Tuesday, June 29, 2010

The Saga Continues

Tonight at the wonderful hour of 4:30...I will be watching ECLIPSE!! I will be at Atlantic Station with my wonderful work friends and fellow Twilight Fanatics to join Edward, Bella and Jacob on their next quest! Side note: Maggie is probably the only one who cares, but please share with me in my joy!!


I can't wait!


Everyone knows I'm Team JACOB





So, are you Team Edward or Team Jacob?

Sunday, June 27, 2010

The Mastropasqua's get hitched!

This past weekend was an in-town weekend. I love Atlanta weekends! Friday night, Ryals and I hit up the Braves game with his brother John and his sweet girlfriend Kelsey. We had dinner at the Chop House and watched the first four innings from our patio seats there. We made it to our seats and drank beer for the remaining innings. The Braves won and after the game, they blacked out Turner field and had an incredible 25 minute or so firework display! It was so beautiful and a great date night!

Saturday I woke up, did some laundry and got in about 4 hours at the pool with Meredith. We got some sun and it's a good thing since Mer is getting married in less than two weeks!!!

I started getting ready around 3:30 for Kelly Noell's wedding. It started at 5 and was at Peachtree Presbyterian Church. It was great and I got to catch up with a lot of older ADPi's and my good friend from school, Jenny (Evans) Long and her husband Trey. The bridesmaid dresses were adorable - Vera Wang short charcoal grey dresses with a mustard yellow band at the waist. All the girls had their hair pulled up and they looked great.



Kelly's dress was gorgeous too! I didn't get many pictures (and only one with her in it), but it was lace up top with a sweetheart neckline and had a satin beige sash at the waist that tied in the back with a bow. The bottom of the dress was a satin material and was gathered and folded down the dress. So pretty!

After the ceremony we headed down to Piedmont Park to the Greystone and started the party! Her colors were yellow and grey and it was just fabulous! I loved the setting.


The Greystone - site of the reception


I loved the modern flower arrangements and dramatic yellow accent lighting!




I loved the design of her cake - might be copying that some day!



We danced the night away. At the end of the night, Kelly had surprised Mark with his favorite - a soft pretzel bar. It was her version of late night food. They were like the pretzels you get at the mall and had about 8 different dips/sauces to dip them in, such as artichoke dip, chocolate, cheese, marinara, etc. Great idea! The couple ran out while we showered them with rose petals and will be enjoying the next week in Turks and Caicos! So jealous!


Lauren and Jenny with the beautiful bride, Kelly

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Finally a Chicago posting!

As I mentioned in a post from months back, I was selected amongst three other employees from my firm to go to NeoCon in Chicago this year. The trip was from June 12th-16th.

The trip started off in a not so great way. Ryals was taking me to the airport and we decided to stop by his office on the way and get his camera for me to use while I was there (I forgot mine - whoopsies). Also, I had the BRILLIANT idea to check in from his office computer before I got to the airport so I would not have to wait in line to check in. Well, when I got online it said FLIGHT CANCELLED in red letters. So I freaked out a little bit and called on of the other girls. She and I both agreed that we should move our reservations to the next available non-stop flight which left ATL at 5 PM. In the meantime, one of the other girls had arrived at the airport and called to tell me she was really confused because in fact our flight was NOT cancelled. So we were all very confused and I tried to change our flight back to the original 12:05 flight that we were on, but it was such a popular flight that all our seats had been snatched up in the short time we changed them. At this point I was very upset. To make a long story short, one of the girls got back on the noon flight by doing standby. I literally sprinted through security and the airport to try to make it and missed it by a hair. I was then put on the 3 PM flight and upgraded to FIRST CLASS! Woohoo. The other two girls did not get to leave Atlanta until 7 PM. What a nightmare.

When I got there, I took a cab by myself to the W Hotel, Lakeshore. I met up with Marybeth who was already drinking and eating appies at the bar. We sat at the bar and had mojitos, chatted about the terrible day of traveling and waited on the other girls. When the other girls finally got there, we had a very late dinner (10:45 Chicago time, almost midnight GA time) at the W. It was fantastic! The place specialized in Tapas so we shared a bunch of them and drank good wine.


Marybeth and I sharing drinks at the lobby bar.


A view of the lobby from our barstools

The next day we woke up to have brunch at a place called Yolk down on Michigan Avenue. It was very tasty. We then walked back to an area on the river to take an architectural boat tour. It was about an hour and a half long and was amazing! I took hundreds of photos, but I will only highlight a few of my favorite buildings.


This is a view of some buildings and you can see the building formerly known as Sears Tower in the background.


The only major skyscraper in Chicago designed by a woman. The balconies are all designed in an organic pattern as you can see.


Great view of the city.


Some interesting condos!

After that we did some shopping at H&M, a massive Forever 21, Gap, you name it. By the time we were done with that, we met up with one of the furniture vendors for some Chicago style pizza. She treated us to deep dish pizza, greek salad and fried ravioli. I was in heaven (hello no diet here).




Look at that pie!


Melissa and me after a long day of sightseeing and shopping!

We went back to our hotel, quickly got ready and went to a cocktail party at a restaurant called NAHA that was hosted by local Atlanta showrooms and furniure vendors. After a few hours there, we took off to a rooftop bar on top of the Wit Hotel. Let me tell you, it was amazing. It was much like the rooftop bar we went to at the Glenn Hotel but with spectacular Chicago views. We called it a night after that.


Melissa and me at the Wit

The next morning the convention began. We had lots of showrooms to see. The Chicago Mart is a massive building and we needed to visit floors 11, 10, 7, 8 and 3 on Monday and Tuesday to see all the showrooms.




Chicago Mart - such a massive building!

We toured all day on Monday and saw so many showrooms. From carpet, to wallcovering, to furniture, to glass - we saw it all! There are so many pictures I can't even begin to post them all. Starting around 3 PM all the showrooms started passing cocktails and hors d'oeuvres - oohh lala! I enjoyed it so much!


Yours truly testing out Knoll's Womb Chair.


The OFS Furniture showroom - so awesome with purple and black theme!


All four of us testing out some chairs at Gunlocke/Allsteel showroom.


Champagne at Shaw's showroom!


Neat wall at Antron's showroom




Exhausted and passing out on a chair at Teknion showroom!

That night, one of our carpet reps took us to the nicest meal I think I have had ever. It was at a very swanky restaurant called Tru. It was one of those restaurants were all the waiters simultaneously put your plate down on the table and the service is a BIG production. I would imagine our check was in the thousands. It was amazing!


The whole group, including Patcraft/Shaw Carpet president Bob Chandler.





Day two - more showrooms to tour. By this time, we were all SPENT! But we saw some neat stuff.


Herman Miller Showroom.






VeenendaalCave with Morgan McDowell @ the Mohawk Carpet showroom.

That night we rushed back to our hotel to get ready for appetizers at Blue Man Group, courtesy of Morgan and the Mohawk Group. We had apps at a cute restaurant and then walked next door to see the Blue Man Group. I had never seen the show before and it was so very entertaining! If it comes to Atlanta, we all need to go see it.


I'm blue dah dah dee dee dee dah dah dah deeee...







When the show was over, we hit Hangge Uppe for some Johnny's Hideaway style dancing! We stayed out with fellow designers and reps until 3 am. Man was I hurting the next day!


Carlos and his wife Alex


Ummmmm....


That's better!

Last day, we all woke up feeling somewhat rough. We did brunch at a small cafe near our hotel and then Marybeth and I walked down to Millenium park to do some sightseeing. I had to see the bean before leaving Chicago. After that we had Pellegrino at a sidewalk cafe and then headed to the airport to leave. Our day of traveling was much easier than the previous one!






Leaving Chicago - about to get on the airplane and who do I run into? The BLUES BROTHERS!

So now I am wondering...when can we go back? Girls Weekend 2011 anyone???

Monday, June 7, 2010

Engagement Pics

Check out my friend Amy's adorable engagement pictures by Becca Price Photography here. Becca did Brian and Meghan's engagement photos. Amy and Jeff are such a cute couple and Becca has really developed her photography business over the last year! They took their pictures at Serenbe - could not have been cuter!

Can't wait to see some of you girls tonight at Monday Night Girls' Dinner!