happiness is...

Shirt: American Eagle $6 (clearance) | Maxx Studio Pants: TJ Maxx $30 | BCBG Flats: Marshall's $25 (clearance)  Total Outfit Cost: $61
Yesterday Nicole inspired me to write down a list each day of the things that made me happy.
Today happiness is... -exactly one month of a happy marriage -a customer who told me that I have been so helpful throughout her claim process -an amazing workout provided by my personal trainer/hubby -saying hubby ;) -tuesday= my two favorite shows! pretty little liArs & so you think you can dance!
Also, I entered the Chippmuck.com's Expert Shopper Contest with my coral blazer outfit from yesterday. Help me win by loving my look here! By the way, you can vote each day too. So if you vote, I'll add you to be happiness is list ;) 

the coral blazer strikes again

LC Lauren Conrad Blazer: Kohl's  $24 | Maxx Studio Pants: $30 | AE Shirt: Goodwill $3.49 | Bracelets: Goodwill $2 & $2.99 | Wedges: Target $20 Total Outfit Cost: $82.48
Y'all know I couldn't go too long without posting an outfit in my coral blazer! I swear the outfits are endless in this blazer. It's seriously one of my favorite and most versatile things in my closet! I love the contrast of the turquoise with the coral too. Eventually I'll pair it with my turquoise bubble necklace... even if other bloggers aren't wearing theirs anymore. I'll still be sporting mine for at least a few more months!

striped skirt 4 ways

Shirt: Forever 21: $20 | Skirt: Old Navy, gift carded (but only $12) | Charlotte Russe Flats: Goodwill $3.49 Total Outfit Cost: $23.49 That awkward moment... when your coworker tells you they saw that their friend pinned a picture of you in that skirt on Pinterest. So now my co-workers know about my blog, and for some reason I'm so embarrassed! I really shouldn't be though! I started this blog to inspire people, and heck, the more people I can inspire the better I guess!  Just the fact that I take pictures of myself as a hobby is embarrassing is what I really mean haha. Check out how versatile this skirt is!  1 | 2 | 3 | 4

a wear anywhere dress

Dress: Apricot Lane, gift carded | Flats: Payless $24 

Total Outfit Cost: $24

Know what's cool about having your birthday? Getting a gift card to place you don't normally shop because it's too expensive. Then, going to said place and seeing a rack that says 75% off. Then, getting 2 dresses, a top, and 2 pairs of earrings for less than the original price of just one of the dresses. Yepp. This happened. 

My wonderful co-workers got me a gift card to Apricot Lane for my birthday, and that's where I got this dress for a whopping $10! It was originally $42! I love this dress because it's one of those dresses that can be worn anywhere. I wore it to work like this, but I could throw on some heels or wedges with a pretty necklace and wear this somewhere nice, or I could put it on with sandals and a braided belt and wear it casual! 

Linking up with| Third Thursday Threads: Geometric Prints

bridals | part I

Quite a few months ago, they played a video at church that was in this gorgeous old church. After the video, both my mom and I looked at either other and said that we have got to do my bridal pictures there! She messaged our pastor on facebook to ask him where the church is, and he told us it was the abandoned St. Mary's Episcopal Church in St. Francisville, La. I used my wonderful google skills and found the address to the church and sent it to my photographer, Tate. 
 The day of my bridals, I got my hair and makeup done. My makeup took a tad bit longer than expected, so we got a late start to heading to the church. Once we we're finally on our way, we got stuck in Baton Rouge 5 o'clock traffic, and if you're from the area, you know how bad that can be. It was terrible, and I felt so bad because I didn't want to hold Tate up. I texted him , though, and him and his wife, Sarah, weren't too far ahead of us, caught in the traffic too. I was still worried about time, though! These pictures were going to be taken outside, so we've gotta take them before the sun goes down!
Tate makes it to the church about 10 minutes before us, and texts me a picture of the church... WRONG CHURCH. We then show up to the address the GPS brought us to. YEPP WRONG CHURCH. 

OMG was all I was thinking. Where the heck are we and where is my church?? Trying not to panic, we all started searching the church on our phones, and turns out it doesn't even have an address. The address I had found and sent to Tate was to a St. Mary's Episcopal Church... but one not nearly as old or as beautiful.  
Tate tells us that his friend who lives in St. Fancisville told him what road to go down to find it.  So, we drive another 45 minutes.  We drive up and down this hwy that the church is supposed to be on, and there's no church anywhere. I start getting bummed and realize now we just need to find somewhere to take pictures.  We see these little old slave cabins (shown in the pictures above) and decide that that will work.  
 But not for Sarah, Tate's wife. She was DETERMINED to find the church. While we stayed and took pictures, she drove back down the hwy to look for it....
I leave you with this picture of me, mom, and my sister in a cow pasture.... find out if we ever found the church in part II of my bridal pictures!! ;)

the story of my wedding dress

After shopping at a few boutiques to find my perfect wedding gown, I knew exactly what I wanted... fully lace & mermaid style. The next step was to find the perfect fully lace mermaid gown for me. Being that I danced my whole life and wore rhinestones galore, I thought my wedding dress would have at least a little beading or sparkle. Well we were at a boutique in Baton Rouge called Megan's Dress to the 9's, and as I was trying on some dresses, my mom and stepmom convinced me to try on a lace gown that had zero beading or sparkle on it. At first I was like "ehhh but isn't it kinda plain??" but they said we could always add to it.

So I put on the dress with the help of my amazing sister/maid of honor... we both were like wow this is REALLY pretty. I walk out of the dressing room and I saw myself in the big mirror and I was in love! My family loved the dress too, but that doesn't say much because they thought just about every dress was "THE dress" lol. 

The longer I stood there in the dress, I knew it was the one. We asked about the price... $1200. It wasn't really that expensive compared to some of the dresses I had tried on, but it was still high and I was really wishing to find a dress under $1000. My parents didn't have the deposit to put down that day, and we still had plans to go to one more boutique the next weekend, so we didn't get it.

The actual Mori Lee gown at Megan's dress to the 9's

Since we wrote down the info on the dress, my mom googled it later on in the week to see if she could find it cheaper. And she sure did! She found it on Deanna Bridals for.... $312!! Normally I would be skeptical about ordering a discounted version of a dress, but this one said Mori Lee- the designer name- on it so I thought it HAD to actually be it. So I ordered it.

We went to the last boutique the next weekend with a lot of my family and friends just for fun. I tried on a lot of dresses that weren't my style, and they all kept confirming my love for the dress I had already ordered. We then asked the lady who had been helping us for the past 3 hours if they carried my dress. (We didn't tell her we ordered the dress already) She brought out the dress, and it was exciting to get to show everyone else the dress, and they were all in love with it also.

The lady did the whole "say yes to the dress" with me and it was all exciting until she said she was going to get someone to get me fitted... Ohhh crap what do I tell this lady?! My family was telling me to tell her that we were going to leave and come back later after lunch... I couldn't do it y'all. She came back and I told her the truth. Man, was she MAD. She said "OH you ordered it from CHINA?! Good luck with that!"

My family was soooo embarrassed that I didn't just tell her we'd come back later! But I'm just such a terrible liar! I hurt that lady's feelings that she helped me for 3 hours and I had already ordered a dress, but at the end of the day, I didn't lie and I did the right thing... I think. Haha.

A couple weeks later my dress comes in the mail all folded up in a pretty small package. The bag said something like "wedding dress from China." That's when I got nervous. 

I tried the dress on, and much to my surprise it wasn't the actual designer gown, but it was pretty dang close to it.. and for a fourth of the price, it looked amazing to me!

I absolutely love my dress and I'm so happy that I could stick to my thrifty ways and find a dress for only $400 (with shipping)! :D

This is probably the longest blog post I've ever written, but I want to always remember the story of my wedding dress, and plus I think it's a pretty cool story to share, and I feel like it could provide some advice for ordering dresses online :)

#mrmrswallace2013

Hiii!! Miss me? Ha you probably haven't even noticed I've been gone! Well I'm back and I can not wait to show y'all pictures of my wedding festivities! I probably won't have the actual wedding photos until September but for now I wanted to show y'all some of my favorite instagram pictures from the wedding :)

This was seriously the best day of my entire life. Everything went absolutely perfectly, and I never dreamed my wedding could turn out that amazing. I'm so blessed to have an amazing husband, and we are so blessed to have such a great support system.

If you want to see the rest of the instagram photos of our wedding, just search #mrmrswallace2013 on instagram! [& follow me @danielle_goodwillista while you're at it!]