Badass

My guy during our engagement pics. More soon...

Four Months to Go!

Four is my NY MoH's lucky number. So here's hoping I can borrow it and things run smoothly and productively this month!

Where do we stand in the plans? I need to choose invitations very soon, and I've got some emails out to vendors about detail choices- table shapes, linens, inspiration. We don't have a ceremony planned yet, but I'll try to have faith that all parties involved can get on the same page. Pun intended. But all the big things remain planned, deposited, and in tact. I think we're right on track.

Where do we stand... otherwise? We still don't know where we'll live in 3 weeks! We're waiting to hear about jobs for Marc.. and then I hope that I can find something [that I love] wherever we end up. I try to focus on the positive side of the coin that I'll surely have time on my hands for wedding projects during my impending period of unemployment.

Here's to life adventures and a busy four months ahead!

Taking life by the bees

I know you've all been waiting with baited breath to find out my big wonderful news (mentioned on monday), and wondering why I've been so quiet this week!  Hehe, okay maybe not.

A week ago today, I got an email I'd been waiting 6 loooong weeks for (I'm not complaining - October's the new June.. so there were probs lots of Fall applicants) telling me my application to blog for Weddingbee has been accepted!!! Some of my readers know what that's all about, some of you don't have a clue besides what I might have mentioned once or twice (or more...).

Weddingbee is a blog, board, DIY, wiki community focused on real brides' wedding planning adventures. The Bees are featured bloggers who tell their whole story from ring to ring... if you will. From planning big and little details, to recapping how their day turned out, and then popping back in here and there over the years to share a project for a friend's bridal shower (for example). It's a great place for inspiration, support, and it's kind of like crack for brides who love falling down the wedding blog rabbit hole and "meeting" other brides along the way.

I originally started Heart the Day with the goal to apply to blog for Weddingbee. To get in is a huge confidence booster and accomplishment for me. And hopefully, it's a push in the right direction towards a fulfilling career shift.  This process has inspired me to reach for things and, well, take life by the balls as this post's title implies :)

So, my dear loyal friends and readers who loved me just for hearting the day, come on over and meet my moniker! And I owe you all a big hug and a bigger thank you for keeping me going with comments, IM's and other such feedback.

And bear with me this next week- I have to edit lots of old posts to put up on the 'bee, and my real-time posting will continue to be sporadic.  Yay Yay Yayeeeee!!!


xoxo,

Heart the Day

monday affirmation

Jump in!

personal picture

I'm feeling jet lagged from this weekend and slow as molasses today, but I wanted to try to inspire us to really go for it this week. I recently put myself out there and it paid off- more good news to come, I promise! 

Happy Monday!

xoxo,

Heart the Day

Monday Affirmation

Try not to hit snooze so you have more time to savor your morning brew.

[source]

Simple pleasures make a Monday morning manageable.

xoxo,
Heart the day

Springtime is back!

Spring decided to come back to us in New York, and work is over for the week. I love the overgrown gardens and fire escapes out my back window in Astoria. Happy Friday!

And happy sunset.

xoxo,
heart the day

Happy Mother's Day: Momma on her wedding day ♥

My mom is the prettiest lady in the whole world. I want to be just as gracious and warm as her when I grow up. I've had more "I love you more" fights- in my childhood- with her than with anyone else in my life to date. I imagine many daughters feel these things about their mothers. Today, my sib and I will be cooking her dinner and enjoying lots of wine and memories, and probably wedding talk. So I'd love to share my beautiful momma on her wedding day, before the walk down the aisle to my dad, spending a couple special moments with my grandmom:

"Adjusting the veil" pose, I love my Grandmom's MOB dress and the flowers in her hair. And I have always been smitten with my mom's eyelet gown.

Pinning Mother's corsage. They're naturals in front of the camera- So much joy in their eyes.

The first page in my parents' wedding album- My mom enjoys a quiet moment of reflection and the photographer re-printed their traditional invitation.

I can't believe the next generation of mother-daughter wedding day photos will be taken in just FIVE MONTHS! We will miss my grandmother, but I'm sure she'll be with us in spirit and she's always with me as an inspiration.

Happy Mothers' Day all! 

{photographs by Kathleen Donnelly, June 14th 1975}

Save the Dates!: I mailed them, people got them, how'd I do it?

In other words: My DIY wrap-around labels.

I had somewhat arbitrarily chosen Valentine's Day as my deadline to have our save the dates in the mail- ideally in the hands of our potential guests. I decided the heart theme would be cute and appropriate, and it was within the 6-8 months-out window of time to send save the dates per wedding books and websites. However, the universe and Martha Stewart had another plan in store for my little paper pretties.

I tried printing directly onto the envelope per the paper store's claim that it could be done. The inkjet results were smudgey at best. I tried typing up traditional labels and they looked not good enough. There's no better way to say it. This is where Martha comes in and gets the blame, because I found these wrap-around labels when searching MarthaStewart.com for labeling etiquette.

{source}

I knew they would spruce up my kraft paper envelopes and make them look perfectly put together. I had to have them! Martha offered a template to make your own labels, plus instructions for how to make paper into stickers with a... sticker machine. Okay, this was climbing over my head and out of my budget. And the big kicker was that you had to hand-type all the addresses into their template and print each page one at a time! I had over 100 save the dates to send out... I was going to make technology my slave, not the other way around. Oh, and the final important piece of information about this template is that you cannot customize the font or color as far at I can tell. You're stuck with Times New Roman, italicized, in black.  So here's what I did:

Heart is not a verb

You're right. Heart is not really a verb. But I got caught up in the trend to "heart" things, and excited to have a grown-up thing to apply it to. And while "OMG, I heart you!" is really annoying, I found that I was not particularly annoyed by the original:

And when trying to sort of "brand" the wedding blog and website, heart was just so adorable and young. Marc and I are high school sweethearts after all, and we try to stay young at... well.. heart.

And I knew I wanted "becky ::heart:: marc" on the save the dates- so when I saw Janie's I asked if we could copy it in our design.

I had also briefly considered "beckyheartsmarc.com" for a wedding website many months ago but decided originally that it was too one-sided. Now that I had the logo sort of, it was a go. And if you have a keen memory or if you clicked above, you'll remember we heart paper; and if you're in my head, you know I'm obsessed with thoughtful day... hence heart the day and becky hearts marc branding.

Marc asked me last night whether I was comfortable with using heart as a verb. My first response was that it was too late, duh. But I am in fact comfortable with it, in context. In the wedding blog world I think it works. Heart the day means to love the day, embrace each day, and we're looking toward one day in particular that will be filled with love and warmth. And if there's any day in this whole wide world I heart, it's that day. {And the day Marc worked up the nerve to talk to me... or even his birthday (I know, barf)}. I hope to take the joy I imagine feeling on that day and look at each day with wide-eyed hope and love. Repress my cynical sass just a bit.

So, I dunno. Here's to hearting things. And remembering that no matter how annoying life gets, there's still hearts and love. And butterflies and rainbows? And it's spring and the days are longer now.