A Toast to the Bride-To-Be!

We've been planning Lauren's bachelorette party for so long! And we were all so happy when the big weekend finally got here! The weekend was hosted by her bridesmaids, and we all worked so hard to make it memorable and special for the bride! We wanted everything we did to be fun and perfect....I think we pulled it off! Here is a breakdown of the weekend -
A Celebration for Lauren's last days as a Single Girl!!!

We began our Friday with a FlyBarre class - it was so hard! A mix of strength training with Pilates using the ballet barre. 

After our barre class, lunch, and grocery shopping,  we split between the apt and Hollie's. Jill, Kim, and I cooked tea cakes and crescent rolls for Sunday's brunch. 

I was so excited about helping host La's special weekend. Most everyone split between my grandmother's apt and Hollie's. Lauren spent Saturday night with me, so I wanted to make sure everything looked extra special for her time here!
Here are a few of the girly decorations I had around:

Jill's AMAZING survival kits for everyone were so cute!!!!!! 

First on the agenda for Friday night, a meet and greet and vino back at Casa Hill.

Next, a wine tasting and delicious nibbles at Pour in Brookhaven. We love our wine! :) 

Afterward, a sweet finale to the night at Ryanne's, hosted by Renee and Ryanne. R&R did such a pretty job with it all!

There were cupcakes, chocolate and strawberries, sangria, and lots of pretty pink bags for Lauren to open! 

On to the Saturday events...

We had a fantastic lunch at Georgia's house hosted by Meghan and Georgia. There were sandwiches, fruit pizzas on cookies, and a great salad with a mimosa bar!

After lunch, we all headed to E nails in Buckhead for a little pampering!

And after mani/pedi's we surprised Lauren with a blow out at DryBar! SO Fun!

After all having our hair done, we were ready to slip on our black dresses (white for the bride!) and head to AJA for a delicious dinner!

I had a limo come grab us from dinner and take us out on the town!!! We hit The W's Whiskey Blue, The St. Regis bar, and ended at The Ivy!

On Sunday, before the festivities were over, everyone gathered at Hollie's house once more for brunch.

Her back deck's table was set beautifully!

It was a perfect ending to a fabulous weekend filled with love and laughter! We all are so excited for the wedding, Lauren! 

Italian food, a gala, and choir singing

Our weekend was spent between Gainesville, Dahlonega, Atlanta, and John's Creek....about a 50 mile radius of where we live. It was just one of those fun, random weekends where we get to see our friends and family and do some fun things too.

On Friday night, we had an impromptu double date with our friends Brian and Callie Hughs at the great Italian eatery Piazza in downtown Dahlonega. We gobbled up our fair share of carbs, and went to hang with Callie's brother Jake, who's a student at North GA. As we were leaving to come home, he and his friend were heading out....ahhh, college. 

On Saturday, David and I had a fun time skipping around in Atlanta...we stopped by to check on Hollie, we perused the real estate on West Paces, we shopped at DSW....all before we met our friends Lynne and John at the Ritz Carlton. Lynne is a client of mine, and we've become friends too. Her husband John's company bought a table at the fundraiser gala for the American Heart Association and we were lucky enough to be asked to join he and Lynne!

Everything looked beautiful in the ballroom!

Here's our fruit and greens salad - it was delish. We then had a petite filet topped with crab meat, and a lemon pie with meringue for dessert. 

The Head Coach for the Falcons, Mike Smith, was our speaker.

One of the larger prizes up for bid was a day spent playing golf with Coach Smith and Matt Ryan, sitting in the coach's box at a game, and calling the first defensive play....pretty cool prize!

We didn't bid on any of the larger items, but it was fun to listen to the auctioneer and see what everyone bought! They were able to raise over $1,000,000 last night for the American Heart Association.

The band was awesome - this is later in the night as people were leaving! We didn't want the band to quit!

I thought the programs were so pretty...

And was really diggin' the faux bois pattern of the paper.

We may not be hanging with the Falcons any time soon, but David won his bid on a TV - yay us!!! 

 To round out the weekend, we spent Sunday morning at John's Creek Presbyterian's church service. Amanda is singing in the choir, and our little Ben is in the kid's choir. This particular morning, the adult and kid's choirs sang together....it was so pretty! I wish I had been able to snap a pic of Ben singing in front of his mommy - too cute!

Don't Pinch Me!

We celebrated St. Patty's in a fun way...decked in green, with our buddies, at a little dinner party at home. 

I pulled together everything I had in green for my St. Patrick's night dinner table. Rebecca Wood pottery plates and bowls, magnolia leaf place mats, a few green apples, and eggs with reindeer moss!

Martha Stewart makes holiday entertaining so easy. I found all of my recipes on her website. I did a variation of Martha's Leprechaun Cider Sparklers - mine had champagne, Cran-Pom juice, and fresh lemon juice. The popcorn and our "sparklers" were delish during our gorgeous afternoon boat ride. The popcorn had chocolate drizzled over it along with a few Reese's Pieces.
My oatmeal shortbread was wonderful too...alot like a teacake only with oatmeal.
The stew was a nice change for us...I normally ask David to grill when we have company, but this time, all the work was done in the kitchen. The stew had beef, potatoes, peas, beer, beef broth, and onion. Really good!
And the cupcakes came from True Love's - there was Peach, Italian Cream, Red Velvet, yellow cake, chocolate cake, and strawberry to chose from. Not a bad one in the batch! 

I set the beef stew to cook in the Crock Pot. It allowed us to go for a boat ride and the food was ready when we got back!

It was a lovely afternoon to slowly cruise around the lake. Abbye and Haydon joined us for the weekend, and Callie and Colby came over for dinner with their husbands!

After Brince and Laura Lyn arrived (we were all so happy to see them!!), we had a fun dinner around the table, then moved outside for a little musical flip cup. 

We were so so so happy to have everyone here for the night! Even little Cooper joined us, LL's little canine buddy! The night was sort of "one last hoorah" in this house before we mosey to the new one! So glad our family and friends were here, and can't wait to have them in our new house too.