Blog Crush

I bet I'm the only one that hasn't been reading Fashion Squad by Carolina Engman, but I just discovered it. So fresh, bold, colorful. I love everything I'm seeing. Especially the long blond hair, motivation to keep growing mine! Also, this girl's sunglasses collection makes me cry.

I already stalked down the first sunglasses to learn they are an unknown brand purchased at Anthro. Wahhhh.

Dear Darling Calligraphy

Our save the dates are done! Well, they are almost done. I have been obsessed with calligraphy ever since I met my first wedding blog and knew I would somehow incorporate it into our big day. I hired Suzy Lee of Dear Darling to produce our save the date. I will show it to you once it has gone out in the mail and all that good stuff. In the meantime, take a look at her amazing work.

All photos from Suzy's blog.

On a budget? Me too. That is why I commissioned her to make me a digital file and then I take it to my printer and save boatloads of money. The file is still all hand done and goes through several rounds of revisions, scanned and made into a high resolution file for printing!

Some weekend scenes.

Another dreary Saturday and Sunday. Listen up world, that's enough. I can't take this gloom anymore! These blossoms are one of the few pretty things in my backyard right now.

My potting bench has been getting no action and I'm itching to get to work out there. Everything is too soggy though.

There were a few upshots to the weekend, however. They included registering, drinking a tasty bloody mary and going to a birthday celebration. While registering was fun, it did make me feel a little consumer-y and weird. I plan to get over that.

The garnish tells all.

Birthday time. Candle in Italian bread pudding for the birthday boy and one of Jon's groomsmen.

Beer Beer Everywhere

{beer poster}

As of Sunday I have cut beer out of my diet until the wedding. I am allowing myself wine and the occasional bloody mary. Am I crazy? Are the calories in beer all that higher? I tend to think so. A Sierra Nevada Pale Ale has 175 and a glass of wine has around 80. Right now this is a cake walk, but by the time nice spring and summer weather hits I think it's going to kill me. Motivation please!!

The Girls

A lot of the color in weddings come from the bridesmaids outfits and that makes it kind of intimidating to chose what your "wedding colors" will be. I think I toyed with every color out there and was unhappy with all of them until I saw the following weddings. Mismatched dresses in light hues, done! It looks so romantic, the girls still look like individuals and the color isn't so demanding or intense.

Liz and Ryan's wedding by Jason and Anna Photography.

I especially love the mismatched shoes in this photo from
Caroline and Andres' wedding by Edyta Szyszlo Photography.

My only question is where do I find these beautiful dresses? I've scoured the usual places and found some, but I need more choices! (Shopbop, Modcloth, J.Crew, Nordstrom, Macys, Express, Mango, BCBG, Revolve Clothing, Zara)...can you think of other places I'm not looking?

Shabby Apple giveaway!

Welcome to Zucchero, Zucchero's first ever giveaway. I know you are like, what, where am I? I have not really deemed giveaways something I wanted to do unless there is something that I personally would want. And a Shabby Apple dress definitely fits the bill.

I love me some colorful dresses! One of the best things about Shabby Apple is that they aren't afraid of color and no matter what the season, they have tons of colors available. This is important to me especially when deciding on bridesmaids dresses.

Joslyn of Simple Lovely and Naomi of Rockstar Diaries rocking Shabby Apple.

Now the exciting part, you have a chance to win the green dress posted above.
Doesn't it welcome the month of March perfectly?
I have been swooning over the L'amour dress for sometime now.
The perfect frock to get you excited for spring weather! 

All you have to do is leave a comment telling me where you would wear it. 

I will randomly select and email the winner on Friday March 4th at 5pm.

And if you just can't wait to see if you've won, you can use code 
zucchero10off for 10% off anything in their store.

Our winner is Holly! Congrats, I will be emailing you shortly.

My Latest Drugstore Finds

Do you like going to the drugstore? I personally love trolling those aisles. So much that I prefer to go by myself so I don't have to rush. On my last trip, not rushing, I picked up these three guys.

After writing the post on my homemade sugar scrub, I was on the lookout for an oil to make new batches. (And to those who were wondering how the scrub turned out, it was awesome but needed more oil and notsomuch of the olive kind.) This cocoa butter kind is the best! And all you really need for a great scrub is some yummy smelling oil and sugar. That's it. Also this cost about 3 bucks, on sale. The good vitamin E and jojoba oils were higher, around 7 or 8 dollars and I wasn't ready to commit.

I'm new to the Essie party, I know. But I made it! My local drugstore just started carrying it and I can now finally see what all your girls are talking about. The pretty display stopped me in my tracks and I picked up Clambake. I have to say, I actually love applying this much more than OPI.

Oh, hello 99 cents Nivea creme in a cute tin! So I don't really have moments during the day where I need moisture, and if I do, I use hand lotion. Most of the time, I'm blotting oil off my face. But at 99 cents I couldn't really pass this up.

And beauty bag staples you have that are found at the drugstore?

Peach Season

 {via}

I realized I have never talked about where Jon and I are getting married this summer. I am lucky to be having it at a family private estate that is home to a ranch, organic farm, barn and an old stone winery. Pretty much everything rustic and romantic. On this property is also a little peach orchard.  My cousin has graciously offered to bake peach pies {with the peaches on the property} for our wedding. Even though I don't like pie, it was an easy choice.* Here are a couple things I bought on Etsy today to help decorate the pie table.

* Jon and I will get a tiny cake to cut for the two of us, since I don't eat pie. Some may think I'm crazy for choosing something I don't like, especially with all the wedding blogs telling us to make sure our weddings are reflections of ourselves. But, when someone offers to do something amazingly gracious, it feels really good to check that off the list. And it goes with our theme of local and in season food.

OBSESSED

Jackie | Jamison from Couture Motion on Vimeo.

After seeing this video of Jackie and Jamison's wedding, I cannot stop thinking about it and watching it over and over. The music, the way they look at each other, the cool way she walks 'down the aisle' with her bridesmaids, the way they look at each other, how his family stands next to him, their cute dancing, did i mention how they look at each other?! I could really go on and on. So why don't you just watch it so you know what I'm talking about?

No-3-day-weekend-for-me scenes

Am I the only one that doesn't have Monday off? Boo. Well here is a small look at my primitive 2 day weekend. Started off with Indian food with our friends in our own private booth. You must take off your shoes and you sit on the ground with pillows and everything. It is enclosed with a curtain to boot!

A closer look at the nails. Thanks for all the nice comments. 

They are Sephora by OPI chic prints nail stickers.

The walls are the same color as the amazing chicken tikka masala.

You can't have a bad night with garlic naan bread. 

Plates scraped clean.