Dressing Up

As I mentioned in my last post, Lily and Matt's fabulous nuptials kicked off my wedding season this year. It was a flawless event at the Boston Seaport Hotel, and the bride left no detail behind. If I had to pick one favorite detail of this spectacular event is was Lily's absolutely swoon-worthy dress.

There hasn't been a wedding so far where I haven't loved the bride's dress pick-- it always seems to fit the bride's and setting's personality. I have loved some of the simpler dresses, like that worn by Alex last summer; but at the same time, I always adore the big fabulous dresses with trains and the whole nine-yards, which I call "the cupcake dress" (that is not a technical term). It doesn't fit every bride, but for those who can handle it, I say embrace it. It's your day and it's probably the only day you will be able to wear a dress that you could hide people under (unless you're into victorian reenactments or something).

Clearly it was the perfect choice for Lil. So perfect in fact that even Vera Wang decided it should be on her blog :)

Leslie and Ben's Dream Wedding

Me, Allison, Andy (our boss) and the bride!

My wedding season is now going into full effect, and was kicked off this past weekend with Leslie's wedding. Horray! It was the classiest affair I've ever witnessed- a spectacular evening at the Mandrin Oriental. And though it was one of the largest weddings' I've witnessed, it was also the most intimate and confirmed my obsession with Jewish weddings. The Rabbi spoke at length about Les and Ben's relationship, how they met, and then made everyone break out the tissues by reading love letters they had written to each other. Between that and her dad quoting "Father of the Bride" in his opening speech, the evening gave my waterproof mascara a run for it's money.

The band was a hit, the setting magnificent and the view stunning, but the ear-to-ear smile on Leslie's face from the moment she walked down the aisle until the very last dance was the highlight of the evening. It was a glorious NYC kick-off and made me more excited than ever to dance my way down the aisle next weekend with Alex and Pat in San Diego!

Jen and Hal's Cookie Press Package

Horray! Hal (finally) popped the question to my little, Jen over Christmas break (yes this is delayed, sorry). To celebrate their engagement, I created some cookies with this Message-in-a-cookie set that Jen gave me for Christmas. The set comes with individual letters, and you are supposed to slide them into the gingerbread man, snowflake and ordament cookie cutters. However, I just used the individual letters and pushed them by hand into heart cookies (purchased at my Michael's binge)
Pressing in each letter by hand was a labor of love...and it took me more than one "NEJ" and "LAH" to figure out how to make all the words and letters go in the correct direction. They did come out a little off center and imperfect, but the result was still pretty good for my first try, if I do say so myself ;)

I then packaged them up in a little cookie box which I had in my craft drawer, duh, and sent them off. I added the card below that I made with my new embossed diamond ring craft punch (Martha Stewart Crafts at Michaels, obvi), and it was quite a crafty little engagement surprise.

I'm definitely going to experiment some more with these imprinted cookies, since I really don't think I've seen them before. Perhaps there is a market for them? I could call it CookiePress Perhaps?

Fall Treats

I again got on quite a craft kick this weekend, which was just in time for the visit of Kate Daly, my former SF roomie turned art teacher. I was inspired by my maple leaf punch to punch out some fall colors and make some cards:

The great thing is all you need is a couple colors of construction paper and this punch. I made the brown leaves by punching through an old paper bag. Possibilities are endless! Maybe they'll be one in your mailbox soon ;)

In preparation for Lara's shower, Kate and I also made a couple wedding shower cards....My concept, Kate's creation:
And after a fabulously exhausting day on Saturday watching Lara ooooo and awww over every kitchen appliance you can imagine, I played bake with whats in your fridge and whipped up some tasty carrot cupcakes. I used this recipe but cut it in half, didn't add nuts and baked for only 25 minutes in cupcake trays. Highly recommend it.

Wedding season, completed.

This weekend I headed out to Tarrytown to watch my 3rd (yikes) Winsor friend of the summer lock it up. Despite mediocre weather, Erica and David's wedding was a huge success, thanks to many a DIY detail.

Highlights included the ceremony turned comedy hour with running commentary from the Rabbi: "Do you come here free of reservations?" without letting Erica answer she proceeded "Why that's a silly question isn't it!"

The choice of food was also incredible with mac and cheese balls (I'm going to try to replicate these at home) as apps, and I much prefered ice cream sundae and cupcake bar in place of traditional cake...especially because she gave everyone their own scoop! Erica was the most calm and happy bride, carefree as can be- which of course was the best part of all! And that's it-- no more wedding posts (at least til January).

AppleBOMB wedding

If last weekend was the perfect west coast wedding, this weekend was the perfect east coast wedding. Amanda, my high school bf, married Bryce Appelbaum in an oh so lovely Newport, R.I. She looked stunning (are you getting sick of me saying that about every bride?) and I can honestly say she was THE most smiley bride I ever did see-- her cheeks must still be burning.


I third wheeled it with Nev and Graham all weekend-- which was heavenly. I may be the only Schwartz I know that had never been to a Jewish wedding until this weekend. This was a great first-- loved the personal aspects of the ceremony, and focus on the couple rather than God. And of course, loved the crushing of the glass (video) and the hora. Crazy that the last person I saw up in a chair was probably Amanda on her Bat Mitzvah 13 years ago, and there she was in a wedding dress. Here's a video of her walking down the isle (and yes, you can hear me and Neva sobbing like babies in the background). Full photo library here.