Nie Nie Day

I read about the story of a Arizona couple who were severely burned in a private plane crash recently on Snippet and Ink. Stephanie (The Nie Nie Dialogues) is a blogger and in turn has inspired the blogging world to host a silent auction today in support of their recovery costs. I strongly encourage you to bid or donate whatever you can.

Read posts from her family here: http://blog.cjanerun.com/

See the auction items here on Design Mom.

Spring Inspiration

It's hot in Austin, I mean really hot. Too hot to go outside after 10am, let alone host a picnic. I've been thinking of how nice the weather will be in April and was inspired by this board on Snippet and Ink. Isn't it refreshing?

The Dress

This past weekend, Debi and I tried on dresses at Patsy's Bridal in Dallas. As I mentioned earlier, I had a specific dress in mind, the Freesia, by Claire Pettibone. After trying on nearly every Claire Pettibone they had, a very different dress (Lon no clicking that link!), the Etoile, was my absolute favorite. At last! From the moment I put it on it was Love. It is fun and flirty, and felt completely original and modern--fashion forward even. For my dress, I'll need to modify the bodice, reducing the plunging neckline to a more reasonable sweetheart. I'll also need to adjust the bottom - instead of the layers, the dress I tried on had the simple silk adorned with rosettes all the way down. I'm really looking forward to adding my perspective to the dress, who knows what it will end up looking like!

We'll try on more dresses next month, when Mom visits, so I anticipate finding yet another dress to love, but so far, this dress is the one I simply could not take off. If only it weren't $4,000!

Catering!

We met with the on-site caterer this weekend, Julie of Circle C Catering. From the start they've been on top of our list; they came highly recommended, have the best prices and the added benefit of being housed at the Wildflower Center's Cafe.

We tasted four different appetizers and bbq, all of which were totally delicious. We also discussed the layout of the ceremony, cocktail hour and reception. The on site location of the caterer showed its advantage as Julie explained the best way to lay out each area and how guests would actually use each. Finally, I picked out the linens after one glance at the color wheel. We'll have Sea Mist for the table cloths with Ivory napkins folded at each place setting. I loved how relaxing Sea Mist is, especially when paired with Ivory and white. It should go beautifully with the pop of glass vases filled with flowers and candles.

After the tasting, Lon and I discussed the dinner options and are now leaning toward serving the build-it-yourself pasta bar instead. The bbq was delicious but on the heavier side as all bbq is. With the event leaning more toward a garden-party theme, a pasta bar, featuring both pesto and tomato based sauces, two types of pasta, and chicken to add, seems more up our alley. I also liked the idea of serving salad and garlic bread. Now we'll just need to get back there for another taste.

In other news, I realized last week that August 18th brings us to the 9 month mark! I cannot believe how quickly the past 10 months have gone, and now see how soon we'll reach the big day. Scary and exciting!