Check, please!

In my daily travel and fashion blog reads, I came upon this GORGEOUS picture... Love the maxi skirts, love the sea, love the little house in the middle of the ocean.

Photographer- Mario Testino for Vogue UK 

I did some intense research clicked on the picture and learned that the little house is actually a restaurant, and it happens to be in Zanzibar which is where I'll happen to be in October. I quickly sent an email to the Rock Restaurant, and I'm in the process of booking a table for me and future hubby (EKKS!) for a honeymoon lunch. So excited!!!

Below are some more gorgeous pics from the photo shoot in Zanzibar. Don't worry I'll force BF to take pictures of me just like this! 

Mario Testino - Vogue UK

Mario Testino- Vogue UK 

You've Got Mail

Did you enjoy the blast-from-the-past early 90's AOL reference in my title? Tee hee hee...

Look what's been coming in the mail... our RSVPs! So exciting, but BF keeps getting home before me and ripping them open. He's not saving any of the fun for me :(

Cluck Cluck

This weekend was my HEN party!!!! YEAH! BF's friends was forced by me conveniently also organised his stag this weekend as well. They headed to Kilkenny - the stag and hen capital of Ireland. I heard the safe and I'm sure censored version of the weekend on Sunday but I do know they put him in a terrible costume which looked like this. I have ONE picture of BF in this outfit but I think he would seriously hurt me if I posted it online...

The Only Gay in the Village- A character from Little Britain 

My hen could not have been more lovely! It started off with a lovely and lazy balcony lunch at my friend Michelle's. We grabbed some sandwiches at Donnybrook Fair (which carries PopTarts!) and sat soaking up the sun until the other gals arrived at her house. We had a lovely makeup artist come by and do all of our make up. She was awesome! Way better then my last make up trial. I wish I could pack her up in my suitcase for the wedding.

Getting my face done

She did a good job on the make-up, no?

My lovely come dine with me pals! 

The gals bought me a LOVELY purse pinata (Prada, of course) so we spent some time trying to break it while my poor friend Sarah offered to hold it (BRAVE) because we couldn't hang it anywhere.

Courageous Sarah

 A lovely surprise in the pinata

Willies! 

After getting ready, we headed to Diep le Shaker for some amazing Thai Food. It was sooo good! Even though my sister couldn't be there, she and baby Carson sent over bottles and bottles of Prosecco for my friends and I. That baby is such a lush!

After dinner the gals then held a Mister and Missus game. If you're not familiar they asked BF tons of questions and I had to see if our answers matched. Even after almost 10 years, I didn't get all of them right. EKKS! I also embarrassingly outed myself on some really terrible nicknames!

So embarrassed! 

Really funny funny game! Highly recommend for all Hen parties! 

 After dinner we headed to the Baggot Inn for some more cocktails and dancing

Always trying to work out! 

Convinced the gals to do lunges too! 

Finally, we headed over to Buck's which is a late night club. It couldn't have been more fun. There were a group of 25 to start, and most of us managed to keep it together even at this late hour.

Standing Strong- similar to what our vision was like after all the cocktails! 

It was an amazing night with AMAZING friends, and it makes me even MORE excited for the wedding! 

Weekend Recap

Not only did I help BF finalise his wedding outfit, I also found some time to booze it up with my lady friends for our linner get together. Linner is actually one of my favorite things in the whole world- boozy lunch that leads into a late night of drinking? Yes please!

We started at Chez Max, and I can't get over how adorable this place is. I always forget about it as an option for food, but every time I go, I swear I'm going to become a regular. It's a cute little French Bistro with a lovely back garden. We were relatively lucky at first with the sun warming our faces, but then there was a major downpour. No big deal for this little bistro as they have a roof to pull over their garden. Lovely!

We started off fancy with some Champagne.

Yum!  

And had some fresh baguettes with meats and cheeses

How cute are the French flags?!

After a large steak frites dinner, creme brulee and multiple bottles of wine, we got kicked out it was time to go to our next stop.

Now I can't remember the name of this cute little pub, but it was just around the corner from Chez Max's. It's a pub with a snug! I had never heard of this before, but apparently, it's a little private section in the bar that was once used for secret rendez-vous or for ladies to have drinks in when they weren't allowed to be seen in a pub. This pub was full of little "sections" and the one we got was ADORABLE.

Locked in for privacy

In the snug 

Happy Guinness 

Diva!

After months of prodding and nagging, BF finally decided to try on suits in earnest this weekend. We did go shopping while we were in the States, but he's such a little diva, he wasn't really happy with any of the suits that he tried on. 

Today, I was dragged to Louis Copeland's, which is the only suit shop either of us know (besides Brown Thomas). Randomly, when we were in Israel, we met two girls who after learning we lived in Ireland mentioned that their great, great, great grand dad opened the Louis Copeland store. Random!

Anyways, after literally 5 minutes in the store, the sales person sized up BF, grabbed a black suit and got him into a dressing room. 15 minutes later, we were out the door with an alteration ticket in hand to pick the suit up next week. How easy was that! BF ended up with a black Italian Canali suit which apparently is THE top suit designer...sure, sure, tell us anything, just get us out of here... clearly the sales person had easy prey when we walked in.

On a cross-things-off-our-wedding-to-do list high, we got home and ordered ties for BF and the groomsmen too.

For the Groom!

For the Groom's men! 

Yeah! More things checked off the list!

Boy or girl?

No, no... I'm not talking about babies... I'm talking about wedding invitations!

My lovely sister/Matron of Honour has been amazing this week - working on calligraphy for my invitations. How lucky am I? However, she has been sending me hilarious emails asking if my guests are boys or girls. To be fair to her, before I moved to Ireland, I couldn't pronounce many of the following names much less know the gender!

Eoghan (Boy)
Eadaoin (Girl)
Diarmuid (Boy)
Adrian (Boy)
Jaime (Boy)- those last two would be questionable regardless.

Source

But happy days! It's all been sorted, and the invites are being dropped in the mail today! One more thing down!

Little bride

Last night, I attempted to paint the wooden dolls, and I'm pretty happy with my results so far. I started with the little bride as she had very little details and she turned out pretty well. I haven't added her hair so she looks a bit like a boy at the moment. I also haven't added on details of her dress but I wanted to keep that a surprise for now. BF thought she is cute and commented on how great her arms look (I'm OBSESSED with making sure my arms look good in my wedding dress. HA! He knows me too well.)

Wish I had taken better pictures since you can't really see where her head starts here.

Side View 

Front View 

I started working on the groom, but he was hard! There are so many little details, and it was time to watch Teen Mom 2 make dinner so I put him aside for the weekend. I will update as soon as he's ready!

My first DIY project

It's wedding crunch time, and I need to start some of the wedding DIY projects that I've been thinking about. I'm finding it really difficult to get started over in Ireland as I can't seem to find a Target  a store that sells all the crafty goodness I need. Sad.

However, I'm starting my very first wedding DIY project this weekend after receiving some supplies I need from the amazing Wunderkind on Etsy.

I saw this on a blog and thought it was the cutest thing ever - custom cake toppers. I'm not sure if I'll actually use them for our wedding cake. They may just chill out on the cake table.

Source 

So I ordered the wooden dolls, and they arrived yesterday in the cutest packaging.

Inside were my little dolls with a special surprise...

A baby! Is this Etsy seller trying to send me hints? How cute is that baby doll? I didn't expect him/her but I may paint our adorable ring bearer (if I master the main dolls!)

Happy July 5th!!

So I don't have a grill (which is a BIG point of contention in the red door house) or American friends so didn't have the opportunity to celebrate July 4th. However, there was a CDWM dinner at a pal's house last night and even though she is Irish through and through, she decided on an American themed dinner. SWEET!

We had lovely steak sandwiches and homemade fries -YUM! and the piece d' resistance... Dessert!

USA! USA! 

Stay-cation

With the pending nuptials and our extended honeymoon, BF and I haven't gotten a chance to travel as much as we normally do. We took advantage of the Irish sun this weekend and headed to Howth for the first time ever. It is such a cute village, and we felt like we were on holidays even through it was a short 40 minute/ 2.80E Dart ride from our house.

The weather was lovely, and we got to enjoy the little outdoor market. We walked along the pier and stopped for fresh oysters and wine- YUM! We finally ended the day with a walk along the cliffs which are AMAZING!

Along the pier 

Sadly, the fish markets were closed.  

Oysters! Yum, yum yum!  

You are indeed!  

Along the pier  

Group shot!  

View of Ireland's Eye on the far left  

You can't really tell but there is a STEEP drop straight into the ocean to the left. Scary.