leo patrone bridals.

ah leo. if i could, i'd bring him around with me on life long adventures and just have him capture my whole life through film of a lens. he does such great work. i love the lighting he was able to capture with the chiffon of my dress. i feel as though these photos are very pure and soft. the location was the same as mine and zekes second engagement session. up in the mountains where it will really takes your breath away. i had so much fun shooting with leo. i was so nervous to take bridals, considering the fact it was just me, myself and i. the thought of it all made me want to quiver. but he was awesome and my mom and my friend becca were able to join me and help out with the dress and bouquet. the dress i'll touch more on in another post. as it is my most prized possession thanks to the amazing talent my mom possesses. she really is brilliant when it comes to sewing and dealing with textiles. i do not think there is anyone more capable of constructing a gown as beautiful as this one. i feel so blessed that she took ALL summer working on this. It was an example of her love for me and I appreciate it more than ever. I just love her so much. She is my best friend and my partner in crime when it comes to fashion. to view more of leo patrone' s work visit : leo patrone photography blog or leo's website . he's a magician.

summer limbo.

i'm stuck in a summer limbo and I can't seem to get out of it. probably because i'm not ready to leave the summer life and move on to the fall. it's just really hard when im inside my new home, that for once is not so dark! my kitchen, holy cow is nothing more than starch white. with cupboards after cupboards. not to mention all of the knobs on those cupboards are red ceramic flowers.

the zoo and i went crazy with painting when we first moved in. the living room is as bright as i'll get out. it's somewhere between a green & a blue. to give you a better idea, the paint swatch is called, 'mermaid song.' the brick fireplace is white, the 1920s furnaces are white. our couch is white with yellow velvet pillows. we are planning on purchasing a bright red turkish rug. i just dont know how i am going to be able to pull off the feel of halloween in my home. my favorite season (summer) and my favorite holiday (halloween) are about to clash... and i dont know if im martha stewart enough to make this happen. how distracting will it be with the black and orange against a mermaid song wall? will i even be able to get in my spook zone with the walls being so bright?

not to mention, our street is lined up with trees that hang over the curbs. i am very grateful for this because it's lush and reminds me somewhat of georgia. but apparently, fall has hit... but the leaves are still green. and they fill up the whole two front windows of my home. and with the sun shining and beating in, i can't help but feel like it's still summer out. and with the costco rampage that the zoo and i just went on, and got all sorts of fruit rather than soups and pumpkin pies... that's not adding up either. so i am in such a summer limbo.

goal for the weekend is to plan out some halloween decor and get it done, make it happen and do the best that i can to submerge myself into halloween limbo. what really does help though, might i add, is Twilight Zone Tuesdays. This is a new tradition the zoo and I are beginning. I LOVE LOVE LOVE The Twilight Zone. It makes me think of my Dad because this is one of the things we love to do together is watch episodes upon episodes of this at home. So there aint nothing spookier and freakier than a twilight zone to fill up your home, that's for sure!

wish me luck!

the tropics.

the time is here for the inspiration to start brainwashing my every thought. school is in session. it's been for a while now but i decided to push it off a few weeks to tie a knot & swim in the caribbean with the one i love. but now, i have finally gotten into the groove and im having a BLAST! aside from the art history test that is about to whip me into shape, and a research paper about the sir isaac newton, i am having a whoppin' ball in my painting III class. 

lets begin by saying, my teacher has totally thrown me out of my element. and it's terrifying. he loves abstract art. so do i, but i mostly admire it and wish i could do what those are able to do. to some, abstract art isn't considered art. i get it, to each their own. for me, i find certain abstract art so beautiful and decorative. i love the color palette and the organic shapes. i love the fact that its art for arts sake. but i envy those who are able to forget the left side of their brain and not think, but instead go by instinct. that is so hard for me. i am so complicated because i am all about technique, detail and perfection. i normally paint people so to not have a subject matter is a complete DANGER zone. i think too hard as to what to put here, what color i should splash there, rather than not thinking at all and going with my gut feeling. 

so for our first painting, which is on quite a large scale of a canvas (can you tell?) is all about what i fear/envy. and marcus knows that this is not quite up my alley. but with great criticism and direction and INSPIRATION, i'm thinking im heading somewhere and i am beginning to not know who i am anymore! i have never done anything like this. i am more excited because i can confidently say that i was able to let go of all rules, of all thinking and method and just paint for the sake of painting. and i am having a complete blast! not knowing what this will end up looking like or even not knowing when to end the painting and call it quits is quite exciting and im so looking forward to the end result. so far, i am very pleased with what i have come up with! i didn't know i had it in me. 

i have a fetish for tropical birds, and insects. strange and random, i know. but i find them both beautiful and mesmerizing. i love to collect vintage insect enamel brooches, something my mom and i love to browse through in antique stores and online. i love to hunt and find the most eclectic and unique pieces. and yes, i actually wear them! zeke calls me the brooch lady. to him, it ain't a compliment, to me, i beam when he says it. i tell him it's my signature piece and he just grins. on with the birds... aside from halloween (which i could tinkle thinking about. i am so excited the month of spooky and eeriness is a week away!) my mind consistently stays in a tropical humid season. mentally, i am always on an island. therefore, when i should be purchasing a large heavy coat with fur, i purchase a bright floral printed dress meant to be worn on a warm summer night. it doesn't make sense. i just love anything tropical because i love the lushness of the season. i love the organic shapes of the leaves, the colors of the kelly greens and the chartreuse yellows. i love tropical birds with their many colors and textures. i could go on for hours, but i'll spare you the chatter. 

this months jcrew style guide was taken place in tokyo, which isn't tropical, but some of the spread consisted of backdrops of palm trees, while others had the models holding up large palms from a tree itself. the outfits worn had texture, lots of tweeds and brocades. and like the photograph above, which was my favorite shot taken from the jcrew spread, had the touch of the tropical birds with a splash of her blood orange polish and lipstick. when i flipped to this page, i died and went straight to heaven. literally, straight up there. like the snap of the fingers, i knew what kind of direction i wanted to go for the painting. at first, before i saw this image, i thought of the louisiana bayou. though i have never been, i dream of it often. it's a dream vacation i have to visit new orleans, sail on the bayou in a river boat with jazz music and lots of lights. dancing, and cajun creole food. visit the voodoo/hoodoo shops and frolic in the yards of the plantation homes. it's all i ever dream of. so the first layer of paint was portraying the dark blues and greens of the water in the bayou. once i had that laid down... i became lost and scared to go wild on the canvas, until jcrew of tokyo and my love for the tropics played in. 

and there you have it. my first piece of the semester! and i could not be more excited. thanks for tuning in, wether you really care, or not. 

fell into a swoon with miami.

let me tell you a little something about myself. there's nothing i love more than these things : old hollywood regency style :: art deco :: slim aarons photography :: palm beach socialites :: fashion :: the island life :: glam :: and these are just to name a few. but what makes me go wacko happy is when a genius puts them all together for my own personal sake. im in miami. im in south beach. im pretending like im dated back to the 50-60's. im pretending im a socialite. im hoping zeke has no idea i pretend to be these things as my form of 'dress up' in my head. and im in my zone. the air is hot and heavy, smells like the salt of the ocean. the palms are creating large canopies over my head. there is a light mist from the previous tropical storm. people are laughing and enjoying themselves to delicious food and bumpin' music. the architecture is building walls around me that i can't even breathe im so taken in by the backdrop. there are starch white cathedrals, art deco hotels, cobblestone pathways. im seriously living the dream. im feeling as though im in a snap shot of my favorite photographer, slim aarons who too had a fetish for this sort of life. he loved the vision of it, he loved the personalities and the character traits of the socialists he photographed. their way of living was so over the top fabulous that you couldn't even bare it. let's just be honest, i was having a field day. i mean, i just had dinner at the raleigh hotel where photographs grazed the walls of marilyn monroe, james dean, you name it making their visits through the 1940's era of a hotel. it was like i had blasted myself into the past. 

all of a sudden BAM : i stop dead in my footsteps to see a beautifully clean white store with splashes of colors beaming out through the open glass windows. of course it catches me eye, its JCrew for crying out loud! I walked inside and thought this is not real life. I have never seen a jcrew floor plan laid out like so. so glamorous, so retro, so old hollywood. so clean. There were long white curtains hanging from ceiling to floor covering every wall and forming dressing rooms. every single piece that jcrew was selling for the season you see flipping through the pages of the style guide were all there.  beautiful gold racks of clothes lines up with an assortment of fabrics from brocades to tweed. piles of table books ranging from art, interior, fashion to travel. everything was there, perfectly placed in the most beautiful way. and to top it all off. the dressing rooms had all of my favorite SLIM AARONS photos of the socialites in palm beach, south beach miami, you name it. oh it happened. and i was having a blast! zeke just sat on the couch, thankful for the air conditioner and just laughed as i was acting like a dramatic artist, which i am so there is my justification for acting this way. one day, the zoo will understand me. one day. until then... im just going to entertain him with my lavish dreamful ways. 

more to come on the raleigh and other art deco hotels lining the streets of south beach.

delighted to announce...

Though it is past due time, I realized I never shared with you our wedding announcements which I was really really pleased about. Originally, I had my heart set for years on having the company Rifle Paper Co. print my wedding announcements. When I realized the pricing, I was floored and let down. With the other expenses in the wedding, I couldn't bring myself to fork over the amount they were asking for. Luckily, thanks so my sister she told me of a website Minted and I discovered the one. It was as close as they could come to anything rifle-like. I was so thrilled and was so impressed with the outcome! The black and white striped paper was the inside liner of the printed envelopes. Really I could have been more happy with what I ended up with. It really felt like something of my style and tied in with the theme of my wedding. Here's to basking in the memories of a day that has come and gone too quickly then I would have wished for it. Up next... bridals and wedding photos, which will come in due time. im waiting as patiently as I can.

the grand cayman islands :: caribbean.

Uh yeah, so i'd say the honeymoon was a whoppin' success. Luckily, with the bad timing with school starting, the zoo and I were still able to go on a week long honeymoon to one of my favorite places in the world. THE CARIBBEAN. especially after my cruise to the mexican riviera, which dont get me wrong, it was awesome and all, but it just enhanced my love even more for the Caribbean. I love the people, I love the culture, I love the architecture of the caribbean houses and buildings which to me, are a mixture of new orleans and charleston x 10 with a tropical twist. and you know those two places really tug at my heart strings. So zeke and I found a cheap flight which was evident through our 5 layovers from salt lake, to texas, to TWO stops in florida and finally, to Georgetown, Grand Cayman.

Now, I have never been to the Grand Cayman Islands. I've been to other islands in the Caribbean such as St. Thomas, St. John and St. Martin, but never to the grand cayman. And I loved it! I will say, I didn't like it as much as the other caribbean places I have been to, only because it was very urbanized. And the history was minimal. The island was more updated with great shopping and nice cars. Lots of new real estate. I loved the other islands because it felt as though they were more set in living the ways of their culture. Its what you imagine when you think of the Caribbean. Either way, how could i complain? It was the peak week of hurricane season and the resort was EMPTY because of it. With our luck, we had perfect weather the whole entire week. I think we just found the secret time to travel to the caribbean. The resort was great, it was right on the water and towards the end of the famous 7 mile beach, so it wasn't packed with tourists at all. The Marriott had awesome pool like floats about 50 yards into the water, which was bright turquoise and clear might I add. The floats were right in front of a reef in which we snorkeled through from time to time. That was our favorite past time, to bask in the sun on those pool floats, feed the fish , and snorkel. We did this just about every day.

Our favorite food was the cheapest kind and the most local caribbean you could get. Jamaican Jerk Chicken with cornbread, mac n'cheese and potatoes. we pounded that chicken like no other. and we never stopped craving it. We would get it from our two favorite local places : Chicken Chicken! and Seymours Jerk Chicken. Seymours was awesome because the caribbean women would hack that thing right at its neck and cook it and dish it over to us like it was nobody's business. then we sat at these picnic tables in the heat with a million flies swarming about us, but we didn't care because it was kind of a fun way of living. we tried to do all the nice fancy dinners, like at the ritz, but the food was too expensive, too gourmet and too small of portions. too fancy. it's just not adventurous or enjoyable. i'd rather go cheap, lots of food, local and traditional. thats our style. the one thing i did love, was the taste of the caribbean! rum cake! it is ALL over the island. Stocked like no other in the grocery stores. everyone there loves rum cake. so did the pirates. they had all sorts of flavors : coconut, chocolate, banana, you name it.

we lived in our bathing suits most of the time and had a joy ride in the buses with the locals. they'd ask us where we wanted to go and we'd respond, "not sure, we are wanting to kind of get lost today, so take us wherever." they'd just laugh hysterically. The people in the Grand Cayman are very friendly. I loved being around them. we spent one day in georgetown where we found this really neat store of ship wrecked treasures. they had a million gold coins found in ship wreaks and pirate ships that dated back before the louisiana purchase. i love that sort of stuff. it really intrigues me. hence, my serious titanic illness.

The only adventure we went on was to Stingray City & snorkeled in the reefs. Stingray city was truly an experience. I loved it. We took a catamaran out into the caribbean sea and anchored at a sand bank that was swarming with stingrays. strangely enough, I was more comfortable allowing a stingray to swim up into my arms and hold it, and kiss it (which gave zeke and i each 7 years of good luck) rather then having them swim around me and graze my legs. i was so paranoid their tails would sting me. which of course, they wouldn't but it was all in my head.

all in all. it was an adventure that i got to spend with the zoo and we had a grand ol' time. on the way back, we had a nightly lay over in miami which i was NOT complaining about. i LOVE miami. so much to do. South Beach is my kind of spot since it is known for its art deco architecture and its retro old hollywood regency style. so i was gobbling up every minute of it. especially since, the zoo let me finally witness with my real own eyes a hotel i have been drooling over for years. The Raleigh Hotel. I am sad I wasn't able to see it in the daylight because pictures didn't turn out the best, but man oh man did i fall in love. i'll post more of the raleigh later and give you a taste of the most miraculous jcrew store i have ever stepped foot it. but for now, here was our honeymoon. i hope you enjoyed our pictures! i sure wish we could go back to the caribbean soon. as i do dream of it all of the time. luckily to keep me sane, the zoo and i just ordered some of my favorite vintage travel posters for our living room in our home. two of them just so happen to be of the caribbean, just as how i envision it. oh happy day.

so long, and have a fabulous weekend my friends!