Sunday, May 22, 2011

Bachie Party Fun

Last weekend I was so excited to attend the super fun Bachelorette Weekend of Miss Jennifer Brown.  Jennifer and I go way back...well actually just to 2006.....I was so fortunate to have met Jennifer through Miss Elizabeth Bell after I graduated from Baylor.  I had just moved to Dallas and Jennifer was moving in next door to Elizabeth.  (They taught together in Richardson and had become fast friends).  The three of us shared several memorable experiences as friends...including....running from a drunk guy down Knox Henderson after St. Patty's Day, watching Grey's Anatomy and The Bachelor while making "themed" supper club dinners, utilizing all of my fabulous WFAA perks of free tickets and events...since we were both broke, and a super fun trip to San Francisco in the summer of 2007.  Here are a few pictures:




As you can see we have many wonderful memories together.  I am sad that I will have to miss her upcoming wedding but was THRILLED to be a part of her Bachie Weekend!  We began the weekend down in Galveston!  14 Girls stayed in one two bedroom/one bathroom beach house down on Galveston's West Side.  So fun!!  The weekend included a fun dinner at Joe's Crab Shack, Spending an entire Saturday on the beach, a hilarious lingerie shower and games including Pornagomi and "Advice" to the Bride, and an all around fun sleepover! Here are some more pics:



Congratulations to the Future Mrs. John Westbrook!  So excited to celebrate with you last weekend and cannot wait to see pictures of the wedding!  :)

Monday, May 9, 2011

San Antonio Weekend!

What a fabulous weekend we had celebrating Harrison's birthday and heading to San Antonio for Matt and Amber's wedding!  We had a great weekend with yummy food and great company with friends.  I must blog about a little stop we made home.....



Yes...this place is what I like to refer to as Mecca. Hello, fabulous!  Even Harrison was a little excited as we pulled into the shopping center.

First Stop...Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn, and Crate and Barrel.  If you have been to our house in Houston you know that we furnished it with mostly Pottery Barn stuff.  Harrison and I both love the look of traditional with a little modern edge.  We furnished our house in stages as to avoid having to spend a ton of money at once. We love the quality of PB and feel as though it will last a long time.  Currently we have a list of things left to purchase...nothing too big....a bed for our master bedroom, some rugs, a buffet for my china, etc.  Lately we have been eyeing this rug for our enormous bedroom.  (We have a very long shaped bedroom that we have divided into a sitting area and sleeping area.)
  Round Jute Rug, 6', Natural
We did not really want to pay the $150 for it but this was really what we liked best....We had talked about just biting the bullet and buying it.....

Oh we bought it all right...AT THE POTTERY BARN OUTLET!  For $35!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  And we were able to find it in chocolate brown to go with our newly monogrammed Restoration Hardware bedding! :)
Monogram Italian Hotel Satin Stitch White Bedding | Italian Hotel Satin Stitch White | Restoration Hardware
I am so excited and the room is almost complete!  Unforunately, at Crate and Barrel we did not find the bed that we have been wanting...probably a good thing because we have no idea how we would have gotten it home.......
Here it is....

Fabulous, huh.....It's hard to tell in the picture but it has this great nail head trim.  I really love it! 

Another item to cross off our list....Our home stereo system!  One of the HUGE perks of our house was that it was already pre wired and set up with a completel home stereo system.  We have a huge surround sound set of Bose Speakers as well as speaker systems withing the ceiling in every room and out the pool as well. The previous owners left everything but the receiver system. The outlets in San Marcos had a Bose store and we were happy to pick up that last piece as well!  Now for the fun part of attempting to wire it together and blast the music!  One more thing off the list of stocking the house! 

Our next big item(s) are things for the walls.  If anyone has any ideas for art I would love to hear them! I don't want too many canvasses with pictures but some unique items like mirrors and decorative things as well.  I have a few project ideas that I will blog about soon. 

Finally, I am in huge need of silver frames.  ANYONE have any good ideas for those?  I am starting to collect them for our wedding pictures in five months......I think I want to do all silver for the display frames in the house and then do wood ones with mattes for the walls. 

Hope everyone had a great weekend Mother's Day! :) Have a great week!

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Wedding DIY Project: Drink Straws!

For those of you who know me, know that I am a huge fan of DIY.  I think it's because growing up my father always painted the house himself, refinished furniture himself, and landscaped the yard himself.  I think it's been passed down to me...and while Harrison and I did attempt to paint the house ourselves.....the help of a professional really came in handy. I knew from surfing the Internet and reading Style Me Pretty (aka..the most addicting wedding blog around) that there were several DIY projects that I wanted to tackle.  Hopefully I can share all of them on here one by one starting with The Custom Drink Straws!  :) A while back I came across these pictures from a wedding blog. 
I thought this idea was so cute!  Harrison and I have not yet decided if we are going to do Open Beer, Wine, and Champagne for our wedding or if we are going to do a full open bar.  We have decided on a Signature Cocktail, regardless of what we choose.  Now...I am keeping the details of the "Signature Cocktail" a secret...but you will need a STRAW to drink it.....

Tip...Buy the extra long ones!  You will learn (if you choose to make this project) that you want enough room for people's lips and for it to stick out of the drink so you can attach your cute flag......

Oh My Paper Source.  PURE HEAVEN.  I could spend all day in that store and still be inspired to do cute craft projects.  They have THE BEST cardstock and pretty papers to make cute little signs....like this.....

Now the finished product will stay a bit of a secret....but you get the idea.   You just cut cute little squares or triangles to wrap around the straw and can attach anything fun! I liked how in the picture above they used the initial of the last name...super fun. 
Hopefully the straws and the cocktail will be a hit at the reception....we are still trying to think of a name to call it...however Ulbik and Tucker don't really mesh too well when combinging with "Rita" or "Hito" or "Tini"...common cocktail enders.  Hopefully we won't serve a drink at our wedding called the "Tuckbick Tini" and something more inspirational will come to us.

We'll see. :)

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Another Vendor Spotlight: Bella Bridesmaids!

I am not sure about yall but one of the things I LOVE is amazing customer service.  I will tip 30% at a restaurant if they go above and beyond.  As an Advertising Account Executive I know how important personal interaction is first hand.  Which brings me to my next vendor spotlight...Bella Bridesmaids.  Sigh.  It is the best store ever. Hayley and Lindsay are so fabulous.  The store has a HUGE selection and a friend of mine put it best when she said it was the only place in town without a polyester section.  After doing quite a bit of internet research I knew that Lula Kate was the designer for my bridesmaids. I loved that she had such a wide variety of skirts, colors, fabrics and tops.  I am pretty sure I changed my mind at least five times on one of those things during the course of the planning.  I ended up picking five different styles (well, actually four....but none of them liked one of my choices) and let the five of them select which dress they liked best and which they felt flattered each of their styles.  They could select:

The Alex Dress


The Bridget Dress

The Meredith Dress


The Sophie Dress


























The Christy Dress....my favorite! :)

























I'll let you wait and see at the wedding which girl picked which one......After going back and forth on colors and looking at a ton of different shades of colors, I decided on a classic Navy Blue.  I think it will photograph well and provide a great backdrop for flowers of ANY color.  Which I am still changing my mind on daily.... :)

Engagement Pictures AND Wedding Vendor Spotlight!

So...one of the reasons for starting this blog was my desire to highlight ALL of my FABULOUS wedding vendors.  I will be keeping some things secret as I want some wedding surprises but really wanted a place to thank all the special people/companies.  First spotlight...Katie Norris Portrait Arts.  Oh. My. Fabulous. I remember a few months before we got engaged stumbling upon the KNPA blog.  I spent a good hour that night looking at all the posts before I realized that I wanted her as my wedding photographer. I think she was the first call that I made after we set the date because I know how fast good vendors fill up.  I did do my due diligence and compare other photographer's packages but in the end Katie was THE BEST.  I wanted a package that included engagement and bridal pictures but the most important part was that it included my wedding album.  Most other packages did not include an album and it was an additional...and exorbitant fee in some cases.  Secondly, Katie, like myself is a BAYLOR girl!  Which pretty much just sealed the deal.  I loved that she was flexible on coming to Houston for our engagements and for the wedding and did not have a long list of requirements.  It made things so much easier on me. The first week in March we had our engagement shoot and I could not be happier with the images. Here are a few favorites...there are more on her blog.
So this is probably our most favorite.  Since some of yall who have seen the pics have asked.....I am wearing a Kate Spade Vanilla "Josie" dress.  Harrison's Burberry tie was my Christmas gift to him last year to accompany all of his "lawyer" suits. :)
Our second favorite....in downtown Houston.  I am actually wearing a Lula Kate Dress from Bella Bridesmaids! :) Which will be my next vendor spotlight! (Side note...I realize that 99% of yall care less about what I am wearing....but I know that at least one person will email me and say "where did you get that dress..."...because I am often that one person that emails others and asks....I just thought I'd provide the information... ) :)


  This was the picture for our Save The Date! So fun!  I knew I wanted a cute concept with props and a cute way of displaying our date.  KNPA actually did the design and printing for the Save The Date's.  She was great about putting together multiple different concepts and then playing around.  Also...because I am neurotic I am really picky about all paper products (invitations, save the dates, programs, menus, etc.) all having a signature look or theme or some way to pull them all together. Katie was great about working with some of our designs that a graphic designer worked up for us and keeping it all together.  THE BEST was the presentation of the cards and the cards themselves.  They were shipped in the beautiful brown box with a white ribbon and the paper quality on the Save The Date's was amazing.  I addressed and mailed them all immediately. 

Last Picture for here!  I loved the lighting on these.  This was towards the end of the day in Memorial park.....A favorite as well.
Long story short....if you need an amazing photographer...who is also the sweetest person you will ever meet...Katie Norris is your girl! :) Call her!

Monday, May 2, 2011

1814 Haverhill Drive

Welcome to 1814 Haverhill!  What a journey it has been getting here......Harrison and I looked at houses FOREVER! I joked with our realtor, Danelle Guilbeau of Boulevard Realty we must be her worst clients. Harrison and I knew that when we were married we would want to live within the loop in proximity to our jobs...Downtown for Harrison and Allen Parkway for me. We narrowed down neighborhoods like The Woodland Heights, West University, and North/South Hampton.  After the inital phase we knew we would have to broaden our horizons if we wanted more house for our money....Harrison's must haves were a two car garage, two bathrooms, and somewhat of a yard. I wanted the house in a neighborhood...not next to a townhome (or a crackhouse) and needed significant closet space.  This pretty much eliminated anything we could afford in those aforementioned neighborhoods. Our realtor mentioned Timbergrove one day and how gorgeous it was.  The selling point was that all of the houses were kept up, it was extremely close to I-10, 6-10 and the Shepherd corridor and was still inside the loop.  Once we found Haverhill....we knew this was the house for us.  A backyard pic.....
I'll reveal the inside as we continue to work on it over the next five months and as each room is COMPLETELY finished....we still have a long way to go! :)

The Engagement! November 21, 2010

Here we are at our engagement dinner! November 21st was one of the best days of my life!  Harrison and I talked about getting married for a while and I thought that we would get engaged sometime over the holiday season.  Harrison and I had decided to host Thanksgiving at Harrison's new house and that our parents would meet each other for the first time.  He mentioned that he wanted to cook me dinner at the house and that I should go home to my apartment and change before meeting him back at the house.  When I pulled into the driveway he announced that we were actually going out!  I was a little suspicious...but food is another significant theme in our relationship and we try new restaurants often.  I was very surprised when Harrison pulled up to a small restaurant in a strip center in the Memorial area of town.  When I walked into the restaurant....and saw that the place was empty.....I immediately knew and was absolutely speechless.  After being seated at a small table in the back Harrison immediately asked me to marry him.  Of course I said "Yes"...although the events are really blury now.....Jonathan Levine the personal chef was absolutely amazing.   He worked with Harrison to create a menu of all of our favorite foods.....lobster salad for me, meatballs, beef short ribs, polenta, and a delicious creme brulee for dessert. Harrison presented me with the most incredible DeBeers Aura Round Ring.  Random people stop my in the store, airport, or wherever on a WEEKLY basis to compliment me. He could NOT have done better! The night was PERFECT! 

The Story of Jenny and Harrison! :)

I thought it would be appropriate to start our wedding story with the story of us!  Here we are.......


This picture was taken on a trip to New Orleans back in August of 2009.  We were introduced by a great mutual friend (Thanks Brandon Caire!) at a crawfish boil in April of 2009.  I went to go talk to the cute boy NOT eating the crawfish boil and discovered that cute boy was REALLY friendly as well.  We talked for a while and had our first date, an Astro's game a few weeks later.  After a few additional dates including House of Blues Gospel Brunch and a fabulous dinner at Mo's: A Place for Steaks.....we knew that this was the start of something serious.  In our year and a half of dating we went on several fabulous trips including......

New Orleans in August of 2009...this is in front of Harrah's.

Las Vegas in December of 2009.....after an amazing dinner at The Paris Hotel.

Playa Mujares near Cancun in April of 2010

And our best trip, Washington DC for the 4th of July in 2010.....

Travel is a significant theme in our relationship and something that we hope to continue.  For 2011 we are so excited to spend a fabulous honeymoon in French Polynesia.  We will spend 9 days in Tahiti, Moorea, and Bora Bora.  But first the wedding....actually the engagement! See next post! :)

Welcome to My Blog!

I have thought about this so many times.  I have started this blog so many times. I have worked on a cute header so many times......you get the picture.  I am so excited to start this blog and share the next five months of wedding planning!  I cannot wait to highlight my awesome vendors as we countdown until the big day! :) October 8 will be here so soon!  CAN NOT WAIT! :)