxi is INCREDIBLE, but I don’t think this was one of the choices at the time of my appointment.} Looking at them again I’m completely googly eyed, but my thoughts on the dresses in person were actually quite different. I didn’t love them! THE TRAGEDY! I wanted to love them because Anthropologie is the definition of my LOVE LANGUAGE, but I just didn’t. I couldn’t! Try as I might I didn’t feel any feelings and this honestly made me quite sad.

And also a little bit nervous, too. WOULD I FIND A DRESS TO LOVE?

I want to be sure to mention that my experience at BHLDN was wonderful. We were helped by the nicest people {thanks, Olivia!} and everyone was so kind– the nicest. And! We were served champagne! How it should be, you know? I would definitely recommend it to others looking to find a dress. The bridal shop is gorgeous and their dresses are lovely– it just turned out there wasn’t one for me!

The next morning I got up feeling good and ready to take on the day. Since my mom came for the weekend we spent the morning dreaming up a few wedding details and then we ventured to Beacon Hill. Ceremony is a little boutique tucked away on River Street and it’s interior is just divine. My heart felt a flutter a soon as we arrived and looking back it seems perfect that I found my dress here. Alix, the owner, opened the shop up in 2013 and her style on all things, especially Bridal things, is just exactly right.

{That’s Maura up in that photo. She works at Ceremony and helped me at my appointment that day. Thank you, Maura! Another lovely bridal boutique soul. God bless them all.}

Ceremony is everything a bridal shop should be and more. It is light and bright and filled with the most gorgeous dresses you could ever dream up. Perfectly simple, perfectly pretty. Appointments are one hour and for that time you literally have the entire loft to yourself. It’s a dream! I arrived a little early and as the previous appointment was coming to a close I was able to browse the sample sale rack a bit and found a few I liked. I also worked my way through a few other racks in the front of the shop, but prices are fairly steep here so I had to be careful! Nothing worse than finding your dream dress out of your price range I kept reminding myself. Once I had a good number of choices I began trying them on one by one. It is so fun to step into a wedding dress. Pure happiness, I tell you! Each time I would come out from the dressing area my sister would gasp with delight.

So. Much. FUN.

It was here at Ceremony where I found it. I felt it right away and at first I felt joy and then I felt peace.

G L E E E E E, glorious glee.

We still had one more dress appointment that afternoon and Alix so kindly offered to hold the dress for 24 hours {it was a sample dress, so I really needed to make a decision!}. Our last stop was the Vows bridal outlet in Watertown. Our experience here was not as lovely or private {Saturdays are busy!} but they do have plenty of dresses and the prices are RIGHT. I felt like I needed to come here because I made the appointment and also just to be 100% sure that I’d found the dress for me. And of course, I just kept thinking of the Ceremony dress. It was in my mind the entire time. Every dress I tried on was nowhere near as magical, not-a-single-feeling!— It was crystal clear what I needed to do.

I dialed that Beacon Hill number and made that dress mine. ♥

P.S. That last photo is not MY dress, but a pretty one indeed!

P.P.S. Find a reason to visit Ceremony. :)
You’ll be so glad you did!

Email: hello@ceremony-boston.com
Phone: 857-277-1669
Instagram : @ceremony_boston