as long as we both shall live.

all right! the last excessive wedding photo-tastic post. surely a relief for us all. well, okay, to be completely honest i can't look back through these photos without cheesing like. . . well. . . like i am in every single one of them. i had a really clear picture of how i wanted our wedding to look and feel - i mean, a wedding is pretty much one big party combining all things i love to do: paper crafts, food, playing dress up - and it really did turn out pretty perfectly. of course, i probably would have felt that way no matter what, but i'm very grateful to sam, and to both of our families, for letting me do this the way i wanted. it was a pretty sweet party.




oh, the balloons. i had wanted to hang a million streamers inside the tent, but the (very kind, i should mention) tent guy said no way - the dye from the streamers comes off in the tent on humid days. fair enough - how about balloons? as many as you like, he told me. and how. i bought 700-some odd balloons and my dad, little brother and brother-in-law filled every single one of them on the morning of the wedding. i'd had this picture in my head of balloons filling the roof of the tent, with the ribbons hanging down, kind of streamer like - of course, the balloons all quickly migrated to the 3 highest points in the tent and stayed there, but at least i still had my ribbons! . . . until the wind kicked up a bit.



yeah. . . goodbye, balloons. we managed to rescue about 75% of them but lots got away - which made for beautiful photos but possibly also some dead birds, which i felt pretty terrible about. the whole idea was that the ribbons would make 'em easy to grab down and hand out at the end of the night, so they wouldn't escape. thankfully i have an unusual number of extremely tall friends and family, so we tied them all down for the remainder of the night.

first dance jam! sam and i are both huge kinks fans - one of our first road trips together, we heard an album neither of us knew playing in a record store and bought it from the guy on the spot. it turns out to be a fan-club only album and is absolutely my favorite of theirs - the song we danced to is the first track, appropriately titled "until death us do part." (you can listen to it here.)



oh, we got fancy, it was just to quick to be captured on film. or something.


we served locally brewed beer by the keg (and, uh, a few bud lights for the discerning drinker and also had our favorite bottles of red and white wines; this banner hung over the walkway that the wedding party, um, walked down, and was made by the sweet caitlin.
cheers!

after dinner (mussels, corn on the cob, and lots of barbecue - chicken, ribs, and salmon,) we rounded everyone up for the battering of the piñata - just one of the many ways in which my wedding resembled the birthday party of an eight year old. i made it waaaaay too big without really thinking, but my sister and mom decorated it and it turned out pretty awesome, like a big ol' sun. i'd thought about trying to make it heart shaped - love! - but the idea of beating a heart until it burst seemed kind of wrong.





it took three people and two good whacks (one of sam's groomsmen, johannes, claimed 'piñata controller' as one of his skills, and i tell you what, he did not lie,) but it broke right in half and everyone snagged candy, those boxing-balloon thingies, and army men. and one friend turned the discarded piñata into a headress. a true visionary.



friends!

we cut the cake. . .




. . . which i threw into sam's mouth AND HE CAUGHT because we are a TEAM! and he fed me a piece very gently which i appreciated. high fives. then. . . dancing!



my dad and i danced to "do you realize" by the flaming lips, and sam and his mom to csny's "our house." my dad and i were THIS CLOSE to just busting a move to "burning down the house" by the talking heads (an old family favorite) but we realized that the message ("burning down the house" right before "our house"? "burning down. . . our house"?) was questionable.




jammin' out with my ma & ma


i'm fairly certain that i am shouting "shout." you know the song.

and that was it! our dj was supposed to leave at 10:30, but we kept slipping him $50s and he ended up staying until about midnight. the photographer left at 10 or so, but beyond this there was some pretty insane dance moves from my friend john, sparklers, bubbles, and lots more drinking. . .

on a more wholesome note, i leave you with some gratuitous pete pictures (cutest baby ever!) and one of my favorite portraits of me and my handsome husband.




clichéd or not, it was the happiest day of my life, and i am the luckiest lady i know.

weekend in [someone else's] pictures

hi there! i had an absolutely perfect weekend, if you discount the hangover i nursed most of sunday. here it is, in pictures.




friday evening me, sam, his brother & girlfriend went to see holly golightly in williamsburg after stuffing our faces with meat & cheese at our apartment. and lots of wine.

saturday morning we woke up surprisingly early (well, like 9:30, early for me,) and i made us soufflés, fruit salad, and chicken apple sage sausages and french pressed coffee for breakfast, than wiggled into comfy clothes and ridiculous shoes and headed off to my bridal shower.






one of my best friends and bridesmaids, rachel, told me she was throwing a bridal shower for me, and i wasn't sure what to expect - but it was absolutely perfect. can you imagine if people are throwing a party in your honor, and their idea of doing so is to bring together the best people you know, with the most beautiful, delicious food and pastries, gorgeous, homemade drinks, flowers everywhere, and asking everyone to wear their "audrey finest"? i have never been so touched and flattered in my life. needless to say i was drunk my about 6 pm. which didn't stop me from. . .



duck fat toast, tecate and tequila shots from fatty cue in williamsburg. truly, and i'm not proud of this, but i barely remember being here; apparently i dropped my food on the floor a lot and repeatedly told the bartender i was getting married. he was charmed enough to give us all free shots throughout the evening, which was sweet, but really probably not the best response to the girl who can't hold on to her ribs.



sunday we woke up early to say so long to sam's brother and his lady, and stopped off for donuts at dough before i headed back to bed in hopes of relieving my pounding headache. (it didn't work.) instead i chowed down on leftover chinese food, called my mom and had a nice long mother's day chat, and then made sam and i dinner



and then we headed to the movies, to catch an old favorite of mine, that sam had never seen -






harold and maude.

and that was my weekend! how was yours? happy belated mother's day to all the moms out there!

and happy birthday to my own dear mother, the proximity of which to mother's day means a curse of combo presents for most of her life. i'm sorry mom! i love you a ton!

xo audrey

sparklemotion

good morning! i hope everyone is feeling chipper and well-rested as we face the day before the day before the weekend. obviously, i'm counting down the days.

last night my friend came over and we ate popcorn, sipped bellinis, and just chatted about life. somewhere along the way i threw together dinner for us, which was tasty, colorful, and just happened to match today's outfit.





beet & heirloom tomato orzo

i'm not sure when i started cooking orzo as if it's risotto, but it works really well and i think it's a lot easier to get the texture you want from it.

about 1 1/2 cups orzo
1 large beet, roasted in the oven until soft, peeled, and cubed
2 small heirloom tomatoes, cubed
a couple of pinches of tarragon
about 2 cups of chicken stock (add as needed)
1 T butter
salt to taste
about 2 oz goat cheese (half a small log)

melt the butter on medium heat in a large pan, and add the tomatoes. toss them around a bit, then add the orzo; let it brown a tiny bit in the pan, stirring it around, then add about a cup of chicken stock and turn the heat down to low. let it simmer, stirring occasionally, until the liquid is almost gone; taste it and add more chicken stock if still al dente (which it should be.) add the tarragon and continue to cook on low, tasting and adding chicken stock occasionally, until the liquid is almost gone and you have the texture from the pasta you want. add the beets and cook for another minute or two; add salt and goat cheese, stir to coat the pasta, then take off the heat and serve. voila!





after dinner we played dress-up in my closet for a little while, and ashlee pulled out this dress that i haven't worn in ages; it's inspired me to do some diving back into my closet, because it is jam-packed with gems that i have completely forgotten exist.

dress: h&m
scalloped slip: thrifted
tights: c/o stylefind
shoes: thrifted

i feel like a modern-day flapper in this outfit! i love it, although it's the first sunny morning in ages and when i got on the bus this morning the light kept hitting my dress and sending blinding pink light into everyone's eyes. no one else loved it.

and, i need to take a vote. i think the epic placecards/favors battle comes down to three ideas: little potted plants (probably either a flower or strawberry plants,) little jars of homemade jam or curd, or little bottles of home-infused olive oil. i love the plants idea, and i think strawberry plants would be so pretty and fit in with everything else really well, but lots of people are traveling for the wedding and probably wouldn't be able to take the plant with them; of course, lots of people probably have no interest in infused olive oil or jam, either. help!

xo audrey

l is for the way you look at me

good afternoon! i spent the first hour or so at the office repairing a co-worker's cashmere sweater, which had sprung quite the hole. he brought me a cute little sewing kit and looked at me with puppy dog eyes and asked if i could fix it, so i happily obliged. it's funny - i'm the only girl in an office full of 20-something boys, and probably the youngest one here, but i order the groceries and make the coffee and tidy up, and sitting at my desk darning his sweater this morning, i think i felt more like a mom than ever in my life.

but i'm here now! i started a tumblr yesterday (follow me and i'll follow you!) which somehow started me on a quest to find a girl whose wardrobe remix i became obsessed with on flickr a few years ago - i couldn't remember her name, and spent an embarassing amount of time googling things like "swedish vetrinary student" and "cute swedish fashion flickr" to find her, before finally going back to the earliest days of this very blog to find i'd posted about her right at the beginning: piksi. she's no longer active on flickr, which is a shame, but you can still find lots of her cute outfits if you google her, and my outfit for today was inspired by her. i wasn't thrilled with this photo (taken immediately post hair-fluff), but decided to use it, alongside this quote from another swedish beauty, elin: "This is what I look like today, but happy of course. It’s just that my smile never looks very natural when I take the pictures myself."





top: dress from dalaga
skirt: thrifted, vintage united colors of bennetton
tights: c/o stylefind
shoes: vintage, thrifted
brooch: my grandma's old clip on earring
belt: thrifted
purse: thrifted

after spending most of my last week planning and cooking elaborate meals, my return to brooklyn has been a sad snap back to reality. when i worked at the bakery, i was always home by 4:30 pm, and being around food all day i'd spend much of my morning mentally preparing that evening's dinner as i whisked egg whites or sifted flour. now that i have a normal-person job again, my wardrobe is rejoicing, but my whisking arms ache to be used. it's just an adjustment, i guess; i get home much later now, more like 7 or 7:30, so i need to change my cooking style to be a little less, well, involved. no more do i really have time to make pasta from scratch for dinner that evening, or marinate pork belly for that supper's ramen. planning ahead is key, or just keeping it simple. on top of that, though, i've come home for the last few nights to a mess of envelopes, ribbons and cards on the table - my wedding invitations, not yet completed, have occupied my hands for the last two evenings instead of a wooden spoon or chef's knife. i'm hoping tonight i'll be able to lick my last stamp and copy my last address and be done with them, and back to fixing my man his dinner, but eating takeout the last two nights has been rough. okay, i'll stop complaining.

tonight i'm hoping after popping all the invites in the mail, sam and i will celebrate by seeing a movie. i'm thinking 8 women.

happy hump day!

xo audrey

go green

good morning! i had a nice, restful (for the most part) weekend after the madness that was last week, which was exactly what i was hoping for. friday night i ran home, changed into jeans, and headed to the bar across the street to watch the uconn/syracuse game with sam; we made it through the first half before we decided we needed better food than our local mexican/chinese place could offer, so hurried across brooklyn during halftime to arrive at fatty cue, one of our favorite places to make complete pigs of ourselves. we planted ourselves at the bar and were probably the only people there who were actually watching the game as we gorged ourselves on two different kinds of ribs (pork and lamb,) toast with rendered fat for dipping, brisket bao, and tecate. we won our game, finished our beers, and headed home to bed.

saturday morning i woke up at a semi-reasonable hour and set about the arduous task of cleaning my room. now that i'm able to wear what i want to work every day, my floor is really suffering; the early morning try-on-and-discard is a terrible habit that i haven't been able to break in 25 years. i finally got it spiffed up, hemmed up a pair of jeans i picked up on friday (flares! for the first time since high school,) and then sam scored us a decent pair of tickets to the game that night at madison square gardens, so we grabbed a slice on the road and headed up to the insanity that is a building full of college basketball fans. i've never been super into basketball myself, but i've realized that i just like watching games of any kind, and once i start to learn about the players i'm pretty much hooked. sam graduated from uconn a few years ago, so with the knowledge he imparts about the players, i'm jumping out of my seat with the best of them within the first few minutes. they won this game too (the first team to win five games to become big east champions, if anyone's counting,) and once again we dragged ourselves home and promptly fell asleep.

yesterday we had brunch plans to meet a bunch of friends, one of whom recently moved to london; eggs benedict, about 8 cups of coffee, and 2 of rosé. sam and i headed back to brooklyn, caught a matinée, and then i finally sat down and started working on our wedding invites, which are (hallelujah) almost done!






top: lilla p
skirt: quail
tights: ?
shoes: UO with poofs by ban.do
sweater: gap
necklace: ebay

you can win this shirt! a perfect color & cut for spring. it is so comfy, so versatile - you can't tell here but it's nice and long, such a flattering cut. all you have to do is leave a comment, any comment!, AND let me know that you're following lilla p on twitter and have liked them on facebook. i'll let this contest go for a week, and announce the winner next tuesday.


today my plans include: eating nothing but salad after a completely gluttonous weekend, and [hopefully] finishing wedding invitations and starting to put them in the post.

hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!

xo audrey