Tying the Knot: Getting Ready

One of the things we loved most about our wedding venue, Villa Parker, was that they are a "single event" venue. Meaning that there is only one wedding each day and you get full-run of the place for 12 hours. None of the quick shuffling because someone's coming in the afternoon or lingering guests from a morning event.

My bridesmaids, moms and I headed to the salon for hair and make-up around 9am and were there for most of the morning, laughing, talking with other curious patrons about the wedding, showing off to the cutest little girl, "yep, she's the bride!" and of course, sipping on lots and lots of Starbucks! I don't have any pictures from that time but don't feel like I'm really missing anything by not having them. Around noon we headed to the venue, with a quick stop at the hotel on the way to check in, and enjoyed lunch/snacks that my mom brought for us. The guys all went out to a nice lunch, stopped by the salon after we left for a quick touch up of a bachelor party mishap on J's face (I was not pleased!) and arrived at the venue shortly after we did.

The rest of the morning seemed to fly by. The girls were busy touching up make-up, putting on dresses and tights and running around the venue before the boys arrived. The boys kept up on their football scores, had a few beers and relaxed before everything was underway. Then it was time to finally get the last touches of attire completed and head to take pictures!

All photos courtesy of Ignite Images.

Next up: The Bride Gets Ready!

FOTD and new bronzer

Confession: I have never owned a bronzer. Yes I know, impossible right! But so very true. I've always wanted one but never knew which one to get/how to use it/if I'd like it and I didn't really want to spend the money on something I wasn't sure about. But when I was at Target recently I decided, you know what, it's about time I just get one already. Since this is the first in my collection, I decided to go a little bit on the cheaper side and purchased...

Cover Girl TruBlend Mineral Bronzer in Golden Sunrise #435

Top: Non-blended

Bottom: Blended with round brush

In direct Sunlight

In normal lighting

Overall, I'm very happy with my purchase. I don't use the puff that came with the bronzer because there's not as much control in application with it. I use a small, round blush brush instead. I think it's a little more shimmery/sparkly than other bronzers so it can be a little much if worn over your whole face or over too much other make-up. But since it's summer and my whole reasoning for this purchase was to minimize the amount of face make-up I'm wearing, I'm totally okay with using it sparingly. It makes my morning look super easy as I've removed foundation and blush from my routine. My cheeks are naturally pretty rosy and it does just enough to tone it down without looking too "caked-on."

Today's make-up:

~ Bronzer on cheeks, nose and lightly on forehead

~ Gold tinted eye shadow on whole eyelids

~ Mascara on top lashes only

~ Clear shimmer lip gloss

Done and done! How easy is that? And for a day getting stuff done, running errands, and going to the gym... perfect!

on a FOTD

Today I was off to Hospice to volunteer so I knew I didn't want to do anything too flashy or too overdone with my make-up. Ulta is having some great deals until May 29th so you should definitely check them out and take advantage of them, just like I did. :-) I purchased a total of four items, two of which I incorporated into my look for today.

Face

Cover girl-Liquid Powder in buff beige

Clinique- Blush Wear Cream Stick in rosy blush

Eyes

Origins- Underwear for Lids

Almay- Intense I-color in black pearl

Maybelline- Great Lash in soft black

Origins e/s- in Root Beer Float (outer lid and crease)

Ulta e/s- in Silk (inner lid and to eyebrow)

Lips

Ulta- lip stick in Nude Shimmer

SoftLips- Lip Balm in cherry

I have been wanting to get a nude lipstick that I can wear on a daily basis instead of just wearing the good ol' chapstick and I'm very happy with the ones I got. Along with the Nude Shimmer color I also purchased Solar Shimmer. I'm not much of a matte lip stick kind of girl so these two have the perfect amount of sparkle that I wanted. I used the Revlon Color-stay in soft nude, suggested to me by Tiffany at Will Work For Makeup, as a reference to the Ulta brand lip sticks. Included in my haul was an Ulta Professionals Nail Polish in Soho Pretty. It's sort of a purple grey color that was part of their Naughty Neutrals line. I have painted my toes with it as of now and plan to use it on my fingers tomorrow.

And the best part of the whole trip..... my purchase was HALF off, yes 50%, as in "I-should-have-paid-double" half off! Thanks to the buy 2 get 2 free deal and the 20% off one item coupon I had it was quite the steal! I'm not one to spend a lot of money on these types of things so when I can find a deal I definitely jump on it. So between my new stuff and the glass of wine I just downed, I can safely say I'm a very happy girl.

PS- Do we like the amount of curl in my hair today? I was sort of lazy/sort of wanted to be put together and this is what resulted...

on a FOTD

In the spirt of the Rockies game Jeff and I are going to tonight, I decided to match my make-up with the purple tank-top I'm wearing to the game. Back in high school I used to have colored contacts I would wear all the time and that included purple ones. (I also had gold and green at some point too.) Because of those contacts and I think maybe because of a dance also, I had purchased some eye shadows from Origins in purple colors and still enjoy using them now, even when my eyes are their normal color :-) I still need to go buy a good nude lipstick at some point but that's not too high on my priority list as of right now.

Maybe I should break out a few pairs of those colored contacts again someday?

Face

Clean&Clear- Morning Burst Shine Control Moisturizer

Cover Girl- Liquid Powder in buff beige

Eyes

Origins- Underwear For Lids

Origins- e/s in Water Lily

Origins- e/s in Always Afternoon

Origins- e/s in Grape Crush

Almay- Intense I-Color in black pearl

Maybelline- Great Lash in soft black

It definitely feels like a weekend today. No class today, going out tonight.... if only I didn't have class tomorrow morning and the semester was over. *sigh* Remember to check out my progress on my 365 Project. So far so good as I've been able to find at least a decent picture for each day. Enjoy

on putting my face on

I was inspired by Tiffany's blog posts in Will Work For Makeup. And it just so happened that I actually spent the time today to put on make-up and thought I'd mimic her blog and show you my Face-Of-The-Day. Now I am not nearly as talented as she is with make-up application. Plus I don't own nice make-up/a lot of it but this is my attempt :-)

Face

Cover Girl- Liquid Powder in buff beige

Clinique- Blush Wear Cream Stick in rosy blush

Eyes

Origins- Underwear For Lids

Almay- Intense I-Color in black pearl

Maybelline- Define-A-Lash in very black

Maybelline- Twilight Rays shadow pallet

So thanks again to Tiffany for inspiring this post, who knows, maybe I'll even end up doing another one at some point. In other news, my mom and sister are currently on their way to San Diego right now. They should be here shortly and then we're off to Ikea for some wonderful shopping. Similar to my love of Michaels, as mentioned before, I also love Ikea. Basically I want to have a house/condo/apartment that is ours so I can actually do some real decorating. It's so hard to decorate a place that you're renting. Hopefully this will change soon. We're going to dinner in Hillcrest tonight, Birch Aquarium and wetsuit shopping tomorrow, then it's off to Littleton for a much needed change in scenery. I'll try to post pictures/stories soon.