Where's the money tree?!

It’s Officially Winter. Which means—

the cold? It ain’t goin’ no where. 

Zach and I thought that in celebration of the ACTUAL arrival of winter and accompanying chilling temperatures—we would take our engagement pictures! 


Sunday afternoon we met with our photographer [founder of Sharif Hassan Photography/The Bowtie] around 4 to so that the symphony of shutters could begin. First and foremost—let me tell you about our photographer.. . 

His name is “Beefy"

okay, so maybe on his birth certificate it says “Sharif Hassan” but who pays attention to the fine print, anyway!? Beefy sports the most impressive handle bar mustache in all of the land. He lives in Atlanta and shoots everything from pin-up girls to extreme sports and outdoors to engagements and weddings. He probably dedicates about 50% of his time to his amazing photography and 50% to waxing his mustache. Either way, I HIGHLY recommend him. He did a ton of research to help us find some good spots to shoot and was totally easy to work with. He’s goofy, laid back but incredibly talented and professional. I don’t know how many of you have actually experienced having your engagement pictures taken—or even portraits but I will let you into this little gem of knowledge: no matter how much you love each other or how comfortable you are in front of a camera.. .it’s unavoidably awkward. 

Feast your eyes on our photographer and his mustache.... .

We hit up Grant Park first to skip in the leaves and kiss under weeping willows before moving onto the bridge on Estoria and then the infamous Krogg Street Bridge where “Everything Lasts Forever,” we ended the shoot on some seemingly abandoned train tracks between East Atlanta and Grant Park—there were rows of stationary choo-choo trains covered in graffiti. It was pretty dark by that time but I’m hopeful that at least some of the later shots turned out. It’ll be a few weeks before we’re able to broadcast a sneak peek but we’re incredibly anxious/excited to see the end result(s)—which we will send out with our invitations.

Oh, invitations. We should get on picking those out… . .

After our engagement pictures were finished and our noses, fingers and toes were sufficiently frozen we headed to our friend’s house to make gingerb.. er, graham cracker houses. Zach and I teamed up and decided that we would put his architectural genius to use by constructing an impressive double wide trailer .complete with obnoxious colored “Christmas lights” and even more obnoxious lawn ornaments. 

[Glorified Trailer Trash... ]

Although it feels like we haven’t done much else aside from emptying our pockets on behalf of this time of year [spending ample amount of time in the home-goods section in Anthropologie has been the demise of my bank account]—it’s nice to have festive time together. And seeing friends has been awesome as well. Between edible house building, tacky Christmas sweater parties, cut-throat games of scategory and traditional holiday parties with some of my wonderful friends.. .we’re feeling festive. Slightly cheesy. But festive none-the-less.

[Us Plotting to Win Scategories]

Followed by:

[The crew of newly-weds and soon-to-be-weds at Clark and Monique's Tacky sweater game night]

Followed by:

My French friend Shelley, My professional ballerina/personal shopper friend Liz and I at Liz and Jeremy's Christmas party]

In other news, I’ve eaten the equivalent of my body weight in peanut butter fudge today. I’m incredibly anxious to hit the gym after work. Then I’ll probably just eat some more. I was so excited to get back into a size 2 and now it seems as if my new goal is to compete for the highest weight against a small elephant. I've arrived at my vineyard sanctuary to indulge in some heavy duty relaxation and more heavy duty wedding research. And running on mountain roads. But we’ve already covered that in a previous post—no one is supposed to tell my mother, remember? I’ll probably reveal wedding color possibilities and expose our [my] possible ideas for décor this.. . .Oh, and flowers. I need to pick those.

I wish someone would tell me: Does this wedding "to-do" list EVER end!?

Back to the Anthropologie stuff: Zach has forbidden me from decorating our entire house in such a way. Mainly because this style CAN be over-done.. .and in large doses it could transform a space into the likes of a fashionable grandmother-type's home. So, I'm sticking with accents here and there rather than following a stuffy color scheme-- okay so I'm sure our "grown up" dish ware will have some sort of consistent theme. Back to the here and now: Our kitchen is modest in size and the paint color will likely remain the same champagne-ish-dark-ivory that it currently is... .I'm hoping that we can eventually install a backsplash of subway tiles. Like I said...accents.


Item # 1: Fancy Paisley Spoon Rest. Which my sister-in-law to be also owns but if some thing is cute enough, I will shamelessly play copy-cat.

Item # 2: Un-designated Containers. They're cute. They were $4. And they can look killer displayed with or with out a purpose.. . 

Item # 3: Measuring Cups. These are pretty self-explanatory. And adorable. Hello Fashion. Meet Function. 

Item # 4: These are supposed to be candle votives. But that ain't happenin'. Okay so. FIRST of all. I did NOT buy purple. I bought a really killer bright turquoise and a bright-ish yet mustard-ish yellow-- they just weren't featured on the website. And they will serve as toothbrush holders in our bathrooms. 

Until Next Time

Z+M