So Much To Buy For So Little Money!

I’ve got TONS to blog about including more adventures in bargain hunting. Here is a little teaser for now.

I just bought my after party dress from J.Crew for $75 shipped! The dress was originally $295 down to $70 and with coupon code HB-11-BR I got a flat rate of $4.95 shipping. That coupon code is good for the entire month of November and is actually a birthday code that changes every month. My birthday isn’t in November but I always search the internet for a coupon code before I check out. You can find some good ones at www.retailmenot.com.



Next time we’ll talk about how I bought my bridesmaid dress for $68 shipped.

Oh Hell Yeah!

Want a free diamond? Art and I did this last year and it was a ton of fun!

Engagement Photo Time!

I’m not going to lie, there is nothing I love more than getting my picture taken. Since I was knee high to a grasshopper my grandfather has had a camera in my face. It was so bad that they would try to catch me off guard just to get a picture where I wasn’t smiling. (They were never successful.)

This Thursday is the one year mark until the wedding and I couldn’t think of a better day to have our E-Session. We’re meeting our photographer Alisha Clark at our reception hall so that she can have a tour of the place. We’ll snap a few photos there and then drive 30 minutes to my college campus in downtown Troy, NY. If you’ve heard of Troy you might be groaning right now but I promise my college campus is beautiful - there are hidden courtyards and historic brownstones. Did you know that Troy has the most Tiffany glass per square mile of any city in the US? I bet you didn’t!

So here is my outfit! I thought I would have a much harder time finding it but lucky for me Banana was having their Fall Sale and I had a gift card. After shipping and gift card I paid 25 bucks for this dress!


Shoes are hard for me because I’m only an inch shorter than Art. I love heels but anything over a kitten heel - I’m towering over him. I bought these from Target for $20 but they give me blisters and make me too tall. Maybe I’ll wear them when we’re sitting down.

I bought shoes like these at DSW for $17 after coupon. The shoes I have are solid black, no pattern or weird fabric - I just couldn’t find a photo because they are probably last season. The good news is that they are kitten heel and make us the same height with his shoes on.

Tonight Arthur will be modeling some outfits for me. I think I’ll put him in Black pants and a maroon sweater. I just don’t want him to be hot. It’s supposed to be 71 but with some rain. Chance of rain in 30% and Alisha says it never rains on her so here’s hoping!

Always the Procrastinator

I have wanted to read this book for 6 years! The author, Chrys Ingraham, is possibly the most intelligent and passionate women I will ever know. She was one of my professor’s in college and I planned my schedule each semester around the possibility of taking one of her classes. To this day I am still upset that I didn’t get to take her Sociology of the Media class, I thought about auditing it the year after I graduated but the whole 3 hour commute from NYC wasn’t going to work.

Chrys and I share a special bond that I wish we didn’t. My roommate senior year, Nancy - who was a sophomore that year, had always admired Chrys and when she confided in me that she wanted to transfer after I graduated I immediately brought her to Chrys in hopes of changing her mind. Nancy stayed and became very involved in one of Chrys’s passions - the unfair living situations of Mexican workers, specifically near the US/Mexican boarder. Nancy went on a trip to Mexico with Chrys and was approved to go on another her senior year but she died in a car accident the summer before she was scheduled to go. Nancy’s family asked me to facilitate her funeral and asked Chrys to deliver her eulogy.

Nancy in the middle, me in the red - 2004.

While Chrys and I haven’t seen each other since Nancy’s funeral, we’ve kept in touch through e-mail. Chrys retired from my college last year but through some stoke of luck she is still teaching a class on Thursdays and I’m scheduled to be taking me engagement pictures at my school this Thursday! You better believe I’m going to read her book as fast as I can so that when I tell her about my wedding plans I’ll have something intelligent to say! I cannot wait to get a view of the other side of weddings, a side I think I need to read about before I get any farther in my plans. I’ll write about what I learn later.

Chrys Ingraham, Anita Roddick - founder of the Body Shop, and myself. My graduation - 2004.

The Sweetest Day

Art and I officially became a couple on October 20, 2001. It was his fraternity’s annual formal, the 3 to 3, he came to my dorm with a dozen red roses and the rest is history. Fast forward 5.5 years to April 2007 and we were looking to set our wedding date. I wanted August 2, 2008 and he wanted October because he hates hot weather. I have a strange obsession with even numbers which I won’t get into now, but I basically refuse to do anything important on an odd numbered day, month, year, etc. I tell you this because a sane person would say, “well she wants August and he wants October so why not meet in the middle and have it in September?” No, not an option for me - September is the 9th month of the year and therefore an odd number and off limits!

So there we are in the office of the event planner at Glen Sanders and we’re trying to decide on a date. Because I’m weird, our options are August 2, October 4, or October 18. I least liked October 18 because 1+8=9, but that’s getting a little too psychotic even for me. As we sit there debating, the event planner says, “well if you pick the 18th you can be married on Sweetest Day!” What’s Sweetest Day you ask? Out event planner had no idea, but it sounded good - October 18th it is.

When I got home I did a little digging and ended up at Wikipedia, as usual. People often warn me that Wiki is usually biased and sometimes totally wrong, but I love it all the same. It says that Sweetest Day is:

“Sweetest Day is an observance celebrated primarily in the Great Lakes region and parts of the Northeast United States on the third Saturday in October. It is described by Retail Confectioners International, as ‘much more important for candymakers in some regions than in others (Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo being the biggest Sweetest Day cities)’ and an ‘occasion which offers all of us an opportunity to remember not only the sick, aged and orphaned, but also friends, relatives and associates whose helpfulness and kindness we have enjoyed.’ Sweetest Day has also been referred to as a ‘concocted promotion’ created by the candy industry solely to increase sales of candy.”

Did you catch that? The 3rd Saturday of October is Sweetest Day! Well Art and I started dating on the 3rd Saturday of October! It’s meant to be! Now that I know what they mean by Sweetest day I’m thinking candy - lots of candy!!

Adventures in Bargain Hunting

In a previous post I mentioned that if I were rich I would buy several pairs of these flip flops (below) from J.Crew so that ladies with sore feet could change into something comfortable but stylish.




Well, ask and you shall receive! I was wandering through Willowbrook mall in Wayne, NJ and in the clearance bin at J. Crew I find at least 70 pairs of these babies on clearance for $4.99!! I know $5 is still a little steep but they are amazing and I love them. Plus, little know fact is that if you present a student ID J.Crew will take 10% off anything. The catch is that they only had 3 size 8’s and the rest were size 9’s. A very helpful sales person went into the back room to look for more but he found nothing else. So I loaded up one fiancé, a bridesmaid and myself with 22 pairs (20 black for guests and 2 white for me) and headed for the register. We got some weird stares from the 2 girls at the register but after I explained that I’m a crazy bride they understood.

The best part - Art went back to the mall the next weekend and dropped into J.Crew to find they were having a 25% off sale on their sale items! He talked to the sales person who said, “yes, I remember you!” and he told Art that if he brought the receipt in we could get a price adjustment up to 15 days after the sale!! So we are little bargain hunters and I’m a happy bride!!

Fab Flip Flops

In case you can’t tell I have an unhealthy desire to own everything J.Crew. The horrible truth is that I can’t afford 99% of it so I just stare and drool. Every so often I will enter the store, put my blinders up, and make a B-line for the sale section. (A Dane Cook joke is popping into my head right now, anyone else?) In the sale section I usually find a treasure or two and these flip flops win the prize for best find. The straps are elastic and they are so thick and comfy I live in them on the weekends. If I were rich I would buy 30 pairs of these for my wedding and put them in a basket by the dance floor. Ladies with sore feet could change into them and dance the night away in comfy yet feminine flip flops.

Ask and Ye Shall Receive

Ask and Ye Shall Receive

A few weeks ago I posted a pair of shoes on sale at J.Crew.com and asked J.Crew to make them in white. Well ask and ye shall receive!



All I have to say is…. CRAP! I can’t afford these!! Not fair!!

May I Interest You In A Sucker?

I can hear the gears moving and smell the smoke! Ideas are brewing in my head! What if I make these little boxes of candy and have them walked around during cocktail hour with the butler passed o’dourves? If the presentation is classy and the colors are right this could really add to the Sweetest Day theme. Thoughts?

I Could Have Danced All Night

I’ve never had the attention span for movies. I dread going to the movies because when you mix comfy chairs, dark rooms, and a 2 - 3 hour wait until I see daylight again … well I’m bound to doze off and waste my $10. Plus $10 is a freaking rip off! Don’t get me started!

Much to my mother’s amazement there was always one movie that could not only keep my attention but would cause me to stare blankly at the screen without as much as a fidget or a blink - My Fair Lady. Now mind you, this movie is a whopping 173 minutes! When they show it on public television without commercial they take a break and play the orchestra so people can get up to pee! I have a very vivid memory of the first time my mother allowed me to stay up watching television past both mine and her bed time and it was for this movie. When the orchestra came on I just sat there and watched the screen, which was covered in white flowers, while the music of “I could have danced all night” became permanently etched into my brain.

It should come as no surprise that I want nothing more than for my hair to look like this:











Ok, so maybe not as high as this but pretty close. How could anyone not want to look like that? I need to go home tonight and watch this again. Maybe I can get some planning inspiration because I'm not finding it any other place right now :(

Is this the one?

Am I a genius or untalented. You tell me…

Our Logo

Using MS Publisher I’m trying to create our logo. Now I know other people call this a monogram but who are we trying to kid here people? ADJ would be our monogram. I think once you start spelling out names and dates and adding fluffy things you are into the logo category. Monogram just sounds nicer. Where have my creative juices gone? I’m just not feeling these.



I like the one above because if you look closely it has a tech geek vibe to it with the @ sign.



I'm not in love with the J in Julia with this one. It's the only thing letter that swoops below the line.

Sweet Soulmates

I look for wedding inspiration everywhere I go and in everything I read. So there I am on the E train this morning reading my Us Weekly and I see a Pepperidge Farm Milano Cookie ad. How cute AND sweetest day perfect is this?



Sorry about the poor scan, our scanner is from the middle ages at work.

Excuse me, can I rent your child?

Can you rent children? Because there are no small children in our lives but I desperately want a flower girl and a ring bearer. I mean, how stinking cute is this dress by J.Crew?





If only they made it in black…

Circle of Indecisiveness

One of the side effects associated with wedding blog obsession is indecisiveness and I am developing a severe case of it. A long time ago I was flipping through a wedding magazine at the beauty parlor and saw photos of a black and white wedding. The idea of bridesmaids wearing black immediately hit me as strange but elegant - I liked it! Art quickly put the kibosh on my idea until a family friend, who is in the catering business, mentioned how her favorite weddings are black and white because they look so clean and elegant. Poof - back to black and white we were! I mean - common, how pretty is this…











But then I see things like this…





And then I start thinking about how I want to tie Sweetest Day into my wedding with candy and chocolate and all kinds of sweet goodness! How do I do that with a black and white color palate? Licorice? Yuck! Wouldn’t chocolate and cream be better for Sweetest Day? But then again, isn’t chocolate (as a color) so over done already? Who wants to be unoriginal?

So if I can’t do chocolate and I’m in love with black and white then why don’t I just add a nice accent color? OK then , what color? Red? But black, white and red are over done too and on top of that, we went to a black, white and red wedding this past summer. We can’t repeat!

When I get to this point in the never ending circle of frustration and indecisiveness I think - screw it! I’ll just get white chocolate everything and that’s it - forgetting for a moment that I really don’t like white chocolate!! This is when I give up, decide I need to read more blogs, and I find this…








Oh lord, save me from myself!

Double Score

I read a lot of wedding blogs and it seems that my list grows daily. I use Google Reader to keep track of everything and this just adds to my obsession since I can tag things for later reference. My most used tag is “love” - and I mean love as in omg I LOVE this! Not oh dear, I love you so…

But I digress. Today not only did I find a love but I found a DIY - double score.





There is a little antique shop down the road from my mother’s house and he has boat loads of old clear glassware that he has a horrible time getting rid of. He happens to be buddies with my grandfather, which is why I know this, and he says that clear glass is just not that popular. Score one for me because the next time I go home for a visit - I’m totally checking out his store for some cheap stuff. Why didn’t I think of this before?

You can find more about this on Perfect Bound.

Act Your Shoe Size!

I have searched high and low for the perfect nail color my entire life. Last year I started going to the hair salon across the street for regular mani/pedi’s because I was expecting to be engaged soon and wanted my fingers to look pretty when I was. Since I could never find the perfect color I always paid extra for the French manicure. Not that I don’t like French tips, in fact I prefer them, but who wants to pay $5 extra each time?! Well there I was sitting in the manicure chair and there it was - my perfect color!






What’s even more perfect? The name! It’s called Act Your Shoe Size. Can anything else explain me more perfectly?








The sad news is that I thought my love affair with Act Your Shoe size was over! How tragic? I find my nail color soul mate and then it gets discontinued? As if! The bottle at the nail salon started to get stale - you know, when it gets all cakey and doesn’t dry quickly anymore. I was down in the dumps until I found it on Amazon! What would life be like without Amazon? I shudder just thinking about it!

PS - This is the color I wanted my bridesmaids to wear until I talked Art into a Black and White wedding! I think we’ll all get our toes done this color though.

Open letter to J. Crew

Dear J. Crew,

Thank you for all of the pretty wedding dresses and bridesmaid dresses that you make. Please consider making these



and these ...



in white for me. Pretty please?

Yours truly,
Miss Julya

P.S. The pretty shoes in orange are on sale because orange shoes are ugly - just a friendly little piece of info for ya.

Give me chocolate!!

I’m getting married on the 3rd Saturday of October which turns out to be The Sweetest Day of the year. It’s a confectioners holiday and I’ll post later about it’s history and how I’m going to tie sweets into my wedding day. Through this process I’ve started to become obsessed with sweets and specifically ones I can’t have like these:







Why do they have to be $9.50 EACH? I WANT THEM!!

A perfect summer wedding

I recently went to a beautiful wedding in Pittsburgh, PA. The bride and groom are college friends of ours so watching them walk down the aisle was very surreal. Because I have an eye for DIY projects I could tell that the bride really put her own personal touch on the day by making her own invitations, programs, and centerpieces. She did such a beautiful job and I wanted to share some her of pro shots. I didn’t want to show faces so here is a small sampling of her beautiful details.





A nice close up of the bride and her bouquet.




The flower girls. There was also a female ring attendant.




The church.




Walking down the aisle.




The reception hall was an awesome country club complete with a sprawling golf course.




The bride and groom walking to their private golf cart for pictures.




A perfect picture of the couple.




Some guests enjoying the cocktail hour out on the patio.




The ball room before guests.




Details on the cake.




Yummy sweet ending bar!

I'm not little or a thing

Last night my girls kidnapped me for a little trip to Victoria’s Secret. At first I was really excited to see their special bridal offerings, including some cute tops, undies, and lingerie. Upon further examination of my cute findings I see the 3 words – “Sexy Little Bride.” Little? Really? Let’s forget for a moment the PINK campaign that Vicky’s ran recently. The one with PJ bottoms with the word PINK across the butt? Think about that one for a minute… Now they are putting “Sexy Little Bride” and “Sexy Little Thing” on their products. Maybe it’s my women’s college education that tells me this is degrading but common! I get that their underwear line is called ‘sexy little things’ since underwear is, after all, a thing. But what makes Victoria’s Secret think that I want to be called “little” and a “thing?” I thought the days of ‘the little lady’ ended in the 60’s. Needless to say I didn’t buy the two tops below – maybe if it had said “Very Sexy Bride” or plain old “Bride” I would have been more inclined to shell out the $34 and $48 respectively.