The Ultimate Day to Night - Office to Bachelorette

Oh hallooooooo, Jeff and I are still living la dolce vita in Italy, so here is another previously scheduled post. I promise we'll be back soon!

So last month, I ended up having to go straight from work to a bachelorette party. I could have changed in the bathroom at work, but it seemed kind of awkward to then have to wander through the office in a tiny outfit and heels. So instead I took a different route:

Layers! I added a maxi skirt and scarf (and then a jacket because it ended up being kind of chilly) and suddenly I could wear this pretty, low-cut romper to work and no one was the wiser. Of course, the hair and makeup may have been a bit of a giveaway ;) This is different than a lot of day to night outfits in that you couldn't see most of my outfit at the beginning, but it was just as easy of a switch as when you change out a pair of shoes or switch handbags. I obviously wouldn't always recommend layering (a layered romper in particular, it adds a fun layer to the whole romper/bathroom issue), but in this case it was the perfect solution. 

Oh, and can we talk about this romper? Normally stretchy waist rompers don't work on me, nor do wrap fronts (which are supposed to be great for bigger busts, but in my case usually end up showing way too much skin) but this one somehow just works. It's great for dressy occasions, but as you can see also works dressed down with a denim jacket (just wear flat sandals instead of heels). 

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Bachelorette Party Gifties

Hey ladies! I've got another bachelorette party-related post for you today.

As you know by now (blah blah blah) I had my bachelorette party in New Orleans last weekend. Traditionally the bride doesn't get gifts for everyone attending the bachelorette party, but I wanted to do a little something something for my girls (and guy!) to say thank you for traveling all the way to NOLA for little old me, so I decided to put together some little gift bags.

I found these adorable gift bags on Etsy from Gold Tinsel Shop and decided to put together some bachelorette "essentials", you know, for all of the shenanigans that were about to go down. I included some custom sunnies, a mini flask, lip balm, Advil, band aids, and Emergen-C. 

The sunglasses were actually my first purchase, I got a white pair for me and pink for everyone else. Don't tell Jeff I told you this, but they were actually his idea. He was looking for gifts for the groomsmen and thought personalized sunglasses would be funny. I stole his idea and ran with it. Sorry groomsmen, no sunglasses for you! These were also from Etsy, from StickyImages.

My initial thought for the gift bags was BOOZE, but I didn't want to just buy a couple of shooters because of the whole liquids on planes thing (turns out it's very easy to get around this - just put them in your ziplock bag with your other toiletries!). So anyway, instead I decided to get these cute little flasks for everyone instead. They were a custom design (also from Etsy) from LaserBeamCreations. The shop also offers pink flasks and created a proof for me with a little tag about the bachelorette party, but I remembered that not everyone likes pink like me (and one of the people coming on the trip was a dude), and thought that if I was getting a little flask for a gift I would much prefer it to not be covered in someone else's name, so I decided to go with a simple fleur de lis. NOLA style. 

Everything just fit in the bags, and they were small enough that I could easily fit them in my bag. Oh, and they were a super hit. Just check us out on Instagram ;)

Have you ever received a gift on a bachelorette party? What did you get?

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All White and Sparkles

Dress - B Darlin

As promised, here's what I ended up wearing for my bachelorette party! Sorry for the low quality photos, it was one of those nights when we thought there was plenty of time to get ready, and then we ended up rushing to hit our dinner reservation, so I had one of my friends snap these real quick before we ran out the door.

You may be noticing that I'm not wearing the dress I shared on Instagram that I was going to wear (I bought it freaking 8 months ago! It's out of stock but you can find a similar one here). I actually decided I love that dress so much that I didn't want to ruin it with a night on Bourbon Street (This one lost quite a few sequins, got spilled on, got rained on, and started turning pink!) so I decided to save it for the rehearsal dinner. Instead I picked up this sequined dress on super sale (I think it's supposed to be a prom or homecoming dress? Whatevs, it fit!) because it was still white and sparkly and fun but I knew I wouldn't care if I ruined it since it was such a good deal. It's weird, normally junior sizes do not work on me because of my bust, but this fit really well. It was a lot shorter than I'm used to these days, but heck, it was my bachelorette party!



We were in NOLA from Friday through the crack of dawn on Monday and were going basically the whole time. We rented a house in Bywater which is next to the French Quarter and kind of a hipster-y neighborhood, so we spent Friday afternoon and night exploring that neighborhood and hanging out. On Saturday we ventured into French Quarter Fest during the day, which was so cool because every time you turned a corner there was another stage with a band playing and people out in the streets dancing. That night is when we got all dolled up to hit Bourbon Street, where I found some hurricanes, did some dancing (including a new dance I invented called "The Crow" which I'm told is terrifying to watch), and tried to say the weirdest things possible to all of the bachelor parties that were out. You know, normal bachelorette party stuff. On Sunday we drove over to Magazine Street to do more exploring and a little shopping and then passed out super early.

I'm pretty sure New Orleans is my spirit animal, and I told Jeff we have to go back. Like, right now.

Oh, and bonus: what I wore to my sister-in-law's bachelorette party:

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Bachelorette Party Dresses

Hey y'all! I get to say "y'all" because I'm currently in the south, and because this post is on auto-post so past me can do whatever she wants. Since I'm juuuuust getting back from my bachelorette party in NOLA this morning, instead of my regularly scheduled weekend recap, I thought I'd share some of my picks for cute dresses to wear to your bachelorette party. Later this week I'll share what I ended up wearing as well as some other bachelorette party tidbits.

Now, just putting this out there: you don't have to wear white to your bachelorette party if you're the bride. Wear whatever color you please! My cousin wore a tee shirt and jeans to her bachelorette party, because she was the bachelorette and got to do her thing. I just so happen to love little white dresses and will take basically any excuse to wear one.

Which dress is your favorite? What did you wear on your bachelorette party, or what would you wear?

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Bachelorette Look

I knew the bachelorette party I went to a couple of weeks ago would be fairly casual so I wasn't really planning on dressing up.  Then these shoes came in the mail, and I kind of had to.  They were surprisingly comfortable, I kept them on all night through all of the dancing and climbing on tables a night of norebang requires.

Dress - LC by Lauren Conrad (old, similar here and here) / Heels - Sole Society / Bag - Target (similar here) / Bracelet - Baublebar (similar here)

If the boyfriend didn't think I had a shoe problem before, he definitely does now.  I'm slowly filling up our house from top to bottom. 

Are you a fellow shoe addict?  Should we start a support group together?



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Wedding Weekend Recap

As I mentioned on Friday, this past weekend was full of wedding activities - a bachelorette party for my almost sister-in-law, a shower for my cousin, and the wedding of two of my friends.

In what's becoming a new family tradition, the bachelorette party included a little norebang - Korean-style karaoke (we did the same for my sister's bachelorette party).  Boys were invited, which I think confused and amused my boyfriend and his friends.

I gave the bachelorette some stickers to hand out, and she put "worst dancer" on me three times.  I think she's trying to tell me something ;) 

My cousin really likes sharks, so her shower on Saturday was shark themed.  The girls planning it really went all out, there were a couple of cute things I recognized from Pinterest (including a shark fruit salad!).  We played a couple of games, including something called "He said, She said" which I'm playing above.  

On Saturday night we headed out to the suburbs for what my boyfriend said was prep for the ceremony on Sunday - it turned out the groomsmen all just wanted to get together and watch the Blackhawks together.  But since we were there so early, I got to have a little pool time.  The wedding itself was really interesting and fun.  It was a traditional Jewish ceremony which I've never experienced before.  It turns out that includes about an hour and a half straight of dancing between the ceremony and dinner.  All of the guys in our group loved it, there was lots of jumping and tossing the groom around.  

I took Monday off of work to relax and recoup, which was totally necessary.  I'm pretty psyched for the rest of this week, one of my good friends is moving to Chicago and will spend a couple of days with us before she moves into her new place.  I hope you have a great week ahead!




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