If the Shoe Already Fits...

My first dress fitting is just a couple days away and I was told to make sure to have my wedding shoes with me. So I turned to one of my favorite places to shop: my closet.

I raided my closet looking for shoes that were 1) adorable 2) bridal 3) would work with my dress and 4) somewhat comfy. I came up with four solid options:

Clockwise from top left: Blush pink t-strap wedges, pink & black hearts, ivory t-straps, shimmery sling-backs.

I love them all but I think I'm leaning towards these two:

1. The Ivory T-Straps

Oh how I love t-straps... I've worn these to dinner twice and they seemed comfortable. You can't tell from the photos, but the shoes have a slight shimmer to them. They seem so perfectly bridal and I could always add a shoe-clip if I feel the need for more pizazz.

Not actual shoe clips--but they work!

Fun fact #1: The name of the shoes: Gabriel. Guess what Mr. Cheetah's name is?

Fun fact #2: Mr. Cheetah bought me these shoes: Why? Because he accidently chipped my tooth trying to kiss me once after he'd had a few. My numerous dental trips earned me many surprise gifts from Mr. Cheetah ;)

2. The Pink & Black Hearts

I adore these shoes and I've worn them many times. I've never had a comfort problem with them, but my foot does slide into the point after a while. They are more worn than the t-straps, but they they don't look old yet. They just seem to scream fun wedding shoes to me! And as you know I have a thing for heart shoes...

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I'm planning to bring both pairs to my first fitting, but which pair is your favorite?

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No Sweat

I am not a particularly sweaty person by nature, but every now and then and often out of nowhere, I get a bad case of the sweats. I'm talking needing to blow dry your underarms with a hair dryer sweats. It's more likely to happen when I'm nervous or excited, but it can happen for no reason at all. I only get the crazy sweats a couple times a year, so normally it's not a problem...but I really want to make sure that the wedding isn't one of those times.

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I recently bought this antiperspirant, which is supposed to keep your underarms dry for up to 72 hours! You are supposed to apply it at bedtime, which I keep forgetting to do, so I have yet to try it out.

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I've also heard of something called Sweat Block, which is a moistened pad you dab in your underarms that is supposed to block your sweat glands for an entire week! I don't know how I feel about blocking my sweat glands long-term, but for special events (like a wedding!) it might be worth trying.

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Does anyone else get the random sweats? How do you control it?

The Wall of Wedding Photos

My grandma keeps a wall of wedding photos from all the weddings of her eight children in her den. When visiting my grandma I always stop and take a minute to check out all the pictures. With weddings from the late '70s through the late '90s the photos are not only wonderful family mementos, but also an amusing walk through time—and fashion (can you say lavender cummerbund?).

I love checking out all the bridal attire of my aunts! They all made beautiful brides.

My parents are at the very top on the right.

When her grand kids started tying the knot a few years ago, my grandma began displaying photos from their weddings on the adjoining wall. It was kind of surreal looking over all the photos during the holidays knowing that our wedding photo would be the next one added.

There are over 20 grandchildren, so that wall is bound to get crowded. Two more will be added this year—First ours, then my cousin L!

How does you family display wedding photos?

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Dressing the Aisle

This is the aisle I'll walk down on my way to meet my groom:

Can't wait to walk down this thing!

When meeting with our florist we talked about sprinkling the aisle with rose petals.

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We also discussed the possibility of creating some fancy flower scroll work.

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But then a couple months ago I saw this and fell in color-blocked-floral-aisle love:

It's even in our colors!

I immediately sent the images to our florist, and he loves it too. Plus he can do it...but of course it costs extra.

What do you think, Hive, is it worth the extra cost? Or should I just stick to the sprinkled or scrolled petal options?

A Texas Thank You

Four of my amazing 'maids flew to Austin to throw me a fantastic bachelorette. As a thank you/holiday gift I wanted to give them something to commemorate the trip. Enter Maptotes.

Maptotes are totes (and other products) that feature silk screens of adorable map illustrations. They have designs showcasing dozens of cities and areas. They even have Palm Springs—oh if only I had a unlimited Out-of-Town bag budget...

The Austin bag was the perfect gift for the Texas-traveling, karaoke-singing, vodka-drinking, cupcake-eating Cheetah Girls.


I used Texas postcards for Thank You notes and completed the look with a Texas-shaped name tag cut from card-stock and some yellow baker's twine. I just wish I had bought one for myself...

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Dressing the Cheetah Guys

Now that Mr. Cheetah's suit is all squared away, we're moving to the next item on the wedding apparel checklist: groomsman suits.

"Hmmm... do you guys think my silver watch clashes with these golden yellow ruffles?

Mr. Cheetah has 6 groomsmen and we want their suiting to be similar to Mr. Cheetah's look. So we are searching for slim fitting black two-button suits—the problem is we are looking reasonable priced (under $200) suits in a large range of sizes, and it's no easy task. 6' 5" Baby Bro Cheetah needs an extra long suit...and those babies ain't easy to find.

While at home for the holidays my brothers and I decided to start The Great Cheetah Guys Suit Hunt.

Up First: Macy's

One word: FAIL. The sales associate we dealt with was unbelievably rude. He did not seem to agree with our tastes and was reluctant to bring us anything in a slim fit. Once we finally found a suit we liked, he dismissed the ill fit on Baby Bro Cheetah and started writing up the sale (with no go ahead from us). When the tailor also mentioned that the suit didn't fit I asked to see a different size. The sales associate then turned and yelled in my face. We left immediately.

This is for you, Macy's Guy

Second Shop: Men's Wearhouse

Here we had a non-yelling associate who was willing to find my brothers' proper sizes. However, the only option that met our price point was very boxy and got a thumbs down from the Cheetah bros.

I was getting pretty discouraged about groomsmen suits, but a couple days later we decided to hit up the local Jos. A. Bank. The sales associate we dealt with, Allan, was awesome. He helped us find this suit below:

The Cheetah Bros making silly faces for the camera.
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It's not a slim fit, but it is closer fitting than most of the standard suits we've seen and it runs $200 on sale. It's our best option so far, but I'm still on the lookout for something better.

Any advice on where to find black two-button slim-fit suits for under $200?

Ring Tones

I've had my engagement ring for about 8 months and I'm currently shopping for a wedding band, but I've been wearing rings on my left hand ring finger for years. Some people may have assumed that I was wearing a promise/engagement/wedding ring, but that wasn't the case until recently. Since I'm right handed I prefer wearing my rings on my opposite hand and I don't subscribe to the idea that the left ring finger is reserved only for engagement and wedding rings.

Here is my collection of rings. All are vintage except for my engagement ring (the blue sapphire) and the rose ring, which once belonged to Tori Spelling. I guess you can say that Donna Martin graduated that ring to me. (Please tell me someone out there gets that lame attempt at a joke. Please.)

I don't like wearing more than one ring at a time, so the rings above have been ignored in the past few months. I plan to work them back into my ring rotation after the excitement of the engagement and wedding rings have died down—which I happily suspect will take a while.

Are there any other ring collectors out there?

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