props to us :)

Well, no definite wedding venue yet - Hakone Gardens is still a top contender, but we may check out a couple other places this week - in the mean time, I'll be visualizing a wedding venue victory happening for us this week! I'm so ready to get on with the rest of wedding planning!

Besides wedding venue shopping, we've been brainstorming for our upcoming engagement photo session and today we made a couple props that are going to double as decoration for our bedroom and possible decoration for our wedding day. I've had the canvases for a couple years and painted them for my last apartment to add a little color. I've been wanting to add some meaningful words to them, but inspiration didn't strike until Joe and I moved into our new place together. Here's a sneak peek...

This guy has been hanging on the wall in front of our bed since May. We decided months ago that we wanted to put the words, "It's a beautiful day," on it because it's the name of a U2 song (Joe's all time favorite band!) and because we thought it would be fun to wake up every morning and see those words to set the tone for the day. Thank goodness for impending engagement photo dates to force us to finally make it happen! We started trying to stencil the words on, but didn't like the rigid, uniform feel of the stencils - so we painted over with some home made turquoise and made a quick trip to Michael's for some paint pens - I love having the words hand written instead - sure the word day is a little crooked, but it feels much more organic :).

This has become one of my favorite quotes in the past month, it has served as a good reminder that although the craziness of the wedding industry can be overwhelming, celebrating true love is well worth it. Combine that with my favorite gingko leaves and well it just kind of makes my heart happy. Excited to have these up on our bedroom walls and excited to have them ready for our engagement photos :).

Couple simple pleasures from today....

1) beautiful brunch in the city with Laura, Karen, Kat, Lindsey, Nate, Erik, Julian and the love of my life :). We had a delicious dish called Green Earth - how sweet is that?

2) The Wailing Jenny's on Spotify - seriously, if you don't Spotify yet, you're missing out. Lovin' the playful harmonies in this song - think they'd come sing at our wedding?



3) Joe's bbq chicken teriyaki - reason #2984058343 that I am marrying him :)

4) Our favorite post bbq dinner dessert - S'mores on the grill in the back yard