Patrick and I traveled to New York City earlier this month, it was actually my first return trip since moving to San Francisco nearly 2 years ago. My Mother joined me during the week for a few preliminary bridal appointments, I have been scoping out a few styles online and wanted to see things in person while I was in town. We visited the bridal salons at Monique Lhuillier, Bergdorf Goodman, Spina Bride and Lee Petra Grebenau. The rest of the week was filled with old favorites like: eating at Momofuku ramen and Milk Bar, shopping in Soho, seeing the annual fashion exhibit (Heavenly Bodies) at The Metropolitan, afternoon tea at Bergdorfs, vintage shopping at What Goes Around Comes Around, cheese plates and wine at Murray's Cheese Bar, walking around Washington Square Park and brunch at Balthazar. It felt good to be back, almost like we never left! I believe the moral of the story is 2 years is too long to stay away from Manhattan, hopefully we'll make a return trip this spring.
Wedding Planning Update
I thought sharing our new bridal jewels would be a good excuse to give a wedding planning update! Things are coming along, slowly! Patrick and I have began reaching out to wedding planners and potential photographers first. We would love to start things off with a Summer trip to New Orleans to meet with planners and see who we find a good fit with, especially since we will be getting very close with this person and their team over the next year or so.
Next, and what I'm most excited about, is taking a trip back to our old home; Manhattan. There's a lot to accomplish in the city like meeting with a photographer who I've followed for years for an engagement photo session, visiting a few bridal salons I have bookmarked and celebrating with old friends. In the meantime, we are trying to plan a little engagement picnic party here in San Francisco or wine country.
S H O P T H E L O O K
Vintage Wedding Jewelry
There are still days where I need to pinch myself to remember that I am indeed engaged. It feels like forever ago that we were celebrating with friends and family over the holidays after Patrick and I celebrated our 7 year anniversary. We are planning on having a long engagement so that we can enjoy the moment before all the craziness kicks in. With that said, we will most likely start exploring destination venues late this Summer and meeting with wedding planners to get a head start on the process.
Since I am officially engaged, curating the Sweet & Spark Wedding Collection with Jillian has been much more exciting lately. I can't help thinking about what vintage jewelry I want to find for my big day, I might be more excited about hunting for the jewels than finding a dress. I will try to keep wedding updates on the blog without ruining too much of the surprise!
S H O P T H E L O O K
Happy New Year!
This year has been filled with many memories, firsts and new chapters... Patrick and I marked our 1 year anniversary since moving to San Francisco from New York City. So far, the west coast has been an absolute dream. We love the weather, our new friends and new traditions like driving up to wine country for the weekend. With that said, we do miss our Manhattan friends and favorite restaurants dearly and will be planning a trip back to the east coast soon. Thankfully for us, we're close enough to Las Vegas to get our Momofuku fix every now and then :) This year also gave me an incredible career opportunity with Sweet & Spark as lead stylist and brought me closer to my friend and business partner Jillian. We are so excited for what 2018 has in store for the company, stay tuned for many special announcements ahead!
And to top off an otherwise perfect year, Patrick proposed during our 7 year anniversary date night. While home for the Holidays, after a dinner filled with baguettes and soufflés, he took me to the very spot where we shared our first kiss and popped the question. (Ring post coming soon, I'll share more sparkly details then!) Afterwards we went out to celebrate at our favorite dive bar with friends. Our sweetest memory of the entire evening was choosing the exact same songs on the juke box, separately. The last few days we've been busy celebrating and popping champaign bottles with close friends and family and cannot wait to party with all of our friends back home in San Francisco!