our fire never went out

weheartit

I've always been a die hard fan of true love. I've always scoffed at people who said love didn't exist or love left you with nothing but a broken heart, a carton of Ben & Jerry's, and too many used tissues. I've always hated people who brought up the divorce rate in my face when I mentioned how in love my parents are and how rare at is. I've wanted to punch people in the face who told me that my parents would probably end eventually.

The thing is, I kinda have hard love life shoes to fill. My parents met when they were 15 at their mutual summer resort destination and since then they were head over heels in love. They have been married 24 years and I've never seen two people so crazy about each other. They wrestle and tickle each other and make out all the time, you'd think they were 17-year-olds. They are two of the most passionate people I have ever met and ever since I was 5, I've wanted what they have.

I've always thought that it was a 1 in a thousand chance of finding your true love at 15 and being together for all that time. That is until I met you.

We started dating in sophomore year of high school and god were we in love. We were the biggest abusers of PDA but the truth was we just couldn't keep our hands off of each other. I just didn't think I could be that in love with someone and have it last. Maybe that's what broke us in the end. You didn't trust me with your heart really and I took you for granted way too many times. I assumed that our love could withstand wild fire and you were sure that I'd never leave. But there were other problems too. Your parents were horrible and they caused you to have issues that I wasn't fit to deal with. I didn't know how to make you happy, to make you comfortable in your own shoes. I wanted to know that if I wasn't around you'd be okay.

And like all passionate romances, we ended in the summer a year later. I made the mistake of thinking I wanted to be wild and free and you made the mistake of never moving on. We stayed together off and on forever but we both knew we weren't going to get back together. Something had just changed in us that neither of us knew coming until it bit us in the ass.

I met him and he was sweet. He was nice to me. Not to mention he seemed to be completely stable and something that I could not feel worn down by during the ever tiring junior year. I sound like a bitch writing this and it sort of makes me hate myself, but I guess love can bring out the worst in you too. The truth is I've been with him 8 months and I still can't live without you in my life. Don't get me wrong I love him. Or at least I think I do, but then how does that explain that my heart pounds when you tell me I look beautiful or when you tell me you're mad I go into a frenzy and panic.

People say that true love never really goes away. I believe that the reason I can't live without you is just under my nose, I just haven't come to terms with it yet. Maybe we're done for good. Something tells me we're not. Our fire never went out, trust me. And the sad thing is, I don't know if I'll ever be able to move on...

-M

look book: field of dreams

The 1970s is one of my favorite eras so doing a shoot with this concept was so fun! Alexandra has such a talent for finding beautiful locations and using the light beautifully. I really love that the fashion  from the 70s is coming back into style. I just wish my mom had saved more of her clothes so I could wear them now!! There's something about jumpsuits, head-wraps, wide leg jeans, crochet tops and dresses that is just so natural and bohemian. It puts you in a more relaxed state of mind. Maybe I should dress only in 70s fashion for the next five weeks to avoid the inevitable wedding stress that's going to hit the fan!

jumpsuit Young, Fabulous and Broke, belt Urban Outfitters, scarf and necklace Stylist's, bangles and sunglasses Forever

This week is going by so much quicker than I expected. The whole month has really flown by. I'm not going to lie, I might be a mess next week when it hits the one month mark for the wedding. Still so much to do! Matthew and I are having a little shopping date tonight to look for shirt/tie combos. We're trying to fit the fun in where we can haha

Happy Thursday!!

xox

 

photography by Alexandra DeFurio

styling by Staci Koondel

hair and makeup by Emily Blackmun

when you see his name

lena sophia + unknown

wedding wednesday: bachelorette weekend

As I mentioned on Monday, this past weekend my best friends and bridesmaids threw me a bachelorette weekend in gorgeous Santa Barbara! Ten of my dearest and closest friend made the journey from all over {New York, San Francisco, LA, San Diego, and even Oklahoma City}. I felt so loved and special! We stayed in the beautiful Canary Hotel, which blew me away from a design perspective. I'm officially inspired to recreate something similar in my future apartment with Matthew. There were Spanish, Moroccan, even African influences and the colors and patterns were perfectly matched. love love loved it!

 packing into a stuffed car, joking with Matthew saying "Vegas here we come!"

the most delicious french toast on warm berry preserves with a vanilla cream on top

texting Matthew at the end of the night!

I'm still majorly sleep deprived from the weekend but I have the most amazing memories to last a lifetime. I'm already wanting another trip with all these girls in a couple years. They were the best, most easy going group, and now I miss them all terribly!

{I also miss my Bachelorette crown!}

xox

 

photos by my sweet friend Kimberly Desjardins {minus 1-3 and 6}

my sweet little revenge

weheartit

It's done. It's been done for a few months now. How did it end? If I recall correctly it was me realizing your immaturity and you not willing to put me before your friends, not even for the little things. After that, you thought you would get your revenge by claiming you liked someone else, some dumb girl you barely even knew who I knew would never like you back. Well your plan worked. It broke my heart. Even though I had wanted to end it, knowing you liked her while we were still together killed me. I was shattered into a million little pieces, and thought there was nothing in the world that could put me back together.

But something did. It was my new found self confidence. When I realized I deserved so much better than you, the pieces very slowly began to reassemble. And then I began noticing. That more and more guys would smile at me, try to talk to me, give me compliments. That made the pieces come together more quickly. The best part about it was, I never needed to get revenge in order to become whole again. Hurting you wouldn't make me feel any better, because I simply didn't care about you anymore. You broke my heart, made me feel like shit, and then did it again. Now all I see are those wasted months with you, the time spent waiting for you to show you cared.

So now I'm putting that last piece back together. I've found someone who cares, found someone who will put me before his friends, found someone who truly loves me. And I love him back. And there is no doubt in my mind that you are completely gone. I don't ever think about you when I'm with him. There are no lingering thoughts about us in my head, about "what could have been". This isn't one of those stories where I realized I've always still loved you. No. In fact, I don't know if I ever loved you, because now that I know what true love is, I know what I felt when I was with you sure as hell wasn't this.

So in a sense my happiness is my sweet little revenge.

Goodbye. Forever.

look book: coffee shop afternoon

I'm so excited to finally share these photos with you guys! A few weeks ago I did a shoot with a really great LA photographer, Alexandra DeFurio, who is known for shooting young teenage celebrities. While I'm far from a teenager {wait, when did that happen?!}, it was such a fun opportunity! Over the next few weeks I'll be sharing some of the different shoots that I helped style, along with the amazing  stylist Staci Koondel. I wish I owned all the gorgeous pieces she pulled! These were taken at my favorite little neighborhood place, Aroma Cafe. It's the best place for chocolate cake, milk, and people watching!

blazer NSF Clothing, blouse and clutch Urban Outfitters, jeans J. Brand, bangles Forever 21, shoes my own

Have a great day everyone!

xox

photography by Alexandra DeFurio

styling by Staci Koondel

hair and makeup by Emily Blackmun

reserving a space in your heart

unknown

a shout out to my bridal party

Mondays are never my favorite day of the week, and this one is no exception. After having the best weekend up in Santa Barbara with my closest friends it's hard to get back to the real world. I was majorly spoiled for my Bachelorette weekend and I felt so incredibly loved- still do. This is just a little post and I'll talk more about it on Wednesday, but I have to give a little shout out to my best friends and bachelorettes. Lizzie, my MOH and best friend, did the BEST job planning this weekend. Every little detail was taken care of and we all had the best time because of it. She seriously needs to go into the professional Maid of Honor business because she's amazing! Hanna and Pauline also were incredible. Hanna compiled a playlist with songs that everyone said reminded them of me. I had to guess who picked each song and I got them all right!! Such a great keepsake, too. Pauline is a great graphic artist and made cute banners to put around the hotel suite as well as an awesome itinerary and map for the weekend. It was amazing! Ok more details on Wednesday. Time to get back to work, find a seamstress for my alterations, oh yeah and unpack! 

I hope you all had a fabulous and special weekend!

xox

wouldn't trade it for the world

weheartit

Relationships come with a lot of tribulations. We fight, we yell, we get jealous, we cry, we feel pain, we hurt, we scream, we get frustrated, we get angry, we get upset, we break up and our emotions take us over. So why do we do it? Why would we want to feel not just sad, but truly hurt, sad to the point where your whole body hurts just because of one person, sad to the point where you feel empty when everything falls apart, sad to the point where your heart aches for the company of that being. I’ll tell you why I do it, its because besides all those moments when your stupidity gets in the way of what your truly feeling and you “fight”, the moments when you are truly loving someone are the most touching, astounding, magnificent moments you will ever experience. When two people are just loving each other its magical. And to those of you who are to scared of getting hurt and too scared of the baggage that comes with relationships, let me tell you this, having someone you love and having them love you back is a feeling that you can not substitute. Having someone look at you with such a deep emotion is remarkable. Having someone touch with so much care brings a feeling of weightlessness throughout your whole body. Having someone whisper they love you feels like they screamed it. Having someone to hold your hand at all times just feels special. Having someone to be your best friend and be loyal to you and never lie to you feels so safe. So yeah, relationships suck, breaking up hurts, but having that someone that you feel so comfortable with, someone that you let inside your soul, someone that lets you inside theirs, someone to talk to at all hours during the day, someone to laugh with, someone to fall asleep with, having someone that is your other half for whatever amount of time you are together, is true beauty and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

so important to me

weheartit + unknown

Good Days

This one went down in the book of good days summer 2009 new mexico arizona border

our story isn't over

weheartit

You make my head feel like a busy, New York City street the second your name lights up on my cell phone.

It doesn't happen often, and it hadn't happened for a year and a half until recently, but when it does i don't know how to feel.

You were my first love, and first loves are hard to forget. I truly believe that the first person you fall in love with will always have a piece of your heart. It's never whole again- no matter how much you move on, how many more people you fall in love with, or how much you give to the next person- there's something special about the first time you give your heart away. Or maybe it's because your first love usually ends up in your first real heartbreak and you never quite get all of the pieces back.

I don't know what kept me with you for all of those years. I was young, naive, and immature i guess. But i loved you. Oh man, did I love you. I think i would have fought to be with you until i couldn't go on. I would have been content being with you and only you forever and ever. But you didn't feel the same. And to fight any longer would be foolish. You gave up on me not once, but twice, and it broke me down more and more. You treated me terrible in those last few months, as if I were a stranger you never even cared about. You left me a ghost. You left me broken. You left me.

It took so long for me to get back on my own two feet and finally feel anything again. And as everyone would tell me, time did heal. But no one ever really listens to that phrase...time heals. But healing doesn't make it go away, it just makes it bearable. It's like a scar. There's the initial wound and it hurts like hell, almost to the point where you think you'd rather just be dead at this point, and then slowly but surely your cut closes up and then there is the scab. You pick at it a few times and it hurts all over again. And eventually you have a scar, and it fades and fades, but it's never gone. There's always something to remind you.

And then i met him, and he swept me off my feet. He showed me what it was like to truly be loved and he gave me everything you never even thought to give. Everything that hurt finally went away with a flash of his smile and with the touch of his hand I felt like I had found my real forever. A month into the relationship I could see myself with him fifty years down the road. I had never loved someone this way before, not even you. Months in though, little fights started poisoning our relationship but we worked at them. I still love him with my whole heart and i still fall asleep next to him but every now and then you slip into my dreams, out of nowhere, just like in real life and in my dreams I miss you.

I never thought, in a million years, you'd come back to me again. I'm over you, I am, I worked way too hard at it not to be. But when I get a text alert at 2:30 in the morning, and i see your name on the caller ID, my head and heart start a war. I don't think it's love, i think it's missing who you were. I have this idea of you at sixteen in my head but six years later that isn't who you are.

But for some reason tonight, it hit me hard. You know me way too well not to know how to win my heart, even for five seconds. I hate you for making me feel like this. I hate you for what you did to me way back when. I hate you for making me second guess the perfection I have now. I hate you for never really disappearing from my life. I hate you for having the nerve to ever even think I'd take you back. I hate you for your late night texts. I hate you for who you've become. I hate you for it all.

You texted me tonight and said: "I just have a weird feeling that our story isn't over. But clearly I'm the only one thinking that."

And I'd never admit it, to you or myself out loud, but...I've never stopped thinking that exact same thing.

look book: twisty scarf

So I forgot to mention it in yesterdays post but this week has been one long and terrible one. It all started last Friday with my ridiculous dress fitting where they tried to charge me $700 for minor alterations. Spoiler alert: It's not a form fitting dress and I'm not even getting a bustle, so $700 is a little much in my book. Plus they tried to charge me for the $80 bra the seamstress made me try on. Then there was a postage fiasco with the invites {which finally got out by the way..major drama there} and I almost ran out of gas on the freeway. My fault but so not fun! Needless to say I'm so very ready for the weekend! I'm having a little bachelorette getaway weekend in Santa Barbara and I swear thinking about that has been getting me through the week. It's supposed to rain on Saturday but I'm just telling myself the weather channel is lying and playing an early April Fools joke.

jacket H&M, shirt and clutch Banana Republic, jeans Urban Outfitters, shoes Jessica Simpson, belt thrifted, headband c/o IHOD

I decided to do something a little different with my scarf..it needed to do a little twisty dance and I let it. I wasn't sure if it looked weird or not but I kind of liked it. Something a little different I guess.

Have a great day everyone! One more day until the weekend!

xox

 

oh and check out my feature on Frock Candy! I'm so honored they chose to feature me.

wedding wednesday: wedding hair

Decisions decisions! There are so many beautiful wedding hairstyles that I've seen and,while I kind of always liked the idea of wearing my hair down, I've started to think more about pulling it back. I love how Mar from TEAM Hair and Makeup did my hair for the shoot with Jose Villa last summer {above}. It's soft and romantic and I think that's kind of what our wedding will be like. Here are some other hairstyles I've been looking at recently.

So I'm thinking either messy bun or loose waves. Hm maybe I can do both! No that might be too ambitious. Do you like one style more than another? Or one I didn't include?

For those engaged/married: How did/will you wear your hair on the big day? Did someone do it for you or did you do it yourself? While I'm thinking I could definitely trust myself to do it, it might be an added stress I don't need. I don't know, though. What do you guys think?

xox

 

many of these photos were pulled from an inspiration folder 

where I forgot to document the source,  so if any of you know 

where one is from please let me know and I'll give proper credit. 

For the ones I do know...

photo one Jose Villa, two&three&seven Once Wed, five&six GWS