Weekend Recap

It was a busy weekend!

I worked all day Saturday.

Came home, had another couple and my brother in law over for a bonfire and drinks.

Their dog, Emma and our dog, Marley played and wore themselves out.

This isn't them, but thought this was cute!

Sunday was church.

Then off to the Oceanfront for an event with a local shelter (H.E.R. Shelter) supporting the awareness of defeating domestic violence.

The staging area of the race.... Shortly after this, everyone ran/walked the 5k.

Then to campus for induction into an organization- APASU (Asian Pacific American Student Union).

I got a cute pink and green empty cup of memories- meant to be filled with new memories with APASU. :)

When I got home, I helped my brother in law and husband with salvaging and taking pictures of my brother in law's house fire.

Getting ready to go to the house.

Here are the pictures of the 2 alarm fire:

Everyone made it out okay, thank goodness for his nose. He smelled the burning plastic smell and got everyone up and out of the house after he'd seen the fire and smoke.  The fire originated in the kitchen, on the stove. No one is quite sure what happened, but they are saying it was an unattended stove. No one was hurt.  They are gutting the house tomorrow.  The top and bottom apartment are not live-able. the fire also caused damage to the house next door as well.  All we can say is thank goodness everyone is safe.

I'm exhausted, so off to sleep I go. Tomorrow is a full day at work with another event in the evening and some studying to do for an exam. 

XOXO- Vy

Lilly Pulitzer and American Cancer Society

Today when you shop Lilly, Lilly Pulitzer will donate 10% of the day's sales to the American Cancer Society.  What better reason do you need to shop Lilly! :)
In addition, if you spend

• $100 or more, you get a FREE iPhone case
• $250 or more, you get a FREE memo board (this I LOVE)

Happy shopping! I can't wait to hear what you ladies bought from Lilly! :)


Happy Saturday ladies! Hope you guys have a wonderful day filled with lots of fun and love!
I'm off to work (missing both my High School and College homecomings today). :(

XOXO- Vy

Floral

I must share with you all my florist- Alisa Cowsert , owner of Botanique.

She was an amazing person to work with.  There are all kinds of florists to choose from and there's one in town that's supposed to be really great, but his prices are much too close to the stars than my pockets.   When I found Alisa through a reference, I fell in love with her work. She didn't have an exhorbant studio displaying all kinds of arrangements or anything special, but instead an elegant, yet simple office space next to her warehouse where she does all of her work.  I must also note that the office was painted in my colors too!!! :)

When we pulled up for our first visit, I think I might have squealed!  On a table in her warehouse, she had a centerpiece all set up- much like the vision I had created in my head.   However, it wasn't set up for me, but for another event she was working on.

As some of you may know, orchids and peonies are my favorite flowers.  I've always assumed that orchids would be too expensive to have, but Alisa knew how much I loved them and was going to make sure I had them in our arrangements and bouquet.  Peonies are more of a spring flower, so getting them for the Fall was going to be a little difficult. Alisa came up with another option that would give me the same feel- garden roses in pink.  She knew exactly what I wanted and then some.

She asked all kinds of questions learning about Tommy and I, and found that Tommy proposed with the barrel of monkeys. So she incorporated the barrel of monkeys into our bouquets and boutonnieres.  Tommy's boutonniere had the monkey holding the flowers.

My bouquet had 2 monkeys arm in arm- if you look closely, you can see the silver barrel of monkeys at the bottom of his boutonniere and the 2 at the top of my bouquet.

 Here's a close up of Tommy's Bout.

She also had the monkeys in our sweetheart table arrangement.

Just amazing.

Our centerpieces consisted of high and low arrangements. Here's the high table arrangement.

What's awesome about this arrangement is that the arrangement was on a lightbox which illuminated the arrangement from the bottom up through the glass (in pink, of course!) as the sun set and the room got darker. The other thing I loved about it was the pink orchids which were floating in the vase.

She did a great job incorporating the coral plates in our short table arrangements.

I would recommend Alisa Cowsert to anyone in the area who needs an awesome florist who has amazing talent and creativity. 

Thank you Alisa for all your talents and the amazing job you did with our wedding!!!

XOXO- Vy

I'm a MRS. with a wonderful MR.

I'm officially a Mrs.!!!

 Tommy and I were married in my hometown Norfolk, VA on October 9, 2010.  It was one year to the day that he proposed to me in his home in Poquoson, VA.

It was such a BEAUTIFUL day with BEAUTIFUL weather! We couldn't have hoped for any better.

The days leading up to the wedding was slammed busy!  I actually worked up until Wednesday before the wedding.  So Thursday and Friday were running around days, staying up past 2AM, and stressing about all the last minute items.  There weren't too many last minute items because I did a great job planning the wedding.  There were times that momma B and I just called each other saying..."I can't think of anything else to do".

The day went off just about perfect... The only hitch we had was my "best-friend" person who was supposed to show up and do mine and the bridesmaids' hair didn't show up. :(  I got a text early AM from her saying that if I wanted her to do my hair, she'd need someone to come get her since she didn't drive down... my MOH, Krystal, was amazing and calmed me down and said we could pick her up, we still had time. So, I called and texted her back- numerous times... no answer. coming up on 9:30 AM I had to make a decision and come up with a backup plan. I found a local salon- Salon Fringe.  THANK GOODNESS for the owner, Justin! He did an amazing job on my hair- he was my hero!

And a huge thanks to my girls for being there and a great support. 

Before

After

We had a full Catholic mass. It was really beautiful. Catholic Wedding are long, but we were really happy we did a mass. 

I didn't even make it down the aisle without crying.  Right before my dad and I walked down the asisle, I told him that I loved him... two steps later, I'm tearing and in need of tissues. A couple people handed me tissues. :) 

Instead of doing unity candles, we did a sand ceremony:

We loved the symbolism of the sand ceremony.  Since we are beach people, we decided that this fit our personality the best.  A sampling of what we had Tom's dad read:

"...today you join your separate lives together. The two separate vessels of sand symbolize your separate lives, separate families and separate sets of friends. They represent all that you have been as an individual and your lives before today. As these two vessels of sand are poured into the third vessel, the individual vessels of sand will no longer exist, but will be joined together as one. Just as these grains of sand can never be separated and poured again into the individual vessels, so will your marriage be.”

 Our wedding party.

(L-R: JoJo, Danny, Joey, Kevin, Tommy, Me, Krystal, Jocelyn, Vinita, Susan)

After the ceremony, we went to our reception site and did some pictures with my photographer.  Followed by drinks, dinner, and dancing! I wish I could relive the day all over again! It was such a beautiful day and I was so happy to see all our families together celebrating our special day.

Our dance was amazing. I can't wait to see the video! There was a dip, lots of twirls, some fancy steps, and a DEATH DROP! Quite a few people thought Tommy would drop me, but he's an awesome dancer and with our practice, I had the utmost confidence in him.

Some other sights from our wedding:

 

One week and we are still doing amazing. We just can't keep from reminiscing about our day and looking at pictures.  I can't wait to get the pictures back from our photographer!!! These pictures I've posted here are just from friends and family!

I'll share more little details about the day later. I didn't want to make this post ridiculously long.

Hope you are all doing well, my dear BF's.  Things are getting back to normal, slowly but surely. I'm trying to catch up with you all, so if my responses/comments are days (even weeks) late, you'll know why. :)

XOXO- Mrs. Vy Barto

Music: At Last by Etta James