Irish Wedding

I've been meaning to post pictures from the wedding I went to two weekends ago! Two of my Fordham friends tied the knot.

The wedding was black tie optional, which called for a fancy dress. I made an appointment with a stylist downtown at Rent the Runway, an awesome website where you can rent a designer dress for a few nights for a fraction of the cost. The weekend before the wedding I headed downtown with Liz and Amy, who were my peanut gallery. I tried on about 10 dresses and finally ended up choosing one the stylist picked out for me, along with a beautiful pair of teardrop earrings.

The dress! With socks. 

Close up of dress and earrings.

Saturday morning I made the trek to Jersey City with some other Fordham friends, to the Hyatt. From the Hyatt there was a charter bus that took everyone to the Church and back, and then to the reception and back.

 Snowing. You can barely see the city skyline.

 Groom coming down the aisle.

 Gorgeous church. 

The reception was at Maritime Parc, a great venue in Jersey with stunning skyline views. We had a cocktail hour, followed by a sit down dinner in a separate room.

 Bride and groom entrance!
That's a photobooth in the back right corner - so fun!

 First dance.

 Picture with the newlyweds (and a photo bomber!)
Loved the detailing on her gown.

 YUM.

 Cutting the cake with a skyline background.

Delicious!! Also note the adorable place setting.

 With another Fordham graduate
(who also rented her dress from Rent the Runway!). 

 Nora, another friend from Fordham. 

LOVED this space. 

The band was also amazing - Vera Wang and Ivanka Trump had them at her wedding!

 At the hotel bar after. 

Such a beautiful wedding, can't wait to see the professional pictures!

31-31 Craft #1

Amy and I share a board on Pinterest and have been drawing inspiration since about two months ago. We have so many new apartment ideas!

I started today by taking a trip to Anthropologie (LOVE that place) to check out their knob collection.

I wanted to replace the ugly handles on my new ikea wardrobe:

Ew. So boring.

And replace them with something more fun!:

 Yay! On sale too!

Before

After - Much better!

I also want to use wallpaper to cover the see-throughish part, 

but am having problems locating wallpaper for sale by the yard. 

Also have this guy left over, I had to buy it for only $3!

Maybe for the kitchen.

It's Official!

We signed the lease last night! Now we can breath a sigh of relief and start the process of packing. 

 New home!

Amy and I have also started collecting some new furniture. We don't need much, but we've been scouring Craigslist (why pay full price when you can pay practically nothing for practically brand new!). It's been going great, except for that we have to carry everything home. It's a workout!

 My new dresser!! That thing weighs a ton and is bulky. 

We pushed it on a dollie from 71st and 2nd to our apartment. 

 Worth it!!

 Found this gorgeous piece on Craigslist, on 82nd and Lex. 

 Amy and I carried it - our arms burned!

 We had dinner in Astoria the night we signed our lease - YUM. 

Check out this menu - real Greek cookin'

 Looks like a sea slug but it was delicious!

Zucchini stuffed with beef and rice with lemon potatoes! Only 9 bucks!

Broadway will be our new Arthur Avenue, but instead of Italian, Greek!

NOT Homeless!

Amy and I found an apartment!!!!! We are so excited!!

After searching for almost three weeks, we realized that we simply could not afford to live in Manhattan. Prices are insane for even a one bedroom, let alone a true two bed. Amy and I would have had to stretch past both of our budgets for a miserable little space with few windows and we realized we just wouldn't be happy. After living in an apartment with no natural light we knew that was the one thing we really wanted.

So, we set our sights on Astoria, Queens, which is just across the East River. It's an up and coming neighborhood and filled with Fordham alumni. Most of our friends live in Astoria, so we've both spent a lot of time in the neighborhood, days, nights, weekdays, weekends. Just this past Saturday night Lindsay and I were out in Astoria with Liz and 3 other friends who live around there. While at the bar, I ran into the Fordham alum who helped me land my internship at Martha! She was there with a group of about 5 other Fordham grads!

After looking around at a few apartments in the neighborhood today, we landed on a gem of an apartment. Exactly in our price range (Amy will actually pay less than now!) and exactly what we were looking for. It is a true two bedroom with a true living room and kitchen. There are two windows in each bedroom, a huge window in the living room/kitchen area and even a window in the bathroom. The apartment is on the 3rd floor (no elevator), but it's only up two short flights of stairs. Both of the bedrooms face the street, which is great for natural sunlight. No tall skyscrapers to block our views!

It's two blocks from the subway, which is a shorter walk for us than we have now! It takes about 12-15 minutes to get to 59th Street in Manhattan, from our front door.

The neighborhood is fantastic - little shops, restaurants, bars, grocery stores and everything else within minutes from our front door. We will live right off of Broadway, which is a bustling street that has lots of stores and diners that are open 24 hours. The apartment is set back, down a residential street, so it will be quiet and away from traffic. The street is tree lined and you can tell from Google that it's gorgeous and lush during the spring and summer.

There's a Costco down the block, along with a Rainey Park, which is right on the water. We already scoped out the local gym, which is less expensive, more massive and has more amenities than our current gym.

Amy and I couldn't be more excited about starting a new adventure in this apartment and neighborhood. We love Manhattan and the Upper East Side, but it just isn't in the cards for us right now. Below are two pictures of the apartment I pulled from online (they don't do it justice!). We couldn't take pictures ourself because the current tenants are still living there.

 Living room! To the left is the front door, entry way closet and bathroom.

Behind is the kitchen with the window and to the right are the bedrooms.

The bedroom Amy will be in!! Look at those windows!

Unfortunately there is no picture of the bedroom I'm in, but its a bit smaller than this one.

Our move in date is April 1. Next weekend we're going to go in and take exact measurements and start planning out where we'll put everything. We also want to paint, so we can do that before we put any furniture in.

Homeless

Amy and I are trying really hard not to be homeless May 1. We've started apartment hunting and it's literally what I have been doing every night after work. It's a bit exhausting so we decided that for another month we'll cut back to three nights a week instead.

So far, nothing yet. We've still got time though!

 Saturday morning apartment hunting. 

Also, two of my favorite things in NYC: Dunkin and bagels!

 We want to live here. 

All of the kitchen space! And a window!

Unfortunately, this 1 bedroom on 83rd and 2nd was $3500 a month. Nope.

 Monday's apartment hunt in the middle of a snowstorm!

Is this December?

 Came out of the apartment to winter wonderland!

Mondays