Changing my mind?

Just in case I haven’t inundated you with enough shoe pictures lately…guess what, I’m posting about shoes again!

I picked up a pair of Nine West Jojus in purple ages ago, plus a pair of flat Nine West Zaltas to wear while dancing the night away.  To refresh your memory:

Well…and then I’ve fallen in love with Fluevogs.  Fluevogs are designed in Vancouver and made by hand.  In fact, if you want to watch an amazing video of one of their shoes being made by hand, check it out!  They are quirky, and they are some of the most comfortable shoes that I own!  Plus, Future Hubs will be sporting an awesome pair of Vogs so I may be a bit jealous…

I love both of these…

Bellevues Belle Star in Aqua Blue

Miracle Fatima in Turquoise and Grey

So dear readers, what do you think?  Which shoes are your favourite?

1. Purple Nine West Shoes
2. Bellevues Belle Star in Aqua Blue
3. Miracle Fatima in Turquoise and Grey

Feel fee to weigh in on the comments section or on the poll on the right hand side of my blog!  Oh, and I should mention that I wouldn’t be at risk of “aerating” the lawn as I walk down the aisle with either pair of the Fluevogs.  The heels on the Nine West shoes however are rather skinny.

Shoes, shoes and more shoes

I had a few questions about what shoes I actually purchased.  I didn’t include links since most of them are sold out now, but here we go anyway!

John Fluevog – Bellevues Pearl Hart

Target – Kachiri Boots – finally boots that fit my calves and for a steal of a deal!

Miss Albright – Anticipation Heels – Anthropologie – Sold Out, but similar here

Miss Albright – Slinking Frills Pumps – Anthropologie – Sold Out but watch for popbacks here.  Runs half a size large.

Miss Albright – Prized Rose Peep Toes – Anthropologie – Sold Out

Seychelles – Glad Rags T-Straps – Anthropologie – Sold Out, but similar here, here

Schuler & Sons – Linnaean Pumps – Anthropologie – Sold Out

Stylish Blogger??

Thanks to Kelly at the IKEA Bride and Manda Mack for tagging me with the Stylish Blogger award!I’m supposed to list seven random things about myself, so here goes…

1. I have a definite thing for shoes!  In fact I acquired these around Christmas and while I was down in the States.  Thank goodness I had packed lightly and could accommodate all of these shoes in the suitcase on the way home.
   
   Plus I have these ones coming in the mail…
   Yup, I love shoes.
2. The majority of my good shoes have never seen the outside elements.  I keep them all in a filing cabinet at work.  I had a picture of said filing cabinet somewhere but I can’t seem to find it.
3. I have caught – on more than one occasion – the heel of my shoe on the cuff of my pant.  I was walking through the Whole Foods Parking lot, caught my heel, and went splat on the ground!  And…of course there were people watching.  I solve that problem by wearing mostly skirts these days.
4. I am genuinely concerned about tripping and falling while walking down the aisle at our wedding ceremony.
5. My brother used to love coming up with witty names for my boyfriends.  In high school I dated Chicken Little (because he worked at the chicken place Swiss Chalet), Little Caesar (because he worked at Little Caesars), then I moved on to Peg Leg Ray (long story) and Porn-Shoer (because he had a pornstache and we talked about going snow shoeing). Neil – the Future Hubs – was nicknamed No Car Nick - because he didn't have a car and my brother couldn't remember that his name was Neil.
6. The longest I have lived in one place is five years, and that was in London, England from 1988 to 1993. I estimate I have moved a total of 27 times however it is possible the number may be slightly higher than that.  That being said I will have been in Calgary for 5 years come July!
7. We had to keep a journal in grade four that would involve writing five sentences down every day. I couldn't always think of five sentences, so often my journal entry would go like this: "I have a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch today. This afternoon I am going to ride horses. Weeee! Weeee! Weeee!" Thank goodness my journaling skills have improved or else I would have no blog readers if my entries mostly consisted of "Weeee! Weeee! Weeee!"

If you haven’t been tagged yet, then consider yourself tagged! 

Although I will tag you Meg at Worth a Tri…

Music to a bride’s ears

There have been a lot of exciting announcements lately for Calgary shoppers, particularly if you are a bride!

First off, our very first Anthropologie opened up in town just before Christmas.  Um, hello…have you seen some of the beautiful dresses that they carry?  I can just imagine some of these beauties being perfect for a rehearsal dinner or our honeymoon in New York.

Paraiso Dress, Martagon Sketch Halter, Sun Shades Dress, Sing Sweetly Party Dress

Next up, Tiffany & Co will open its first stand alone store in Chinook Centre this spring!  This means we will be able to pick out our wedding bands here in town, not when we go to Vancouver for a vacation.  Plus I’ll be able to pop in and get my ring cleaned from time to time.  Yippee!

And finally, we are getting a Victoria’s Secret at Chinook this spring as well!  Before this the closest Vickie’s was a three hour drive away.  Now I have a local option for finding wedding related underthings and all…cough, cough.

And while it isn’t really wedding related, Target is coming to Canada too!

If you live in Calgary, are you excited about these new stores that are set to arrive soon?

The bouts are here!

Look what arrived in the mail a few days ago…No, it isn’t just a pretty box, its from Pomp & Plummage!  Our boutonnieres that we won from Souris Mariage have arrived!On the left are three Oscar Wilde bouts – one for my dad, one for the Future Hubs’ dad, and one for my brother, our MC. Future Hubs’ bout is the Rousseau on the left, followed by Jonathan Livingston Seagull and the Goldstein for the groomsmen.  Denise swapped out the usual gold embellishment in the last two bouts for a long silver feather to match our theme.They look amazing!  We are so thrilled with them.  I would highly recommend Denise at Pomp & Plumage as she was a delight to work with and her craftsmanship is phenomenal.  Thanks again to Mouse at Souris Mariage and Pomp & Plumage!

Time to get rolling!

Well, I am officially back from Disney World and we are well into January.  Only 175 days to go until our wedding!  Things were on hold through most of December since I was so busy at work so it is time to get back on the wedding planning bandwagon!

We designed and ordered our Save the Dates just before Christmas and they have arrived!  They look fantastic.  First up on our priority list is going through our guest list a final time, gathering any missing addresses and getting those puppies in the mail.

We’ll also need to polish up our website before the Save the Dates go out.  Right now it is a bit empty and I’d like to make sure it is in better shape for when our guests get the STDs in the mail.

I suppose we should probably think about registering too, eh?

This month I need to give our florist a deposit and we will have to start thinking about when we’ll go to Vancouver for a food and cake tasting.

And on a non-wedding note, I signed up for a half marathon in April.  My training program starts tomorrow!  So there we go, January is going to be a busy month.  Let’s get started!

What is on your to do list this month?

Hunting for the perfect pedestal for our cake

Back in October I was browsing etsy and I fell in love with milk glass. Specifically this milk glass cake plate.

Image via havenvintage on etsy

The one on etsy was a bit rich for my blood so I began scouring antique stores, kijiji, craigslist and eBay for something similar. I finally spotted one on eBay and nabbed it with a last minute bid courtesy of the handy eBay app on my iPhone as I was browsing a fabric store for other wedding related stuff.

Two weeks later I got a message from the seller. The plate had been returned with its destination label missing and he was putting it back in the mail to me. Instantly I became worried that I would probably never see this item. Days would pass with no sign of the cake plate and finally it was 45 days since the original PayPal transaction. Luckily I got my money refunded, but I was still without the cake plate I had been hoping for.

Thankfully I managed to win another auction on eBay at a lower price than the first plate and it arrived soon in the new year. Even better? The card that came with the plate letting me know that proceeds from its sale would go to help victims of domestic violence.

“Thank you for your purchase.  The proceeds will go to supporting victims of domestic violence.  We appreciate your purchase.  Hope you enjoy the cake plate.”

The plate has a beautiful clear glass edge at the end of the ruffle. The plate is a good size that will hopefully hold our wedding cake! It is also the kind of item that we will get plenty of use out of when we entertain (since Mr. Gazelle loves to bake desserts).

Have you had any good or bad experiences with eBay lately?

Why won't this turn on?

Hey guys, I'm back! I had big plans for a post tonight but my computer won't turn on! Hopefully I'll be back online soon.

Hunt for Ties

Trying to find the perfect tie for one’s wedding – not just for the groom but the groomsmen too – is hard! 

You have a specific colour you want.  You don’t want the ties to be ugly.  And, if you are like the Gazelles, you want the groom to have a different tie from his groomsmen so he stands out, but the other ties have to complement.  Oh, and you don’t like plain ties.

So you have all of these criteria in mind for ties…and you are shopping without the groom!

Why on earth would I be shopping for ties without Mr. Gazelle?  Well, I was down in Orlando with my parents for the Disney Marathon and Mr. Gazelle was back home in Calgary.  We were hoping to find some great quality ties at a low price thanks to the outlet malls down here.

We stopped by Orlando Premium Outlets and my dad and I were on a mission.  If a store sold ties we were in it!  At first it was looking pretty dismal.  The ties weren’t the right purple or they were really ugly.  Finally we walked into Zegna and it was like the sky parted and angels were singing.

A dark purple tie with lighter purple and white designs.  It is a very subtle pattern which was exactly what I was hoping to find!

With the tie for Mr. Gazelle located it was time to find ties for our groomsmen.  We hadn’t spotted anything that great at any other stores so we were placing all our hopes on the final store – Brooks Brothers.  We made our way to the back of the store to the table of ties and signs promising three ties for $99.  We found exactly the right tie for our two groomsmen – a subtle woven purple with blue dots.  Not a solid colour, and nice and understated to not compete with Mr. Gazelle.  Two ties would have been $90 so it seemed silly to not take advantage of the three for $99 deal.  I decided to get a patterned purple tie for my brother who will be the Master of Ceremonies at our wedding reception.

All in all, tie success!  I tried to show them off to Mr. Gazelle via webcam so he saw them, but not the detail of them.  Hopefully he likes them all though!

Did you find shopping for ties difficult?  Did you try to buy them without your fiancé?

Resolutions for 2011

I really hate the word “resolution.”  It seems as if calling something a “resolution” almost dooms it to failure.  However, dislike for the word or not I definitely have some goals I would like to set for myself this year.  The biggest has to do with the white dress that is hanging in the back of my closet.

When I purchased my dress in September a month after I finished Ironman Canada it just fit.  If I gained any weight then I would be in trouble!  Since then I have fallen off the exercise band wagon HARD.  Initially I was still burned out from the ridiculous amounts of training I put in leading up to Ironman.  Then it was apathy.  Then I just didn’t have time to work out.  Now I’m feeling like I am in terrible shape, coupled with pants that don’t fit anymore.

While the motivation to want to look good in my wedding dress is a strong one I just haven’t felt like myself lately since I haven’t been very active.  Starting in the new year that has to change.  I’ve trained for marathons and several long distance triathlons over the last few years and all of that training barely impacts my physique.  I know I need to mix things up if I’m going to tone up and shed a few pounds.

I’ve decided to try two new programs at my gym starting in January.  The first is Zumba! 

I’ve known a few people who have taken Zumba classes and they have said it is a lot of fun and a really good workout.  I don’t have the best coordination so this may be interesting…  I figured it would be something fun to try and throw in the mix.

Next up is TRX bootcamp.  This class sounds like a great way to build strength, work my core and get in some cardio too.  I’m really excited about this one.

And finally, my bridesmaid Debbie gave me a session with a personal trainer at the gym as a Christmas present so that I can get some one on one help to reach my goals.  For her, she saw her biggest leaps in strength and weight loss when she decided to get some help from a personal trainer.  Thank you for that very generous and wonderful gift Debbie!

I think these three things along with running will be just the jump start I need to get back to a healthier me (along with looking fantastic in my wedding dress)!

Have you set any resolutions or goals for yourself for 2011?

Happy 2011!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year’s!  Unfortunately FH was back in Calgary, working the night shift, while I was still visiting with my family in BC. 

We went out for dinner at a local winery, Quail’s Gate, and had an absolutely delicious meal.  We then came home, my brother and I squared off on Wii frisbee and bowling, then rung in 2011 with Dick Clark.  Now time for some fun pictures from the night!

With my super adorable niece/flower girl Avery:

My mom and I:

With my sister-in-law/MOH Tanya (both of us rocking some awesome Anthropologie dresses):

The whole family – myself, Mom, my grandmother, brother, niece, Dad and sister-in-law:

Quail’s Gate was offering up a special four course menu to celebrate New Year’s.  I had:

• West Coast Albacore Tuna
  Lightly seared, red quinoa & cucumber salad, pickled asparagus, yuzu dressing

• Wild Caribou Tartar
  Poached quail egg, cornichons, capers, mustard dressing
  I’ve never had tartar before so I figured why not?  This was delicious.

• Arctic Char
  Apple cider glazed fillet, sunchoke & potato gratin, pickled beans, apple purée

• Chocolate Almond Savarin
  Red wine ice cream, vanilla poached Seckel pear

I’ll be back tomorrow to share my New Year’s resolutions (oh what a terrible word) with you! 

How did you spend your New Year’s?