let me tell you a thing or two...

....about the loves of my life. clearly these women who i have asked to be my bridesmaids hold an incredibly special place in my heart and in my life, but before these months slip by i wanted to sit down and share their wonderfulness.

highlawn, corner booth

rome, 2007

4/5 of k&co in Morocco

charleston, sc

homecoming, 2007

chicago, 2010

6/2011

velleco-jones wedding, 6/2011

chicago, 2012

mangano-bishop wedding, 2012

christine - tri delta's weekly chapter meetings close with the entire room holding hands, and repeating a mantra "let us steadfastly love one another." and for three years, christine and i held hands and rolled our eyes as we said that out loud to a room of 100 girls. but if i had to use a word that perfectly describes our relationship it would be "steadfast."i can't imagine that i am an easy person to be friends with; i get mad far too easily, i still don't know when too much chardonnay is TOO MUCH CHARDONNAY, and i can be extremely impatient. but christine gets me. and she loves me. and in turn i get to call the funniest woman i know my best friend.

cheyenne - my oldest and dearest friend in the world. we were 11 when we met, best friends every other day during high school, shared a dorm freshman year of college, were roommates for a summer on hilton head island; simply put, we have grown up together. we share a lifetime of memories; high school proms and college graduations, first dances and losing first loves, the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows. she is more than just my friend, she is family.

sara - have you ever met someone and wanted to be their friend? i have, and her name is sara. affectionately known as "wisty woo," sara was in tri delta and we pledged together, and then lived together senior year, and my wish came true, we were finally friends! i think it's important to have women in your life who you admire. and i admire sara. she is fiercely independent, has impeccable taste, and i cannot imagine my life without her unbiased advice and constant support. when i talk to sara what i get back, while judgment free, is brutally honest and that is the testament to a true friend.

marissa - "are you a virgin? do you drink?" are the first two questions marissa was asked upon entering my dorm room on the third or fourth day of college. we spent the next four years joined at the hip. we would tell people "oh if you met me, then you met her" and would sit at parties, on a couch, just the two of us, chatting away like we didn't spend every single second together. it's a rare thing when you share your entire college experience with another person, and that's just what we did. while we have most certainly had our lows, there is no doubt that for the rest of our lives, i will be ready and willing to do absolutely anything for her, and that, in my little opinion, is what friendship is: the understanding that things change, and sometimes bonds become weak only so that they can grow strong again.

ashley - the first time i heard about ashley mangano, well. i won't share that story because it is disgusting but so absolutely hilarious that i will never forget it. ashley is one of the few people i have ever met in my life that has a remarkable ability to make every situation a little bit lighter with her humor. whether it was laughing with a french man as he called marissa and christine "american chimpanzees" or telling us a detailed story at dinner about how she got dog shit on her face, there is never a dull moment. thank you ashley, for being who you are, and for allowing us to call you "mangina." you are the best.

becky - oh my b. what i wish someone would have told me when i graduated college was, "not only does the real world suck, but it's also really really hard to make friends when you are an adult." this was something i was completely unprepared for, and maybe if i had known this, i would have stayed close to the friends that i had. but i didn't. i moved to chicago because i was supposed to meet my husband and i was also supposed to meet becky and her other half, john. becky and i are so similar it's almost like we made our adult decisions together, just with her in ohio, me in virginia. we both moved to chicago all on our own, we fell in love with the city before falling in love with our partners (who we both met through city year), and we have almost identical taste in all things from clothes to books to food. whatever souls are made out of, ours is the same stuff.

"what are your colors?"

i can finally answer this question!

i feel like i had been through every single color of the rainbow before realizing that the colors had already kind of chosen themselves.

& they look a little something like this

guys will be in grey suits

ladies will be in this navy beaut 
flowers will be complimented with lots of lambs ear and silver brunia

& there will be touches of pumpkin all around

oh yeah, and i'll be in a white dress.
i should probably start tanning.
like immediately. 

been there, done that!

if it wasn't already impossible to love kate and wills, this picture seals the freaking deal. 

how excited she must have been on this day.

to finally have that gorgeous ring on her finger.

oh, i just love those bloody royals. 

chicago style

my life's motto spied here

i never thought i really had a "type." the closest i guess i ever got to describing the kind of man i wanted to marry was when cheyenne and i (bridesmaid cheyenne!!) would joke that we wanted someone who could kick down a tree. 

because you can most certainly look at someone and know whether or not he has the physical ability to kick down a tree (zach efron? you do not. however zach from real world san diego? MEOW!)

and now, almost ten years later, i have found my dream man.

enter mr. ron swanson. 

i just adore him and i love nick offerman even more. 

PLUS the fact that he lived in chicago, AND he is married to megan mullally, AND he builds furniture?

shut the front door.

i'm sorry patrick, but "if he calls, i leave"
(but i know you can kick down a tree, you eagle scout you. xo)

"If properly dried and trimmed, New York-style pizza could be used to make a box for Chicago-style pizza. I love a slice when I'm in NYC, but it's like eating a Slim Jim compared with a filet mignon." - Nick Offerman

read the entire interview at bon appetit!

it's friday, i'm in love.

spied here

i've dated guys that i was crazy about. head over heels, can't stop thinking or gushing about. & that never lasted. cracks would form by a comment, or a look, a mean spirited joke, or unanswered text, and as quickly as it came, my feelings would start to vanish. i would find myself saying, "oh him? i barely even like him anymore."

and so when i met pat, and my feelings developed slowly i didn't know what it was. because ya know, when you meet "the one" there should be firecrackers. you should know right away. you should go home, call your girlfriends, and say "i am going to marry him." and that, quite frankly, just didn't happen.
it came softly.

steadily. 

and before i knew it, i was head over heels for a green bay packer loving guy with quasi-hoarder like tendencies, and the strongest moral compass i had ever known.

to quote one of my most favorite books,

 "i fell in love the way you fall asleep, slowly at first, then all at once." 

― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

hurry home, you little rascal. your girls miss you.