coming to california is always so much better when this guy comes with me.
tomorrow my not-so-little-anymore brother is getting married and we could not be more excited for him and his lovely bride. i love all weddings, but i especially love weddings of the people closest to me.
see you next week with lots of photos and posts (hopefully)!
during memorial day weekend, my sister and i threw a bridal shower for our brother’s beautiful fiancé taylor. it was an amazing non-stop weekend and we also went out for her bachelorette party! (plus my sis managed to sneak in a surprise mini engagement party for me with my best friends from high school!)
for taylor’s shower, we went with a “CAbi” theme since taylor is a consultant for the clothing company. everything was pink and feminine and very theme oriented (i.e. we had peach bellinis called “cabi-llinis”). we loved planning all of the little details and we are so excited to gain this gorgeous girl as our sister in 2 weeks! she’s a special one, that girl. well done, brother.
[photo taken on my iphone during my last trip to LA]
first of all – thank you all so much for your sweet comments on our engagement photos! second of all – i am SO excited for this weekend! i am jetting off to CA again right after work and it is going to be a whirlwind three days celebrating my lovely soon-to-be sister in law with a bridal shower and a bachelorette party! my sister and i (with the help of our amazing mama) have been hard at work planning her shower for the past few months and i have been designing up a storm. i can’t wait to show you all a few of the things i’ve been working on after this weekend! happy memorial day!
photo credit: the style eater
oh my goodness. dress shopping at monique lhuillier was a DREAM. COME. TRUE. i’ve been a long-time admirer/obsessor of her dresses and to be able to actually try on monique’s (we’re obvs on a first name basis now) dresses was unreal. it was our first appointment of the morning and the whole experience felt like it was out of a movie (i swear i’m not being dramatic). the boutique itself is incredibly beautiful. her dresses are absolutely gorgeous. AND my stylist/fitter was the sweetest thing ever. she made the whole experience so enjoyable and i highly recommend asking for rachel if any of you in the LA area have a fitting at ML.
lovely was also on my MUST-GO-TO list after i saw it being featured on a few wedding blogs. this place is absolute bridal boutique perfection. their bathroom was even the cutest thing ever. i had another really sweet stylist named whitney and we even got to meet the adorable sarah seven who was there for her trunk show!
i tried on so many gorgeous dresses that day (and the next day) but didn’t find the ONE. i loved different parts of each dress and had this perfect visual in my head…but i honestly had no idea i would be so picky. by the end of the weekend i decided to design my own dress! something i never ever thought i would do, but something i am now totally excited about! my mom is going to sew it which makes it even more special and i cannot wait to see my sketches come to life and have a completely custom wedding dress.
ive been wanting to go to LA for a weekend to go wedding dress shopping with my mom. i feel like you only try on wedding dresses once in your life and it’s a pretty special thing that i wanted to do with her by my side. late last week, my parents spontaneously booked me a flight out to LA for the weekend (they are too good to me, thanks mom & dad!). that gave me two days to book appointments all over los angeles at several bridal shops. It proved to be the MOST perfect weekend for dress shopping because it was the Monique Lhuillier trunk show (my all time favorite wedding dress designer!!) AND the Sarah Seven trunk show at Lovely (the CUTEST bridal boutique ever)! two of my best friends dropped all of their plans for the day and came with my mom and me for some really sweet girl time and dress trying on. i’m a zombie this week after such a jam-packed, exciting weekend + flying back and forth across the Pacific literally within 36 hours, but it was so so worth it! [more to come this week re: wedding dresses!]
i also instagrammed a lot while we traipsed across LA…for more weekend pics, see my insta feed @jayadores!
after our lunch and a successful shopping trip down state street (i scored a sweet bag and some sunglasses at urban outfitters. i miss that store! hawaii reallyyy needs to get an urban and an anthropologie. those online shipping fees just aren’t cutting it for me.), we met up with scottee and her sparkly tom’s for ice cream at the famed mcconnell’s! love that girl. and that ice cream. call me a creature of habit, but i’m pretty sure this trip mirrored all the same stops as my last trip there in may. before we got ice cream though, reis and i walked across the street to the daily grind, quite possibly my ALL-TIME favorite coffeeshop in california. the coffee is to die for, their scones are out of this world, the shop is in a super cute area downtown, and it’s across the street from an ice cream shop. what more could you want?
this day pretty much rocked. i loved every second. being back in santa barbara just makes me a happy girl. plus reis. plus my whole family. plus good food and shopping. yeah, can’t go wrong with that combo.