Week in the Life of a Bride to Be: Tuesday, April 13th

My work space.
{Shot on screen is of the blog where I read about this project.}

Beautiful flower I saw on my walk to a meeting.

Art on campus.

Suki Thai for dinner.

Read Vogue and watched the The September Issue documentary.















Money I found while doing laundry.


















Laundry. Laundry. Laundry. 














 Bedtime.

Tuesday thoughts...

Woke up 6:30 -feeling productive.  What I wore: BCBG gray pencil skirt, white button up shirt, tiered, jade drop necklace {anthropologie}, Tory Burch silver flats.  Venti - with room -americano and a splash of milk, petite vanilla scone, and 7 almonds to start the day.Scheduled happy hour with Kelly at Happy.  Booked flight to Italy for honeymoon and a room at the Hotel Erika in Lake Garda.  My day was saved by booking our honeymoon.  Otherwise, it was a long, long day.

Week in the Life of a Bride to Be: Monday, April 12th

One of my favorite blogs Pink of Perfection posted about Ali Edwards "Week in the life of" project which I fell in love with.  It's easy.  You document every little detail of your life for a week with photos of the most brilliant parts of your day and the most mundane.  Then you create a scrapbook of the photos and mementos from your week, and you can write about it on your blog, if you have one.  I have decided to do both and to expand it to be a week in the life of a bride-to-be.  It is crazy working full time and then some plus planning a BIG wedding.  I decided to do a test run on my final week as a 28 year old.  I plan on refining this project, doing it again the week of the wedding, and in real time.  I don't have many pics for Monday as I decided to do the project on Tuesday of last week.

Here is what a Monday looks like for me:

1. Woke up 6:30am - dreading the work day, I always do on Mondays 
2.  Starbucks stop 
3.  Daily blog reading {great articles on Brazen Careerist and Zen Habits}  
4.  Attended CU Athletics Press Conference {announced new womens basketball coach} 
5.  Returned to office  
6.  Headed out to lunch at Zolo's with two ladies that I work with {very uninteresting business conversation} Yummy chicken sandwhich and fries
7.   Attended training at the Foundation main office {very uninteresting business stuff} 
8.  Sat on a bench near the Boulder Creek and made calls
9.  At my computer until 5pm
10.  Opened a lovely birthday gift from Anthony's sister - gorgeous, three tiered necklace
11.  Walk with Cruddy and Beefy 
12.  Grilled cheese and tomato sandwich for dinner 
13.  Bedtime 10:30 or so
       

29

{Yummy cupcake from my girl Kelly!}

{Gorgeous necklace handmade in Brazil from Anthony and modelled by Beefy Smith.}

{Self-portrait, so I will always remember how i looked at on the first day of my 29th year of life. The very cute scarf that i am sporting is by Vital Industries}

I turned 29 this past Sunday! Can you believe it. I can't. Thank you to all of my amazing family, friends, and coworkers for the kind birthday wishes and lovely gifts. The best thing that happened to me when I was 28...Anthony proposing. The thing I look forward to most in the next year...getting married and going on my honeymoon to Italy. The one thing I hope to perfect...being graceful. With love and gratitude. Natalie.

Save The Date Photo Shoot Outtakes

Quickly, I would like to share some outtakes from our save the date photo shoot.  Now, I have to run to appointments and work.  I much rather blog all day and walk my dog :)  Enjoy!  Ciao, ciao.  Natalie

DIY Save The Dates

I am very excited to share some process shots I took while making the prop for our save the date postcard.  It was a fun, collaborative project for Anthony and me. I had the idea for our save the date from a post on one of the thousands of blogs that I read.  The couple did a postcard, and in the photo they were kissing while each holding a Polaroid shot of the date of the wedding painted on the side of a building.  The Polaroids were in focus with the couple slightly out of focus in the background.  We love postcards, so it was perfect for us to announce our special day in a postcard style.  The first step was to find a unique prop to display our names and wedding date.  I went to a hardware store to see what I could find, and I came across a round piece of plywood.  My vision was to paint the wood yellow and somehow stencil or use paper cutouts of the lettering for our names and date.  Lemon Sorbet by Behr was the color that I used. As I thought about what to do for the lettering, I was worried that paint on paint would look to flat and would not show up well in the photos.  I needed texture.  I then had the idea to find a font that I liked - something scripty but to not too fancy and more on the modern side.  I absolutely love fonts and type setting so it was incredibly intriguing to see what was out there.  I chose Annabel Script.  Then came the tricky part, figuring out how to print the letters out big enough that they filled enough space on the circle.  Here is where Anthony stepped into help.  He set the type in illustrator and scaled it to fit the circle perfectly.  We then had it printed out at Staples on tabloid size card stock.  We both preceded to share the Exacto knife process of cutting the letters out of the paper.  This part took a long time as neither one of us are skilled with the Exacto knife.  It was great team work if I do say so myself.  The final step was to glue down the names and the mini-dots along the edge, which were created with a circle punch.  We used spray mount.  Once the prop was finished we were able to book the photo shoot with our friend and photographer Sharon Wharton.  The morning light in February had been so amazing that we went up to Chautauqua Park to capture the intensity of the morning light on the snow and the Flatirons.  Sharon encouraged us to goof around and be affectionate.  At first I could sense that we both felt awkward, but it probably had more to do with how chilly it was.  There were a couple of shots where Anthony was twirling me around, and he literally looked like I was breaking his back.  I have never laughed so hard at the two of us.  The best shot was of us walking hand in hand down the trail, and Anthony leaning over to give me a kiss. It now graces the cover of our postcard.  We designed the postcard back in illustrator, and had the postcards printed at a local print shop in town.  I hand addressed 156 postcards in a gray art pen and sent them out mid-March.  My plan was to have them in the mail no later than March 1, but we had a few weather delays for the photo shoot that pushed out the mail date.  It was a cool project and a wonderful creative outlet for me.  I hope that all of our guest enjoyed receiving them in the mail. Now, I am on to my handmade wedding invitations.  Ciao, ciao. Natalie      

Easter and Planes.

Happy Easter!  I took a weekend off from wedding planning, so this post will not have much in the way of wedding stuff.  Today, Anthony and I took the most amazing photo at the Fort Morgan airport.  I just had to share it with my readers (hi, Aunt Patty :).  We flew to Fort Morgan from Boulder for Easter dinner at my grandparents.  I got to see my lovely aunts, uncles, and cousins.  Anthony is still trying to figure out who's, who.  I have a big family.  We did the math and 200 of the 355 individuals on our guest list are my family. He'll have a lifetime to figure it out!  As I look at this photo, I am thinking maybe an airplane wedding cake topper?  Ciao, ciao.  Natalie   

Introducing Alan Perry Floral & Event Design.

This post has been a long time coming.  I am thrilled to introduce Alan Perry, the floral and event design company for our wedding.  Scott Alan and Sean Perry are the creative geniuses who are going to bring alive the simple, romantic, and modern look of our wedding.  I had dinner with them last night, and Scott drew his vision for the ceremony canopy.  It gave me chills.  I can hardly wait to see what my wedding day will look like.  Ciao, ciao.  Natalie.  

1.  Photo is from Alan Perry's Facebook page. Click here to see more of their lovely work.