Honeymoon Paradise

Maybe it's because of the gorgeous sunny day we had this past Saturday, or maybe it was the horrible, rainy, mucky, cold day we had today that has me daydreaming about our honeymoon plans.


I'd always thought I'd go to Hawaii or Italy for my honeymoon, but my boy had somewhere else in mind.

Since he has traveled all over the place (and I've been NO where) he wanted to go somewhere he hadn't been before.

One afternoon he asked me where I wanted to go, and I said anywhere was fine. He asked, "How about Bora Bora?"

Now folks, I had heard of Bora Bora of course. But all I really knew about it was that it was a beach...somewhere. So naturally, I did what any millennial would do. I googled it.



In case you were wondering....THIS is Bora Bora. (Click here for background music first.)

UM. YES ERIC. WE CAN GO TO BORA BORA. 

I don't know how he was so calm about it, because this was a place that was literally better than any paradise I've ever imagined in my entire life. 

So of course I spent pretty much every day drifting off to my honeymoon paradise...thinking about how unreal it will be.

I never thought I could be more excited about my honeymoon than my actual wedding...buuuuuut.....

Yeahhh. I can barely stand it I'm so freaking excited. 

So on miserable days like today, I just picture myself there.

If you didn't click on that music before...click it here now. You're welcome. 

You can listen to it while you look at the new pins on my blog board: Follow Marvyl's board To Be Triscritti on Pinterest.

To the Untrained Eye

Eric's first antiquing adventure was today, and for a first timer, he didn't do too shabby. 

Antique shops can be pretty overwhelming, because every single foot of them is crammed full of things you want, even if you don't really know why you want it. (Like trying to justify why you need a collection of antique Batman lunch boxes...)

But it's also hard to learn how to look through them for what you need.

I spent the majority of my childhood trying to convince store owners I wasn't going to break or rob them, which isn't easy when you're an 11 year old in an antique store. 

I always loved antiques and I loved learning about them, watching appraisal shows on tv, and most of all SHOPPING for them!

Mostly I collected toys and photographs, and I would spend hours at a time in one store thumbing through boxes of photos, buckets of records, and haggling down prices. 

From Clinton to Mount Carroll, Illinois I couldn't resist not stepping foot into every antique store I see. 

And what more of a perfect excuse to go and actually purchase things than for a wedding!

Our first stop was Downtown Clinton. Main street is lined with antique shops, and although most of them are outrageously priced, they haggle pretty well and have a good selection. 

For the most part, we didn't find a whole lot. Unfortunately the majority of the shops sell colonial, American antiques. But we did hit the jackpot at one shop. 

Now, Eric doesn't particularly enjoy shopping. He was really coming along as a good sport, and the first few shops he was less than interested. 

But I knew what it would take to get him all in...I'd seen the same thing with my brother who is my best antiquing buddy. 

It just takes one good find, and that find happened to be the Terracotta Warriors. 

Deep in the basement of one of the shops was a box of these Terracotta Warriors. They were of course expensive, but I told him (much to his surprise) that we could haggle the price down. He was so thrilled to find them, and he definitely got amped up after that. 

His other favorite find was this Chinese fisherman, which for some reason he really loved and insisted we get. 

My favorite find was hidden on the wall near a window display. This wooden map with gold foil globe faces on it: 

 The details are incredible, and it really looks fabulously vintage.

 

 We also found a globe for seven bucks, which was amazing considering globes have turned out to be the most expensive things at every single antique shop. Every booth at this shop was on sale, so we got 20% off each item, which helped a lot! I also fell in love with these lanterns. Not sure if I'm going to keep them black or paint them gold. . .

After main street we hit up the antique mall on the Clinton exit. It's a massive two story barn FULL of stuff, and luckily there were more sales. 

We found two trunks, each of which were 40% off! The cats seem to love them. 

We also found this awesome, wildly inaccurate globe and a cheap camera. 

I have to say one of the best finds was made by Eric, who by the end of the day was pretty proud of his now antique-trained eyes. On our way out he spotted this matador for our Spain table:

All in all, we made out pretty well this weekend. And by some sort of miracle, got all of this to fit in his Mustang...

Emma Rose grabbed another great find, too!

I was hoping some post cards I won on EBAY would have arrived, but they haven't yet so maybe tomorrow!

In the mean time, I'm going to try to keep our cats and puppy from destroying everything we just got. 

Something Old, Something New

One of the most fabulous parts of having the majority of the planning done, is that I get to spend an entire year planning the fun parts, like the decor!

With our travel theme, each table will be themed to a place we want to travel to together.

Here are our tables so far:

Japan (Wedding Party Table)
India
Italy
Australia
England
Germany
China
Mexico
Ireland
France
Thailand
Hawaii
Spain
Greece
Florida
San Francisco


My goal is to antique the majority of the center piece items, and this weekend my future mother-in-law and I got to hunt for some pieces, and ended up with some good grabs!

We'll probably end up painting some of these gold, as that's the element we're using to tie all the tables together.


I also have a soon-to-be cousin named Emma-Rose who I have had the pleasure of getting to know via Facebook.

That's her on her wedding day, she's beautiful and talented and deeeelightful. 

She's also on a mission to track down stuff for the wedding, and on day one she found THIS amazing find:

UHHHHMAZING. 

Needless to say, we're all ready to rock and roll through antique stores and EBAY all year. 

You can see some inspiration on my blog board here: Follow Marvyl's board To Be Triscritti on Pinterest.

And you can add any ideas you have in the comments below!