dress: H&M
heels: Lane Bryant via Discount Fashion Warehouse
bangles: gifted from Matt's aunt
Confession time: My favorite part about New Year's Eve (aside from copious amounts of bubbly, of course) is getting dressed. It's just so much fun to plan a fancy-pants (or in most cases, no-pants) outfit, do my nails all special, and wear way more makeup than I usually do. The ritual of it just gets to me, ya know? I usually put on some dance music and jam away as I'm getting dressed--this year, it was Grouplove leading into Lady Gaga and Ke$ha. As it turns out, I was more dressed up than most people at the party, but who cares? I felt fancy and I loved it.
So even though it's a full week later, I'm posting what I wore. Relevant? Not really. But definitely needs to be posted. After all, I spent so much time getting dolled up, and then made Matt wait even longer as I cried, "I just need five minutes to shoot blog photos! Five more minutes! Five more!" for fifteen or twenty minutes, I figure I better put these to use :)
(Semi-unrelated: I've just noticed that I didn't get a very good close-up of my favorite "party" look, aka gold eyeliner over winged black eyeliner. I'll have to see if I can find a good shot that I can crop. Stay tuned for an update, if you're into that kind of thing.)
Did you do anything fun for New Year's? Do you prefer to get all fancy, or do you like to keep things pretty low-key?
Disclaimer: Most of my outfits are fairly modest/tame, but you are about to see what is undoubtedly the most risqué outfit I've ever posted, and possibly ever worn. It was for a bachelorette party that consisted of nothing but bar-hopping in Columbus' Arena District, where I was actually dressed more modestly than many girls out that night. That said, I felt pretty damn fabulous. Here goes:
dress: Express via Discount Fashion Warehouse
shoes: Lane Bryant via Discount Fashion Warehouse
necklace: Express
bracelet: Etsy
Ok, so it's not THAT bad. But I've never even considered wearing something with mesh-covered cutouts over my waist, back and chest area. I actually felt really awkward and nervous until I got a couple of drinks in me...then all the women in the bathroom kept complimenting me on it and I felt much better, haha. The only downside is that I now need to find another excuse to wear it out. It's not exactly a dinner-date kind of getup...unless I want Matt to look like he hired an escort for dinner ;)
Still. Every time I buy something, it's with the intent to remix it and wear it a billion times. It's kind of nice to splurge on a completely frivolous item! I initially thought the heels would be frivolous too, but they're so comfy and so awesome that I think I'll be wearing them fairly often. The challenge? Styling them for work. Muah ha ha...
Oh, and heads up: I only posted this today because frankly, it seems weird posting such an intense outfit during the week. Like, oh hey, happy Tuesday, here's waaaaaaay more skin than you're used to seeing. Let this serve as inspiration for your weekend, maybe? PARTY ON DUDES.
dress: Lily Boutique
blazer: secondhand
necklace: Jane (formerly VeryJane)
heels: Target
I meant to post these on Saturday, but the weekend got crazy-busy in record time. Friday night I wound up driving down to OU to pick up my sister, and Saturday most of the rest of my family came into town to watch the Buckeyes. We went to the Skull Session to see The Best Damn Band in the Land perform (other than the OU Marching 110, of course) and then most of the family went to the game. I didn't have a ticket and had a lot of stuff to do at home, so I was super-productive with cleaning and laundry and freelance writing while the Buckeyes slaughtered the competition. Then I grabbed dinner with the fam, and then it was off to Oktoberfest — a home-brew festival in which my friend and a bunch of his friends all brew beer and we all drink it. There were 60-some different beers and ciders there. It was magical. And on Sunday, I took my sister back to OU, visited some friends who just had a baby (congrats again, Maggie and Jeff!) and did some more writing. Phew!
Anyway, so this outfit post is a little fancy for a Monday — especially considering that I am seriously about to keel over from tiredness right now — but oh well. I wore it to a friend's wedding last month (congrats again, Braden and Christine!), which was an absolute blast. There was a photobooth, which was awesome. See?
Yeah, Matt and I are pretty cool.
I wore this dress to Matt's sister's wedding last year, too, and knew that I needed some sort of coverup for it. Especially since the ceremony itself was in a Catholic church and, as a former Catholic myself, the very thought of showing that much skin in a church was mortifying. I think I did pretty well...better than the girl who's dress exposed the entire back of her bra when she sat down, anyway. Sheesh. Of course, the blazer came off at the reception, but by then everyone had been drinking and I felt much less self-conscious.
So anyway, hope this little bit of fancypants (or fancy-no-pants, I guess) brightens up your Monday!
blazer, dress: secondhand
shoes: Target
So this week at work, like all weeks that include the "first Friday" of a month, is insanely stressfully crazybusy. It's so bad that I'm making up words to accurately describe it. But I've realized that when I think negative thoughts, negative things happen. (Case in point: The last two times I've said, "It's gonna be a long day," events that day led to hours-long crying spells. Oh vey.) So instead of complaining abotu how much work I have to do this week and how frustrating it is, I'm going to be thankful that I'm gainfully employed in a job that I'm good at and (usually) enjoy doing. Booyah, positivity!
In other news, can we talk about these pics for a sec? I mean, woah. I'm not gonna lie, as I was editing them I kind of felt like I was working with shots from a professional shoot with a professional model. Who is this girl and how did her pics get on my camera? I mean, these obvs aren't really professional-quality shots, but the lighting was the best I've worked with yet. In both flash and flash-less images.
I wish I could say I spent the rest of the day I took these strutting around work like a 6-foot-tall America's Next Top Model contestant, but unfortunately I did not. And it's not because I'm only 5'8", either. Actually, about an hour or two after I shot these, I started feeling so ill that I had to lock myself in the bathroom and beg my neighbor to come pick me up and drive me home. It was really weird and random and gross. TMI?
I'll end this on a more pleasant, non-flu note. Remember back in June (uhhholycrapitsaugust) when I mentioned shopping my friend Hayley's closet? Yeah, both the blazer and the dress are from her. Love it.
So New Year's Eve is one of my top favorite holidays because it's the perfect excuse to get super fancy. And even if you wind up being the most dressed-up person at the party, no one's going to make fun of you because hey, IT'S NEW YEAR'S EVE. Also, there's champagne and/or sparkling sweet wines.
Yup, NYE is one of the few times that I spend more than seven minutes on makeup (truth) and more than three minutes on my hair (ok, that's a lie...usually it's under a minute). This year, I completely forgot decided not to buy a new dress, so I remixed an old one. This is actually somewhat similar to the outfit I wore to ring in 2011, but I didn't have a blog back then and everyone knows that if you don't post it on the internet, it doesn't count.
dress: appx. four to five years old...no idea
sleeveless oxford: New York & Company
tights, booties, headband: Target
necklaces: both gifted
bracelet: H&M
The only problem with this dress compared to two years ago is, well...what went into it. As in, a few more pounds. Zipping this dress took some major work on my part and Matt's. And once it was on, it was far too skimpy for my taste (and the subfreezing temps), so I layered that sucker right up. Bam!
The evening itself went by in a blur, as NYE nights tend to do, but it was a lot of fun! We hung out at a friend's house...no expensive covers, cheap BYO drinks and no getting kicked out to drive home tipsy at 2 am. Win, win, win.
(Oh hey, by the way. Ignore all the mess on the table...Matt was outside warming up the car, so I had no time to shoot these. Instead, here's a pic of us, before things got sloppy. Isn't he cute?)
