Summer shows

Gone are the days of boring television during the summer. I remember when there was nothing on during the warmer months. Now there are a plethora of shows and here are some of my favorites:

So You Think You Can Dance

So much talent and so many different styles of dance.

Keeping Up with the Kardashians

It’s obviously scripted, but still fun to take a peek into their world

The Bachelorette

Each season I swear that I’m over it and then get sucked right back in. I have to admit that Ashley is uber-annoying and I’m only half paying attention every week.

Real Housewives of New Jersey

Total guilty pleasure, though shows like this and Jersey Shore give the Tri-State area a bad name.

True Blood

Three words: Eric. Bill. Jason

Entourage

The last season. Tear.

What are you watching this summer?

Weekend recap

I’ve been so busy (hence my lack of blogging) and decided that enough was enough. This was a weekend to relax and get some fun back in my life.

Friday, we made a quick mall run and then hit Arby’s for dinner. We stayed in the rest of the night and relaxed. Just what I needed after a long week.

Saturday, Geof and I went to Spice for dinner and I got my usual Indian dish (Chicken Tikka Masala). It was so good, as always. From dinner we went to the movies to see X-Men: First Class. It was really good and kept my attention the entire film. I’m not into comic books, but have seen all of the other X-Men movies and it was interesting to see the backstory on Professor X and Magneto. Sorry if I sound like a huge nerd right now, but I love superhero-ish movies. Hugh Jackman also made a cameo which was a nice little surprise. Jennifer Lawrence played the young Mystique and I’m realizing more than ever how absolutely gorgeous she is. Kevin Bacon also played a great bad guy. There really aren’t enough good things to say about this movie.



Chicken Tikka Masala



Sunday, our friends Kristen and Dan came over and we headed down to World Café Live in the city to see The Daylights and The Parlotones. We met up with our friends Emily and Jen and all had a really nice time. We first saw The Daylights on the Vh1 Best Cruise Ever and became fans there. It was nice to see them again and they sounded fantastic. The Parlotones are a band from South Africa and they were great as well. It was the last night of their tour together, so both bands played plenty of pranks on one another during their sets.


Geof and I with Ran from The Daylights


The Parlotones

Monday I took the day off and Kristen and I went to the pool. Pure relaxation!

My Wedding, M-Z

Thank you so much for your sweet comments on my last wedding post and here I am wrapping it up! I have to say, it’s been fun taking a walk down memory lane considering that we’re going on 3 years as husband and wife.

Music

The music at our ceremony was traditional and nothing out of the ordinary.

Our wedding party was introduced to Sexy Back by Justin Timberlake and we walked in to Crazy in Love by Beyonce and Jay-Z.

Our first dance was to the song Stolen by Dashboard Confessional.

The DJ company we hired was so good and kept everyone dancing all night long.


First dance

Newlyweds

You bet!



Old, New, Borrowed, Blue

I wasn’t crazy about this tradition, but went along with it anyway.


I did love my monogrammed garter!

Photography

Hiring Cindy Guessford was the best decision we made throughout the whole process. She was incredible to work with and I’m so impressed with what a great job she did shooting our wedding.


I love this picture of our engagement pictures. We used this as our guestbook.

Question Popping

Geof proposed to me at Longwood Gardens two days before Christmas. It was a magical night. The whole proposal story is here.


Fountains at Longwood

Reception

Our reception was held at Drexelbrook. It was a beautiful venue and I loved the ballroom our reception was in. They treated us like royalty



Shoes

I went with an ivory d’orsay pumps from Liz Rene.



Trash The Dress

I was all about doing this and kind of lost interest. I guess I could still do it if I wanted to. I had a whole plan to go to the beach and get in the ocean with my dress.

Unique

Details were very important to me. For favors, we had candy apples to fit in with the whole fall theme from our favorite place, Linvilla Orchards. We also had a candy buffet, which everyone raved about.





Vows

We went with the traditional vows. We both would have been too nervous to recite our own.



Wedding Woes

The Pastor admonishing our photographer in front of everyone was pretty bad, but now we all laugh about it. Full story here.

X-Rated

Eww!

Young Kids

We only had a flower girl (my little cousin). She was the cutest!



Zzzz

Our wedding and reception were on a Friday night and it was more of a party atmosphere in my opinion. Saturday was spent relaxing with our family and then Sunday we left for our honeymoon!



Thank you so much for reading!

Summer Beauty Essentials

It’s almost summer and about that time to give our beauty routines a facelift. I don’t know about you, but as soon as the warmer temps hit, I’m ready for flip flops with pastel pedis and glowing skin.

Here are some of my beauty besties for summer:

Summer Beauty Besties by Jules7127 on Polyvore.com

MAC Cremesheen Glass in Fashion Scoop – I love the Cremesheen formula from MAC because it’s not sticky and this is the prettiest pale pink that looks good alone or on top of lipstick.

Bobbi Brown Bronzer in Golden Light – This is a great all-around bronzer and the matte finish works really well for me on my lighter skin.

Essie Nail Polish in Turquoise & Caicos – Just about any pink or pastel will do, but I especially love this color from Essie. It’s the prettiest shade of blue and reminds me of a tropical getaway. I love it on my toes.

EOS Lip Balm in Lemon Drop w/SPF 15 – These balms are not only fun because of the shape, but they also work really well at keeping lips soft and protecting against the sun.

Hawaiian Tropic Shimmer Effect After Sun Moisturizer in Coconut Papaya – This lotion is great after a day at the pool or the beach. It hydrates, smells amazing and gives a nice sheen. It looks especially good on your legs with summer dresses.

Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Body Mist Sunblock, SPF 30 – This is hands down the best SPF I’ve ever used. It doesn’t have that typical sunscreen scent and it applies evenly and lightly.

Garnier Fructis Wonder Waves Wave-Enhancing Spray – Want summer beach waves? This is your new best friend. I love this and have been using it for two years. It gives natural looking waves like you’ve spent a day at the beach.

Estee Lauder Bronze Goddess Perfume – This seriously smells like summer in a bottle. I can’t even describe it. It’s somewhere between an exotic beach, coconuts and citrus/floral. If you see this in your local department store…smell it. It’s amaze-balls and already sold out online (last time I checked).

Bare Minerals Glimmer Eyeshadow in Nude Beach – Mineral products are great in the summer because they give a sheer wash of color and don’t feel too heavy. This is a beautiful, universally flattering shade for all over your lids. Just throw on some mascara and you’re good to go!

Do you love any of these products as much as me? Are there some that you’d like to add to the list?

My Wedding, A-L

The fabulous Meghan of My Perfect Compilation Tape (don’t you just love that name?) had this on her blog and I couldn’t help but play along.

For those that don’t know, Geof and I met in April of 2005 through online dating. I had a good run of losers in my life and was ready for a good guy. I honestly feel blessed and so lucky to have a wonderful man like him in my life. I know that’s an incredibly cliché thing to say, but it really is the truth.

We were engaged in December of 2006, bought our house in April of 2007 and were married in October of 2008. Our wedding day was absolutely beautiful and something I’m so proud of. Everything came together exactly as I wanted it to and I married the love of my life!

Attending:

118

Bridesmaids:

I had four bridesmaids, one of which was my cousin and the other 3 are friends.



Cake:

I got carried away with this! We had two cakes. One regular cake and one baby cake that was a replica of the larger cake to display on the sweetheart table. I was so impressed with how this turned out and the cake was delicious.


Big Cake


Baby Cake

Dress:

My dress was an ivory, strapless, A-line dress from Ella Rosa. I loved it and had tried on so many that I never thought I’d find the one. I loved my train and how it bustled. The dress shop I purchased it from could not have been better from the service to the price.



Engagement:

I did a post on my engagement story here. It was seriously like a fairy tale and that day stacks right up there with my wedding day. Seriously. We were engaged for a year and half. It gave me plenty of time to plan.


The night we got engaged right before he popped the question!

Flowers:

My bouquet was pretty traditional and consisted of lots of roses and some stephanotis. I also had some pretty crystals in my bouquet to really make it pop. The bridesmaids had colorful fall bouquets and I love how they turned out.





Groomsmen:

Geof had 4 of his buddies in the weeding party. The pic I’ve posted only has 3. There’s a story behind that here and it's a funny one.



Honeymoon:

We had a pretty traditional Honeymoon and stayed at The Royal in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. We relaxed a ton by the swim-up bar and met some other great couples that were honeymooners too. The highlight of our trip was going to Xcaret for the day. We went snorkeling, then swam with the dolphins and caught the Mayan show that evening.


The view from our balcony. We even had a Hammock out there. I remember reading a little bit of Twilight out there everyday.



Invitations:

I loved everything about our invites. They were custom designed by Allison Barnhill. She created a pretty fall motif and carried it through all of our wedding related paper goods.


Our invitations!


This was at the top of our invites on the inside


Pretty paper goods for the reception

Justice of the Peace:

We were married by Pastor Richard at Saint Matthew.



Keepsakes:

I kept a ton all of the important stuff and sold the rest on The Knot. The Trash to Treasure board is amazing for that!

Ladies Night:

My bachelorette weekend will go down as one of the best times ever! My bridesmaids planned a weekend away in Atlantic City. The main party night consisted of a great dinner with the boys at The Continental, after which we went our separate ways to really get the festivities started. The girls took me to a fun show at Showboat and then we went to Mixx at The Borgata to end the night.


So much fun!

I’ll be doing M-Z soon, so stay tuned for that!

Man Candy Monday – Alexander Skarsgård

My weekend consisted mainly of work, work and more work. Instead of boring you with a lame recap, I thought I’d play along with Leeann for Man Candy Monday. Looking at gorgeous men is the perfect way to start the week if you ask me.

This week is inspired by the latest cover of GQ. I was checking out some mags when I saw one of my favorite Hollywood hunks gracing the cover, Alexander Skarsgård.


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Birth Name:
Alexander Johan Hjalmar Skarsgård

Date of Birth:
August 25, 1976

From:
Stockholm, Sweden

Known For:
Acting. Best known for his role as vampire Eric Northman on True Blood

Relationship Status:
Dating Kate Bosworth

Are you with me on this one ladies?

NuMe Giveaway Winner!!

Thank you to everyone that entered the NuMe Giveaway. NuMe used Random.org to draw the winner and there were a total of 69 entries:

Min: 1
Max: 69
Result: 5

The winner is...

mrs.mfc

Congrats!! Please email me your info.

This week has been insanely busy and I hoped to get back to blogging on a regular basis. That's not going to happen and I will catch you next week.

Happy {almost} Friday and enjoy your weekend!

If You Seek Amy

I’m delighted to announce that my sweet and incredibly awesome friend Amy has started a blog called Notes From Anywhere But Here. You’ve definitely heard about her before. Geof and I met Amy and her husband, Chad last year on the VH1 Best Cruise Ever and have stayed in touch ever since. We also got to cruise together again this year. She’s my Midwest Sister from another Mister and I promise that she will keep you entertained.

Please head on over and say "Hello". You won’t regret it!

Today is also the last day to enter my NuMe giveaway. It will close at midnight.

Weekend recap

Friday I took the day off and our friends Stephanie and Tracy from Maryland came up for the evening. We went to happy hour at The Deck for a bit and then headed down to The Mann Center in the city for The Script concert. We got these tickets weeks ago and found out that SafetySuit was recently added to the tour. You all know they’re my favorite band, so to get to see both was an awesome plus. Some of our other friends were at the concert and Dawn and Stacy had extra tickets in better seats so we moved down to be with them. The weather could not have been better for a show at an outdoor venue and seeing both bands took me right back to a few weeks ago when we saw them on the VH1 Best Cruise Ever. After the show we waited around and got to see the guys from The Script. They’re so down to earth and nice, especially for being as popular as they are.


Tracy, Stephanie, Geof and I at The Deck


Us with Danny from The Script

Saturday, Geof and I went to Linvilla Orchards for the Strawberry Festival. The weather was nice and not too hot. We went to feed the deer and then took a hayride out to the strawberry fields to roll up our sleeves and get to picking. We only picked the best and made it a nice afternoon out of it. No matter what season it is, I love spending time at Linvilla.


Strawberry Festival

Sunday, we got my mom and went to the movies to see Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides in 3D. I loved it and it’s probably my favorite movie of the summer season so far. I hope this ignites a new series in the Pirates franchise as the movie certainly left it open for more. I also loved Penelope Cruz as the leading lady.


On Stranger Tides

After the movies, we went to Pinocchio’s and then headed and caught some of the MTV Movie Awards. Every year that I watch, I cringe little more and it makes me feel so old, yet I continue to tune in.