For The Dainty Days

Pining for Fall

7/19/2015

I am desperately ready for fall. So desperate in fact, that I can't even stop myself from wearing outfits that leave me baking in the heat whose presence I refuse to acknowledge. We finally got the heat wave that my mother in law has been jonesing for all summer, and I am left pouting in the air conditioning until it goes away.

Photos by Sarah Knuth

I am a lover of sleeves, so I've started my premature fall transition there. This lightweight cheetah print sweater from Dottie is a perfect summer piece for me, as I spend about .01% of my time outside and the rest of it indoors in the air conditioning. I usually get cold in A/C so light coverage is a must!

My olive drawstring shorts are from Marshall's in Anderson last summer. Shorts are really not my favorite type of clothing so the fact that I have these in three colors is a testament to their awesomeness! They were only $10/pair and though I haven't found this exact style, they do seem to get something similar in each summer!
Olive is my favorite color for moving into fall (though burgundy is a close second!) and I can't wait for all the olive things to start showing up in stores soon!

This fuchsia lip is Colour Pop's "Heart On" and I love it so much! Usually bold pinks don't seem to suit me, but I am obsessed with this one! I love Colour Pop's matte formula because it goes on my lips easily but stays all day.

I have been on the hunt for a tan Kate Spade bag for quite some time now, and was determined to find the perfect one by fall! I prefer larger bags so that I can carry everything I need comfortably, and this one is the perfect size for that. If I can't fit at least 33 lipsticks in a bag, there's really no use in my purchasing it. This is the "Cobble Hill Peters" bag in "warm putty", and I love her already.

I have had a love for fishtails this week, and this look was one of my favorites! I started just past my part and Dutch fishtailed until I got to my right ear, where I pinned it under the rest of my hair. I pulled it out to make it more full, and that's it!

I paired my favorite, incredibly uncomfortable fringe booties with the animal print to keep the outfit neutral but fun. I am definitely looking forward to pairing my booties with denim for fall...and hopefully breaking them in so that I don't feel crippled by the end of the day. Seventeenth time's the charm, right?

What are you looking forward to wearing this fall? Or are you on the wrong side like my mother in law and wanting summer to stay a while? Let me know in the comments below, I sincerely hope I have some fellow fall lovers out there!

Love,
Ashley

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Wedding Wear Summer 2015

7/11/2015

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We are well in the middle of wedding season, my friends! It's that lovely time of the summer when I'm finally getting used to the gross heat and only just starting to hate all my engaged friends. Don't get me wrong, I love a good wedding but many consecutive weekends involving weddings can drive anyone mad. This is the time of the season that I decide to step up my wedding wear for the sake of keeping it interesting!
Photos by Sarah Knuth

Outfit

The ultimate challenge when I'm looking for a formal outfit is mixing comfort with fashion. I have an endless amount of outfit combinations that are insanely uncomfortable, but it takes work to put together something in which I can breathe, walk, eat, and actually enjoy myself in for more than two hours. Don't get me wrong, this is just how I like my wardrobe since I'm a big believer of the parallelism between beauty and pain, but a full night out definitely requires some thought going into the comfort of my outfit!

I am in love with the trend of wearing a crop top with high waisted bottoms, so I chose to put together a more formal outfit with those pieces. My royal floral crop top is from Nordstrom Rack (around $15) and I adore it for its versatility! I've worn it with more casual pieces before, but I really enjoyed dressing it up for this occasion. The key for me to feel comfortable rocking this look is making sure there is about 1-2 inches between my top and my skirt. Anymore than that and everyone could see the food baby I'll be hiding after nom'ing too hard...we can't have that.

My black tulle midi skirt ($18) was a great find from TJ Maxx this past spring! I have been on the hunt for a skirt
like this for an obscene amount of time, and I'm so glad I held out for this one! It has a satin band that is smooth in the front and ruched in the back, so no fear of me busting a zipper after cake.
I love a good tea length skirt, but many swamp my stubby legs so I had resigned myself to the fact that I would need to have it altered until I tried it on with heels and I think it's a great length after all!

Out of all the shoes in my admittedly expansive collection, this pair is my favorite!
They were a gift from my future parents in law to wear on our wedding day, and they were everything I'd wanted in a bridal shoe. I began the hunt for blue Kate Spade shoes early on in the wedding planning, and we ended up finding these on Zappos Couture! They are the most expensive pair of shoes I have at $328, but they are so comfortable and sturdy for a stiletto, and I was actually able to wear them my entire wedding day (after I got dressed that is) which ended up being almost 12 hours! I assure you, I will find any and every excuse to wear them again and again. They even still have "Mrs. McMullen" and "August 2, 2014" stickers on the bottom of them from our special day, so wearing these makes any outfit infinitely more meaningful!

Hair & Makeup

The loose curls I've been doing recently are very easy to achieve! I prep my hair by spraying Fekkai dry shampoo at my roots and working that through, and then I spray my current favorite heat spray which is Paul Mitchell "Hot Off the Press". I use a 1 1/4 inch Hot Tools curling iron, wrapping 1 inch sections around the barrel as though it were a wand. I usually hold for around 10 seconds and then slide the curl off the barrel and into my palm for it to cool a little before I let it fall. I usually alternate between curling toward and away from my face so that the curls don't all form into one massive curl! Once all of my hair is curled and cooled, I flip my hair over and spray upside down and each side before flipping it back up and arranging it to lay correctly. I spray the front of my hair and then I'm done!

I kept my makeup pretty true to my normal makeup routine, I just added a pop of color on my lips for the special occasion!
I've really been loving Colour Pop's "I Heart This" recently because it is somewhere between a pink and a red and has the best matte finish that doesn't dry out
my lips. I didn't wan't to go too red in fear of looking like a demented wannabe Snow White, and I'm sincerely hoping the pink color saved me from that horror show...but let me know if not.

I hope this helps you with any wedding outfit inspo you may need! We will get through wedding season together, I promise. Let me know if you have any wedding wear secrets of your own, I can use all the help I can get!

Love,
Ashley

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Pining for Fall

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