Scott's Flowers

We've had the privilege of working with Scott's Flowers, (Chelsea, NYC) for a few years now and can tell you that they're a joy. I woke up this morning to an email from them offering a free bridal bouquet when you book your event with them by the end of the summer. I figured it might be worth investigating for some of our readers...

Knocking Off Early...

That's right, I'm out of here! Tonight I am taking my husband out for a very sentimental date. We're going to see Fleetwood Mac (7th row center baby!) Here comes the moment you find out I'm a little nuts. I'm a bit of a Stevie Nicks fanatic. I grew up listening to her music and fell in love with the way she writes songs. I sported leg warmers and boots as an 8 year old. I think she's the one celebrity who I'd start hysterically shaking like a 13 year old and pass out if I ever met her.

Now here is yet another reason I knew Dade was the guy for me. 8 years ago, he popped the question in the pouring rain at a Stevie Nicks concert. I realize that for some people this might seem a little odd. It wasn't on a gondola ride in Venice, or over a 12 course dinner at The French Laundry ... but it was exactly what I wanted. It was proof positive that he really got me. It was that or holding a boom box over his head blaring Peter Gabriel ala Loyd Dobler which really would have been a close second. So tonight we get to go see Stevie again with a few close friends, and I am declaring work done for the day! However, seeing as printing wedding invites as posters seems to be the new trend, I leave you with some inspiration...

For Our UK Brides

We all love cheap accessories right? Well, if you like in the U.K. you have access to Monsoon, one of my favorite chain stores for finding sparky things. I picked up a couple of fun scarves the last time I was in London (deep sigh ... I miss London.) Well, I found their website recently, and while they don't currently ship to the U.S., I had to share some inexpensive and fun finds that I think could work perfectly for a wedding.

I'm in love with these flower girl dresses. They're like little fairy outfits...

Some of these would make really fun bridesmaid dresses:

This would work for an afternoon garden wedding:

... and doesn't someone feel like mailing this to me? Pretty please? I can work out a trade...

My Crush on Teal and Gold

I've been dying to do a teal and gold color combo invite for a looooong time now. I know they're not the trendy colors of the moment, but when I go through all of those saved photos on my computer, I always find a hefty amount of them lean towards these hues. I guess they're what I would expect to see faded on the walls of some incredible French palace. They define "vintage" for me. Well, I pulled out the photos to clear some room on my hard drive and ended up making a new invite design to add to our collection. Meet Antoinette...

My inspiration...

Tim Walker photos

from Vogue (I think?)

Chinoiserie wallpaper

A board I found long before I labeled all of my photos .... very bad of me, but I had to share.

I'll be adding a few more new invite designs over the next week. Hope you like them!

New Jewelry For Summer

I finally got around to posting some of our new jewelry finds for summer '09 on the website. Here's a sampling:

Lacey Candles

Over the weekend we had some friends over for dinner, and I whipped out a set of candle holders I've been slowly adding to over the last couple of years. Mine are white and grey, and I've bought them a few at a time from Wisteria as well as a few local shops. I fill them with citronella candles and scatter them outside in the Spring and Summer. When they're lit up they look a bit like alabaster. After a couple of cocktails on Saturday night, I realized they would really be gorgeous at a wedding and I found a new source for them at a dirt cheap price...

from Angels Dreaming

Mine lit up

Zgallerie ($9.90 for a set of 2 and 20% off orders over $50)

other good zgallerie finds

I broke down and bought a few of these. So much better than tiki torches...

I'm Feeling Pretty "Stable"

So yesterday was "the" day I'd been dreading for the last couple of weeks. We got results from the first set of scans I've had since finishing the first 2 rounds of IL-2. I spent the weekend freaking out, suddenly convinced that the cancer was basically crawling all over me, and trying to distract myself by planning a vacation. This culminated in me uncontrollably bawling my eyes out while sitting in a theater of children watching "Up" on Monday. Dade had thought the movie would get my mind off of things .... well, not so much.

Yesterday we drove into Boston to Beth Israel to await the news. My blood pressure was 150/110 by the time we got called in to see the doctor and I was literally breaking out in hives. A familiar face from the time I spent in the hospital, Virginia, came in with the radiology report and told us that basically it was "a mixed bag" but there was no bad news. In my last round of scans 8 weeks ago there had been a small nodule in my lungs which was no longer showing up. It's gone. There had also been a "shadow" in my liver which we all assume is a cluster of blood vessels which for some reason is no longer showing up. The tumors which they were really following for the treatment are all stable. They haven't changed at all, but no growth is a positive thing! The only semi-disappointing news is that there "may" be a couple of new small nodes forming right under my skin. The good news with those is that they are easily removable.

Soooooo..... we wait another 4 weeks and do some more scans. We are looking for shrinkage on those. If we get shrinkage, I go back in for another 2 weeks to repeat the entire course of treatment. If I'm still stable, but nothing has actually gotten smaller, we have a talk about whether to repeat the treatment, look for other new treatments on the horizon, or just wait for another 8-12 weeks and rescan. If there has been growth, well then we know it isn't working and go on to another plan. Just knowing that there is another plan out there is a comfort. All in all, it was a good outcome and I woke up today feeling the anxiety fading away. I get to go back to normal for another couple of weeks. Living between scans is an interesting ordeal...

In celebration of all of this, we are actually going to be holding a contest over on weddingbee.com. We're giving away 100 of our new thank you notes (which happen to feature a little bee on them.) Stop by there and enter! It should be up on the site later today.