What to Wear to a Spring Wedding

The Scene

Jean Bean and I weren't the type of little girls that dreamed about big weddings. I wrote about that four years ago when we went wedding dress shopping (rather awkwardly) after she got engaged.



Sure, boys were cute and all but Bean and I were more the type of little girls who loved us some books. We dreamed about writing them some day. We still do.




So on her wedding day, the sight of her slipping into her wedding dress while her nieces intently read their books, made me smile as I choked up.

It was an incredibly intimate, low-key wedding---the best kind if you ask me.




It was also incredibly emotional. The father of JB's fiancee lost his battle with cancer just two weeks before the wedding. He was to be Texas Cowboy's best man.

The minister, a high school friend of Bean's, did a BEAUTIFUL job of weaving TC's father into the celebration of their love.



Reminding us all that at times our saddest moments converge with our happiest. That's just life.

Commitment is about supporting each other through the bad, cherishing the good and surviving everything in between. Jean Bean and I are blessed to have found two men who have stood by our sides through it all---through our greatest triumphs and our greatest tragedies. 

That day, I realized just how much these men have shaped who we've become.  Helping them through their darkest moments, handing them the best part of ourselves has changed us.




It's made us stronger and wiser and more giving. It's transformed us from the girls we once were into the women we are today.

I was 18 when I met Mr. Diabolina and Jean Bean.
And I was 30 when I met Texas Cowboy.




Yet, I can barely remember a time when they weren't all a part of my heart.




I can't wait for the next chapter of our story.


The Wedding Outfits


The bride of all brides wore Carolina Herrera. After all, this is a woman who has spent most of her career on Paris runways. It's her job to know an exquisite dress when she sees it ;)



With sparkly Manolos underneath





The Herrera was perfect. Simply stunning.

Delicious from every angle.





Best of all: scored at a sample sale for mere pennies.
One of the benefits of being tiny and working in the fashion industry

Another benefit: getting your gorgeous make-up did at Neiman Marcus for your wedding.






Her Dior lips and lashes were KILLING me all day.

Also killing me: these baby dolls. JB's nieces.  Best dressed guests.

Learned it from their STUNNING mama---Jean Bean's sister.

Who learned it from her momma---the only tiny momma who rivals mine in cuteness. Adore.her.face!



Best dressed non-family guests: JB's college besties. Perfect floral and Missoni prints for a spring wedding. The three girls became friends when they all studied abroad for a semester. In Paris. Obvi.

 I wore BCBG to my best friend's wedding. Asymmetrical neckline, drapey, floral, easy. Stella McCartney emerald clutch and my nude Louboutin heels, Neiman Marcus purchased (duh!) 

Loved the necklace. A little LA Fashion District find.  Made the whole afternoon-wedding look less precious, more fierce.



Had to bring it for my favorite fashionista.




The Wedding Guest Inspiration 

Social Media Style Stars & A New Job

*** 
I drafted this nerdy blog post on March 9th.  I'd planned to post it the next day since I was leaving for San Francisco on the 11th to start a new job and wanted to break the big news here. But my grandmother passed away on the 10th and all my plans changed---including the ones I had for the blog.


So the draft has been sitting here for four weeks. It's been this strangely poignant reminder that our best laid plans at times go completely astray. Figured I'd post it anyway because that's also how life works: you roll with the punches and make things work. xo


 ***


In mid-February, I spent 10 days in NYC for work.  My company was sponsoring Social Media Week events across the city and I was covering many of the sessions for our blog as well as live tweeting insights. For a week, the world's leading brains shared all the ways social media is changing business and society. I actually got paid to write about my favorite topic: how technology is transforming how we think and how we experience the world.  It was my personal nerd pig heaven.

Only one complaint: the outfits. Like most of the conferences I attend, there were no peacocks in sight. Most people throw on the garden variety "business meets tech crossed with blah" uniform. Very few bold colors or prints. And fabulous, of-the-moment accessories? Forget about it. The conference overlapped with Fashion Week...but you'd never know it. Wah-wah.

But there was a silver (and fashionable) lining to this conference. There was a track at the Hearst building focused on publishing and content. Decided to check out a few sessions and at the very least, peep pretty people in the Hearst elevators dressed for NYFW. A girl's got to get her fashion fix however she can.

One of the sessions I attended was titled "The New Ghostwriting." It's a topic that fascinates me. Little known fact: I worked at eHarmony about five years ago and I used to ghost-write for the founder.  Yep, the white haired dude in the commercials. Since then the real time nature of social media has changed everything about ghostwriting so I was curious to learn more about today's approach.

To be honest, I also chose the panel because a fashion Twitter star was on the panel. Aliza Licht is the senior vice president of global communications at Donna Karan.  But for those of you who love Twitter half as much as I do, she's @DKNY.  She is held up as the gold standard when it comes to social media for fashion. Her voice manages to be completely her own and yet completely on brand.  Probably a function of more than a decade representing the company.

 And she got major points for being the sparkliest speaker at all the sessions I attended---a welcome change for my unicorn-starved eyes. But the most insightful person on her panel was the chief blogger for the Obama for Change campaign (the young kid in the tie.) His passion, authenticity and humility were beyond refreshing.  I interviewed him for my company's blog and he couldn't have been lovelier.

My absolute favorite Hearst panel of the week featured three more fashion heavy hitters: street style photographer/blogger Tamu McPherson of All the Pretty Birds and two of my most favorite street style darlings, Jo Hillman of Harper's Bazaar and THE Kate Lanphear of Elle. AH-MA-ZING!

Best dressed panel at Social Media Week, hands down, no competition. 

I mean look at the shoes!!! Unicorn central.

And the hair on these editors: both blond, two extremes, equally ferosh.



Best of all, the discussion around how blogs today influence design and commerce was thoughtful and insightful in ways I honestly didn't expect. Kate was particularly, DELICIOUSLY, articulate. She came across as v. smart and even more self-effacing. My girl crush on her has reached a new level.

Here she shares how the economy and the Internet have changed what she covers in the pages of Elle. Try not to pop a lady boner. 

That one panel highlighted how so many of my personal and professional passions have converged in the past few years. As part of my job, I blog and tweet about business. In my personal time, I do the same about fashion. More and more often, the two intersect. 

My mom (who was on the trip with me and attended some of the drier sessions with me) loves to point out how much this personal blog has helped shape my professional voice and expertise in the digital space over the last few years.  That was never the plan but it's ironically how life has unfolded. I initially fought so hard to keep the two separate. Now not so much.

And I anticipate the two will only become more and more intertwined. I just accepted a new job at....drum roll...Twitter!!!! As a bonafide Twitter addict, I'm beyond thrilled that one of my passions is becoming my work. I truly believe Twitter is changing the planet---how we connect and share and discover content.  I am so proud to be a part of that revolution, as both a user and an employee.

I signed my offer letter (cutest ever, right???)  on the last day of Social Media Week.
If that's not a sign, I don't know what is. Wish me luck ;)

How to Wear a Color Block Dress

To all of you who commented on my last post and sent lovely emails, thank you. I appreciate you bringing my pain into your hearts and sharing yours with me.

It's been four weeks since my grandmother died. I wish I could say that it's getting easier but it's not. The pain just tastes a little different with every passing day.

Have you ever cried for 30 days straight? Ugh. I never had. It's awful and exhausting.  I long for that day that breaks the chain.  Maybe I'll feel like myself again. Maybe look like myself again.  Thirty days and nights of crying = a puffy, red, damn mess of a face. **Vain sigh**

And yet, amidst a month of such intense sorrow, there have been moments of incredible joy. Funny how that happens in life.

I've spent countless days and nights with my mom, remembering together and trying to forget together. Mourning and healing together. Best of all, just being together. We've become closer than ever. I didn't think that was even possible.

I also started a BFD new job. Spent 10 days away from home onboarding at the company headquarters in San Francisco.  Didn't think I'd be able to make it through the first day, let alone 10 days. But I did. I learned that I'm stronger than I think...and that strangers can be kinder than I tend to think.

I also watched my best friend get married...just two weeks after her fiancee's dad died of cancer. Heartbreaking. I never dreamed her beautiful day would be tinged with so much pain. I feel closer to him and to her and to their families than ever before. Like our two tragedies have tied our souls together. Like a bow on a gift. 

And finally, I celebrated Mr. Diabolina's birthday. I've spent 17 birthdays by his side. But this year was the most special. I've never been more grateful that this beautiful man was born.

There are no words for how incredible he's been in the last 30 days. To me and to my mother and to everyone around us.  He has always been my rock. But through all of this, his love and patience and strength have been my North Star.

I'll never forget all the little moments.  Stroking my hair in those awful moments as she lay dying in that hospital room. Standing by my side as I picked out her coffin in a daze. Propping me up as I gave her eulogy because I was convinced my legs might give out.  Encouraging me to start the new job as scheduled, reminding me of how proud she would have been, reminding me how proud he is, reminding me that I can do anything. Calling my mother every day that I was out of town. Having a beautiful dinner ready for me when I finally returned home.

A few days after my grandmother died, my mother broke down in his arms. She could barely speak but, as she clung to him, she managed to tell him, "You're the best thing that ever happened to the two of us."  No truer words have ever been uttered.

I've been wearing mostly black since my grandmother died. Haven't been particularly interested in fashion. Haven't felt like me.

  But for Mr. Diabolina's birthday, I made the effort.  I bought a new dress, a red dress.  It is the color of love and passion and life. It was my grandmother's color.

And that day, it was my way of celebrating the man I can't imagine my life without.

xoxo

My Grandmother

My grandmother just died. 

For two weeks, I've been wanting to say that to every stranger I see. Grab them and shake them and scream those four words at them. I want to make them feel as uncomfortable as I feel. 

Because I'm angry that they didn't stop...that the world didn't stop when she did. Things just kept going as if she never existed, as if she never mattered. But I want them to understand that my world did stop. 

I want them to understand that my eyes are swollen and haunted because I've never watched someone I adore slip away into nothingness. Understand that I'm sleepwalking in a fog of grief---slow and distracted and not myself. Understand that I've never felt so fragile, like I'm made out of glass.  Like my heart is breaking and I can't breathe.  

I never knew I was capable of enduring pain this intense and this unrelenting. It's the absolute worst moment of my life. And I'll never be the same. There was me when she was alive and now there's me when she's dead…

***

My grandmother was beautiful. Achingly, stunningly beautiful. She was strong and complicated and smart and funny and damaged and a force of nature and charming and ambitious and stubborn. But most all, she was mine. She's the only grandparent I ever met. 

My grandmother was my mother's mother. My mother was her only child just like I am my mother's only child.  Whenever they'd describe our triangle, they would say, "Unica hija de una unica hija." 

My grandmother and my mother had an epically awful relationship. My entire life I've felt guilty about the wonderfully close relationship I have with my mother.  It is in many ways the direct result of how bad her relationship with her own mother was. 

And so the thing my mother most wanted in life was to be a mother---and in her mind, right many wrongs. And becoming a mother didn't come easily. She lost two sets of twins before having me.  When I was born, I was a kind of miracle.

My mother was determined to be everything to me that my grandmother hadn't been to her.  For better or worse, I knew that from a very young age. It was this thing all three of us knew but never talked about, like some unspoken sisterly pact. 

In the past few years, things had hit a breaking point in their relationship. As my grandmother grew older, she became increasingly stubborn and hurtful, refusing to see or talk to my mother. Money became wrapped up in their six decades of issues. There were lies and emotional daggers galore. I was used as a pawn. It was all kinds of ugly. 

And after 30 years of being caught in the middle of the two women who raised me, the two women I loved most, I'd had enough. I decided I didn't want to be part of the emotionally scarring cycle anymore.  I realized I wasn't a little girl anymore. I had a choice.

So I chose my mom. Which meant I stopped trying to talk to my grandmother. I stopped trying to see her.  I shut down. 

Mr. Diabolina, knowing how painful my decision was, would periodically bring her up. See if I wanted to reach out, call her, write her. But like her, I was stubborn. I said I didn't want to hurt my mom. I reminded him my grandmother had my number too, that I wasn't the only one that could reach out.  

And frankly, I thought I had time. My grandmother had always been healthy as a horse, looking years younger than her actual age. Her side of the family typically lives well into their 90s.  I figured things would work themselves out and we would reconnect. I guess I didn't want to even think about the alternative...

But then one day, we get a call telling us my grandmother's in the hospital. She's dying. To come quickly. 

When we get there, she's unrecognizable, full of tubes, motionless, in a coma, dying. She's not beautiful and she's not stubborn and she's not strong anymore. And yet she's still mine.

My mom and I are told that we have to make the decision to take her off the machines, that she's in pain, that mentally she's not there anymore.  And it's not like the movies where you quietly watch someone slip away.  There's nothing peaceful about it.  It's horrifying.  

My mom and I are doubled over, howling in agony, praying for her soul, begging for her forgiveness, clinging to each other for dear life. Ultimately, we didn't have to make the decision to let her go, her body just gave up. 

And we were there by her side in those last moments...watching her life force drain away...watching a major part of ourselves die too.