It's Friday!!!

am so excited for the weekend to start, I can hardly contain myself! I've pretty much spent the bulk of the day today searching for a new restaurant to try with the Fiance. We've been reigning in the spending in anticipation of the many and large bills we will be receiving from the Wedding. We've been pretty good so far and with the warm weather peeking thru, I think we're entitled to a little bit of celebration.

On another note, I thought I'd declare my love for Trader Joe's today. I can't find a picture of this, but I love Trader Joe's flat bread. It looks like pizza bread, ready to go...and it is! The Fiance and I made dinner last night using the flat bread, some pizza sauce, slices of fresh mozzarella, pepperoni and garlic chunks. Oh and mini portabella mushrooms, can't forget those! It's DELICIOUS. And the bread only costs about $2.99. I highly recommend and it only takes about 15 minutes to bake. My sister sprinkles just olive oil with some S&P and serves it to guests to nibble on. Yummy!

Weekend Happennings

appy Easter! Although we had a very grey and rainy Saturday in New York, the city was filled with warm weather and plenty of sunshine on Easter. Thank goodness because we were due for a nice day and some promise of spring! On Saturday, I woke up bright and early, after having worked until 3 a.m., to hit the wedding shops, determined to find a dress. This whole dress shopping thing is supposed to be the most fun part of wedding planning, but for me, it's been just a pain. I really don't enjoy sorting through hundreds of dresses and trying things on one after the other...everything starts looking the same. I didn't have an "ideal" dress in mind, but had some sense of the shape and style. Too bad there are thousands upon thousands of dresses with the same style, yet almost nothing that was exactly right. Until....I found the one. I didn't know it was the one until a few minutes after trying it on, then leaving the store, then coming back to try it on one last time. But my sister just fell in love with it and so did I. I can't give much detail about the dress (the Fiance reads this!) but I found it at a little french boutique in the East Village, Atelier Merciel. The designer owns the shop and will be doing the fittings, etc., and the seamstress used to do Vera's dresses so I know I'm in good hands. The bonus is that the fabric is all imported from Paris and the francophile in me was totally suckered into that notion. It's overbudget, but it's beautiful. And the best part? My mom will be picking up the tab on this one and she didn't really give me a budget (although, I obviously couldn't go crazy, nor would I) but that totally made me think....I'm going to get the dress I love. I was debating between this one and a $350 preowned David's Bridal dress, which is also gorgeous but I hadn't seen it in person. All in all, I'm very happy and things worked out. A group of passerbys saw me in the dress and started cheering and applauding, giving their approval of the dress...and I was sold. It was a moment.

In other news, today we had an easy day...went to Easter service in the morning, then grocery shopping for Easter dinner. Dinner involved a LOT of red wine. We used almost 2 bottles just for cooking. My sister made a "drunken" risotto and I made Boeuf en Croute -- beef tenderloin coated in sauteed shallots, garlic and mushrooms, wrapped in puff pastry. Very easy, very yummy, and very elegant. Click here for the recipe. Mine was a bit odd shaped since the pastry puff was not cooperating with me. But you can get it to look like a nice loaf or pie shaped. Highly recommended for a dinner where you want to impress while doing minimum amount of work. Warning, the prep time is a bit long (around 1.5 hours) because the recipe requires you to refrigerate the beef and sautee. I chilled them for about half the required time, and it was fine.

Oh the Places You Will Go...

ell well well...look at who's fallen off the blogging wagon yet again. That's right, yours truly. But I have a good excuse! I promise! A ton of things have happened in the last month and I have had all but zero time to gather myself. First off, on March 16 at almost midnight (the time I've been regularly getting home from work!), I opened the door to the Boyfriend's apartment to find him on his knee with candles all around and our sweet cat Oliver Atticus who had a bow tie wrapped around his neck. Of course, I've forgotten about 90% of what the Boyfriend said (as did he), but he held up Oliver who had a tag on his bowtie that asked me to marry him (the Boyfriend, not the cat). To make a long story short, the Boyfriend, now the Fiance, proposed with a beautiful beautiful engagement ring, which he had custom made using various inspirations provided by moi, but also with many of his own details. He also engraved it with his pet name for me and included a little pink sapphire. It's absolutely perfect and I love it with all of my heart and I love even more that he personally had a hand at designing it...it definitely surprised me because it was even nicer than what I had imagined!

That was March 16. In almost a month since then, we have booked a venue, our photobooth, our photographers, our coordinator, drafted a guest list, and have gone dress shopping. In addition, I have billed over 250 hours of work, pulled some almost all nighters, gone to court, and coordinated my firm's community outreach documentary series on anti-trafficking. The Boyfriend has studied and taken his licensing exam and has worked countless hours with tons of stress. I'm pretty proud of what we've accomplished so far, and at how smoothly it's all gone. I can't wait to get the bigger stuff done so that I can focus on my favorite part, the decor!

I've been very very blessed in my life and I can't believe that I will be marrying the most perfect match for me! With him...everything feels extraordinary. I'll keep you posted!