Life | star-crossed smile

My Best Friend’s Wedding

August 22, 2016 2 Comments

I’ve been looking forward to this wedding for years. When my best friend got engaged in 2013, I was so excited for her and her fiancee. We’d been talking about the wedding for so long, it was almost hard to believe that the time was finally here. The last stop on my whirlwind vacation last month was San Diego, where I attended the best wedding I’ve ever been to.

As the day approached, I could barely contain my excitement. I took the train from LA to San Diego (which featured a lovely stretch along the coast) a few days early so that I could spend time with her and help with any last-minute preparations. As she showed me all that she’d planned for the wedding, I could see how much love and care she’d put into every detail.

Erica and Carlos were married in a gorgeous church in downtown San Diego, with soaring ceilings and beautiful stained glass windows. When they talked about why they loved each other and said their vows in Spanish, I don’t think there was a dry eye in the room.

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After the ceremony, we had a bit of a break before the cocktail hour, so the bridesmaids and groomsmen headed to the venue to help set up a little bit. I loved the venue, which had a beautiful outdoor area with a koi pond, as well as indoor seating. Soon after, the guests started to arrive, and from then on it was one big party!

My family has been friends with Erica’s family for years now, so my parents and sister were also invited to the wedding, and it was so fun to have them there. I was also able to spend time with some of her wonderful family and friends (who I met when Erica and I traveled to Spain together in 2009) who flew all the way to California for the wedding. To top it off, several of my oldest and best friends from high school were there, so it was wonderful to see them and have a mini reunion. Basically, the room was full of so many of my favorite people in the whole world. I felt really lucky to be there to celebrate the union of this beautiful couple.

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There was much dancing (Erica and Carlos actually met in a dance class- is that way too cute, or what?!), singing, and general merriment. After so much preparation and anticipation, the time disappeared in the blink of an eye. I had the best time and I wish I had a time turner so we could go back and do it all over again!

Life

Fifth-Year Reunion Photo Diary

June 20, 2016 2 Comments

A couple of weekends ago, I went to my fifth-year reunion and had a surprising amount of fun. It wasn’t that I thought I wouldn’t have a good time, it’s just that with the move and everything else going on, it kind of snuck up on me. In fact, I thought maybe I would skip it, but instead, I ended up registering about a week before the event.

I started to get really excited on the train ride down to New Haven. I made the train trip with one of my really good friends who used to live in NYC, but now lives in San Francisco. It was so good to see her and catch up, and that’s really what the whole weekend was like. With the exception of a couple people, all of my good college friends went to reunion and it was so wonderful to have everyone in the same place again.

We laughed, we reminisced, we danced, and we chatted. I’d been seriously lacking in friend time thanks to the move, so it was just pleasant to have a weekend away to relax and stop thinking about the apartment for a bit. Also, every time I step back onto campus, I’m reminded of how beautiful it is.

I’m really glad I went to my college reunion. I’ve heard rumors that some people have started to plan my ten-year high school reunion next year, so that should be interesting!

Life

Currently 04.

June 6, 2016 3 Comments

I really miss blogging. I thought that after my last post, I’d ease back into blogging regularly, but that was right around when I started apartment hunting. Looking for an apartment and then moving took over my life for about 6 weeks, but I finally feel like I’m coming out on the other side. I’m all moved into my new place and about 80% unpacked. There are just a few bits and bobs that I have to figure out how to store, and then I get to focus on the fun part- decorating!

I do plan to work on putting more content on the blog (starting with all the ideas I mentioned a couple posts ago). I may also tweak the design a bit, which usually helps me get inspired. Since it’s been a couple months, let’s catch up, shall we?

Listening to James Blake’s recent album on repeat, particularly “I Need a Forest Fire.”

Watching Game of Thrones. It’s kind of exciting that we’re all in the same boat now (meaning that even though I’ve read all of the books, the show has now moved beyond the plot in the books that have been published). Anything could happen!

Reading Dragonfly in Amber, which is the second book in the Outlander series. The second season is currently on air and I wanted to read the second book before I watch the TV series. Although, I couldn’t quite wait, so I’ve seen the first few episodes. I’m still trying to stay ahead in the book though, so I’ll catch up on more recent episodes once I read further in the book.

Eating a lot of junk food, to be honest. Between moving and then being out of town, I haven’t cooked a proper meal in weeks. I’m going to fix that though and make a trip to the grocery store sometime this week.

Anticipating my trip to California in July. I’m so excited to see family, friends, and be a part of my best friend’s wedding.

Wearing a pair of printed pants from H&M. They were under $15, are very stretchy and comfortable, and I love the pattern, so it’s a win, win, win!

Planning my family vacation this summer. We’ve booked the tickets to Seattle- now we have to figure out where to stay and what we’d like to do/see.

Admiring this bright and airy West Village studio. I’ve been spending a lot of hours on Pinterest to gather inspiration for my new place and I’m very inspired by what she’s done with her space.

What’s new with you? Did you have a good weekend?

(image via Death to Stock Photo)

Life

Making Memories (and Keeping Them)

April 4, 2016 12 Comments

My mother passed along her love of photographs to me. When I was younger, I remember working on my own scrapbooks and helping her put together various family albums. Sometimes I wasn’t in the mood to help and sometimes I felt annoyed that she would “force” us to take family photos. I didn’t understand why she was so insistent on documenting those moments.

With age comes growth and wisdom. Now I completely understand why she always wanted to have photographs. Sometimes those pictures are all you have left.

Last year, I decided I wanted to redecorate my room. One area I changed was the wall above my desk. I selected some of my favorite pictures from Instagram and had them printed at Walgreens. It was super easy, they were ready in about an hour, and the whole thing cost me less than $10. I then arranged these in a grid on my wall and I love the way it turned about. These photos remind me of some of my favorite recent memories every time I look at them.

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about making memories and documenting them. I’ve been devouring blogs like Caylee Gray and Life: Captured Inc. I also made it a goal this year to journal daily and so far I’ve been doing surprisingly well (perhaps I’ll write more about that in a separate post). I think these things go hand-in-hand: capturing moments both visually and in written form.

I want to continue to write more and I want to become better at documenting moments. As I mentioned in my previous post, I have a few trips coming up this year and I’m thinking about keeping a travelogue for one of them. Even when I do things here in NYC, I want to push myself to take my camera along and capture those moments.

I’ve also thought about making a few photo books using Artifact Uprising. One would be for the road trip my family took last summer. I actually already made a photo book of this trip, but I did it in a rush and I did it for my mom, so the style is a bit different than what I would choose. I’ve also thought of making photo books for the trips I took to Spain several years ago. I have hundreds (maybe thousands) of pictures and they’re just sitting on my computer. My main worry is that the pictures were pre-DSLR, so the quality might not be good enough for a photo book. I may give it a try though and see how it turns out.

Recently, I’ve felt like getting crafty/being creative again, which is a good thing. Hopefully I will actually put some of these projects in motion! Now I have a couple questions for you guys:

Do you do any sort of memory keeping (scrapbooks, Project Life, etc.)?
Have you ever made a photo album or photo book?

If you have any resources for me when it comes to memory keeping, I’d love to hear them in the comments below!

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