Classic

Sometimes there's nothing better than a classic look. 

A little long black dress.

Winged eyeliner.

Red lipstick.

And a handsome man by your side.

Yep.

Nothing better than that.

oh, and my dress had pockets too.

(:

Ellie Goulding 'Your Song'

I'm loving this elton john remake. Apparently it was Kate and Williams first dance song.  I just can't seem to get enough of the Royal Wedding!

Outfit for the Royal Wedding

Unfortunately, I had to decline my invitation to the Royal Wedding.  I have way too many exams and baking projects to do.  But, if I were going.... well I'd gladly wear any of these numbers paired with the most outrageous hat.

Will you be awake at 3 a.m. to watch the Royal Wedding Live?  You know I am!  I kinda wish I could have a slumber party (Blair Waldorf style ofcourse) And nibble on some yummies while talking in an English accent.

I reckon it'll be jolly mate!

Outfit for the Royal Wedding by nuhasofiyan featuring summer wedding gowns

Royal Wedding

It's no secret that I'm counting down the days until the Royal Wedding.  I've always had a huge fascination with Princesses and all things royal.  What can I say. ...I would love to be a Princess!  There's been a lot of talk about "What will Kate Middleton wear?" So I decided to try my hand at creating what I think the future Princess will wear to her own wedding.

Slim fitting lace gown with "princess sleeves"

-Cambridge Lovers Knot Tiara ( Princess Diana wore this to her wedding too)

-Pearl Earrings

-"Messy" Updo

Wedding Week: Part V

So you're probably wondering what the fifth and final day of wedding week could be.  I mentioned before that my family lives here in the states, but my husbands family is still overseas.  They couldn't make it out to our wedding in December so in May we went to visit them.  It was my first time meeting my in-laws and I absolutely loved them.  They wanted to throw us a small wedding that way they could celebrate too. It was a great family vacation and I think two weddings is more than enough for this girl!

One thing I love about this wedding was my make-up!  This is what I was going for on my real wedding day.  The hair and make-up styles are so glamorous overseas.  I'll have to do a post on that soon. :)

Thanks for joining me on my walk through memory lane.  I really enjoyed sharing all of our special moments with you.  Two years down..I'm ready for fifty more!

Oh, and Happy New Years!! 

Heres to hoping that 2011 treats me better than 2010!

Wedding Week : Part IV

The Wedding

December 27th, 2008

We've finally arrived to the wedding!  My theme was PURPLE! And boy did I get sick of that color haha.  I'm slowly making a recovery to re kindle my relationship with the color purple :-).

{Oh, and I'm warning you from now..this post has a million pictures...enjoy!}

From left to right :  Bridal Toss bouquet, Wedding dress, Wedding invitation and souvenir chocolate, my bouquet,  and table centerpieces.

Before meeting, Alaa and I each took separate photos.  Mine at my friends house, his at our apartment.

 Now, I have a little story to tell you.  I had reserved with the same woman who did my hair for the Khutbeh to come over and do my hair as well as my mom and sisters for the wedding.  A few weeks before the wedding she came over and saw the inspiration photo and said it would be so easy to achieve the look there wasn't even a need to do a hair preview.

This is the hairstyle I wanted.  Its so charming and elegant.

And for my make-up I showed her a photo and told her wanted neutral colors with touches of gold.  

Turns out...shes color blind!!

In the middle of her doing my make-up I was curious to see how I looked.  My hair looked like I ran  through a hurricane.  And my eyes?  I had silver and pink bling.  It was my worst nightmare.  I wanted to cry.  What a horrible feeling to feel ugly on your wedding day!  Did I mention she wanted to put glitter hairspray in my hair?  It was that bad!!

Okay I'll stop venting now.  :-)

Here's a picture of us getting dressed.  A family friend came and tried to fix my make- up.  The next picture is of my hubs and his brother.  They're precious.

Despite being December, it was a gorgeous day outside.  We took these pictures outside my friends house before the wedding.

Then I went back to my parents house and Alaa went to meet up with his side of the family.  The tradition is that the grooms family has to come to the brides parents home and formally greet his bride.  It's like the transition phase where the bride becomes part of the husbands family.

My gorgeous sisters and I.  My family + Great Uncle & Aunt + Teta.

The two most incredible people you will ever meet.

My mom & my uncle.

The only thing that made me cry was when I hugged my uncle.

As the bride & groom enter the reception they have a trail of family and close friends behind singing old songs.  Some people even played the "tableh" {Go to 0;44 secs in this video to see what I mean }

This was the reception hall.  The stage was completely DIY.

The first entrance was kind of a "fake " entrance.  Alaa and I went into hiding until all of the guests arrived and then we made our grand entrance.

And then as usual, we danced...a lot! Our D.J. was absolutely incredible and kept everyones feet on the dance floor and hands in the air (That sounds cheesy, I know haha).
One of the dances we do is called the debke {start 0:36}

Le Gateau

Another tradition is that the girl does a "candle dance".  Theres a specific song that is played and the brides goes around the room carrying the candles.  People usually pull up chairs and throw flower petals on the bride as she walks by.  It's kinda fun!

And ofcourse, the American tradition of the bouquet toss.  The second picture makes me laugh. :-)

 My incredible family and the most amazing woman I know.

And I'll close off with two funny photos.

I hope I didn't bore you with all of these photos!  I couldn't help myself, it was hard to narrow it down and believe it or not there are still so many things that happened that I didn't include.  ( I'll spare you the picture of my cute husband rocking an invisible guitar!)

If you have any questions about our wedding feel free to ask me!

Oh and I have one more surprise for you tomorrow!  Can you guess what it could be?

Wedding Week : Part III

The Henna

December 24th, 2008

I mentioned yesterday that today's post would be about my favorite day.  Not all Arabs throw Henna parties but growing up I had been to so many my mom and I wanted to throw one.  Usually, people from certain cities will throw big lavish Henna parties and invite everyone in the family (and I mean EVERYONE...Remember that second cousin twice removed?  Yea, they're invited too!) while others opt for a more family centered party.  As first-generation Arab-Americans all of our family is scattered in various parts of the world.  The people in the Arab community are my true family, so naturally those were the ones I invited.   We did this party in our home and we had so much fun!  At any Henna you will always find the bride wearing a "thobe" (like what I wore on the Tulbeh).  Whether the bride chooses a more traditional or modern thobe is up to her.  Also, some guests will come wearing thobes, but not all.  We requested from all of our guests to wear one and it was so much fun!  It was great to see the different styles and everyone had fun dressing up for the occasion.  I've included some pictures to show you the different styles of thobes.  My mom has the sweetest friend who is known to have a million thobes, so we went over to her closet and chose something out.  I chose two dresses with different styles.  I love them both!

We started the party off with just the ladies.  We wanted them to let loose and have a good time before the guys came around after a couple of hours.  I'm glad we did, we had a blast :).  

The sleeves on this dress were so fun, they were like bat sleeves!The middle picture is my sister and two of my friends.  Each one of us is wearing a different style dress.  The last girl on the right is wearing a traditional thobe.  The traditional ones are hand embroidered and can cost a fortune!  The last picture is of me and my Teta (grandma).  I love this picture probably because I love her so much.  She's been through so much but is still so full of life!  She's feisty and funny and I am still so grateful she made it out to be there on my wedding day.

After a few hours the men graced us with their presence (*wink wink*).  These pictures make me laugh because they are so ridiculous!  It's so stereotypical but, I promise the majority of people do NOT dress like that overseas!!  My husband thought we were crazy to make him wear the traditional outfit but I'm glad I was able to persuade him haha!

So after we danced a bit more, I changed into this peach colored dress.  This style is more Moroccan but you'll still find tons of girls wearing them at their Henna parties.  

The bride and groom are decorated with henna, hence the name of the party.  Some people do lavish designs while others will put the initial of their spouse.  I didn't want to have henna stained hands on my wedding day so I opted for a simple design that I washed off almost immediately. 

{Note to self: Wash your hands after applying self-tanner!!}

And I love the last picture of me and my older sister.  She's a rockstar, she did my hair and make-up. :)

Heres the family (note the look on Teta's face..priceless! haha)  And then the other picture is of my best friend and little sister carrying the Henna on their heads with me trotting behind.

 I really am so blessed.

Wedding Week: Part II

When I decided to share my engagement pictures with you, I obviously forgot about these.  But I'm committed to showing you each step of our engagement journey so I guess I'll poke a little fun at myself.

The Khutbeh

February 16, 2008

So after 2 months of being engaged we threw a larger party for our family and friends.  This is usually the first big event where you celebrate your engagement with the community.  Oh, and apparently you have to wear a BIG dress.  Yea..I had no say in that.

I told you it was big.  In my defense, the dress DID NOT look like that in the photo I saw before ordering it.  It was supposed to be burgundy and it looked silky..what I got was a fuchsia dress made out of taffeta.  I looked like I was going to my Quincanera.( On second thought, I've actually always wanted one of those..)  When I saw the dress for the first time I wanted to cry.  I also wanted to grab the closest scissor and tear it apart but the party was two days away and I had no other alternative.  The night before the party I slipped on the dress and you know what?  I actually kind of liked it.  It was fun to dance in and it was too late to do anything about it.  If I could go back and choose another dress would I?  Most likely yes.  Sometimes I see the pictures and cringe, but then I remember the memories and I soften up a bit.

My hair inspiration came from Carrie Underwood, but I'll talk about my hair stylist in the wedding post.  Now, that was a story!

 At the Khutbeh, all it really is is tons of dancing with some hors dourves.  I think we only sat down once and only to take a picture.  When I say we dance a lot I mean we danced from around 7 p.m. to midnight..straight.  It was a fun night..and I'm glad that all of our guests had fun too.

And before I end today's post I wanted to leave you with this

See, I'm not the only one who wanted to wear a big burgundy dress!!

Tomorrow is The Henna.  Probably my favorite day!

Wedding Week

Today is my two year wedding anniversary.  It feels so much longer than that!  Was there ever a time that I did not know you Alaa?  How did I spend my time?  What was life like without you?  I can't remember and honestly, I don't want to.  I truly am the luckiest girl in the world.  You are the greatest gift God has blessed me with.  I love you. I love you. I love you.

I was born and raised here in America and my husband was born and raised overseas.  I consider myself a southern belle (*wink wink*) but I am very much an Arab at heart.  I'm lucky to have the best of both worlds.  Since our traditions are different than many American engagements & weddings, I thought I would share our memories with you.  That and I'm a sucker for looking at old pictures, and this was the perfect excuse. 

Enjoy!

The Tulbeh

December 14, 2007

The "Tulbeh" is where the groom formally asks the brides family for her hand in marriage.  It's usually followed by exchanging of rings, a dinner, and in our case..lots of dancing.

While the men from my now husbands side asked the men from my family's side for their approval of our marriage,I was hidden away in another room.  In the first picture someone caught me texting Alaa hehe.  I came out in a traditional thobe that some women wear for special occasions.  I thought it would be a nice way to incorporate our tradition and culture into the occasion. 

After a couple of hours I changed into another dress.  Not everyone changes outfits, but I have always dreamed of wearing this specific dress.  Growing up, I would sneak into my moms closet and try it on and dream of one day wearing it.  You see, this dress was my moms engagement dress.  It holds so much meaning to me and you I'll let you do the math...me + special meaning = I . have. to. have. it.

I had no idea how lucky I was to be engaged to such an amazing person.  I knew he was funny and sweet (and handsome) but I didn't know that each day you would surprise me with how caring you are.

Stay tuned for "The Khutbeh" tomorrow

Wedding Dresses and Harry Potter

You're probably confused.  You're probably thinking what on earth do wedding dresses and Harry Potter have in common.  You're probably thinking, oh my God...she is one of those Harry Potter fanatics! (why yes, dear muggles, I am!)

Let me explain.  Nothing makes my heart flutter like wedding dresses, well, except for Harry Potter.  Today we are driving into Arkansas to go wedding dress shopping with my cousin.  Low's Bridal is the place to go wedding dress shopping.  It's a wedding fantasy land.  Take a peek!

Isn't it just gorgeous?!  I bought my wedding dress from Low's so I'm pretty excited to be going back! Hopefully my cousin will be able to find a dress there too.

Now, if you're not a Harry Potter fan you may just want to come back tomorrow.  As of right now I have every intention to make this short and sweet.  However, I do know that I have a tendency to get off track when talking about HP.  Are you a HP fanatic too?  Did you read the book or are you the obsessive Harry Potter fans that will only watch the movies?  Anyone visit Harry Potter land in Disney World?  ....I want to go..

And who knew that sweet little Emma Watson would be such a fashion icon.  Love her style!!

Excuse me while I go freak out some more that the movie is finally coming out!  

pictures via here, here, here, here, here, & here