vrbo so cool

what to do when you’re planning a bachelorette party and need a place to house all them bachelorettes? hotels can get expensive and you can’t fit much bubbly in those mini fridges? much less your oj for the morning mimosas.

and while room service and a concierge desk is certainly a luxury…a house all to your own can be just as swanky. that’s where vrbo (vacation rentals by owner) comes in. you plug in the area you’re looking to stay, and it shows you what’s available, when, and for how much. and sometimes you can even negotiate with the owners.

i recently stayed at a house upstate in the hudson valley for my friend’s bachelorette. and the guys rented it the following weekend for the bachelor party–so we swung a deal to make it cheaper across the board.

i’ve also rented houses when i’m a wedding guest. it’s fun to wake up in a house with your friends and make breakfast, get ready, and hang out. a view of martha’s vineyard or the catskill mountains doesn’t hurt either i must say. and just like when you stay in the lap of luxury, these houses are furnished and come with linens, so it’s not like you have to pack your towels or pillows. just your dancing shoes and party dress.

are shoe for real?

i love shoes. shopping for them, not so much. because i’ll either want to see them with certain pants/skirts/dresses and bring them home only to realize how wrong they are. or i’ll fall in love with a pair in the store only to find out they don’t have them in my size.

but shoe shopping online has become one of my new past times. sure, it lacks the immediacy of buying a pair and being able to wear them instantly, but i never have to schlep them around for the rest of the day while i finish my errands.

one of the main reasons i love online shoe shopping is because they come straight to my home, i can try them on with the contents of my closet, and if i don’t like them, i just box them up and send them back. one of the other reasons is  because of one of my fave word pairings: free + shipping. in BOTH directions.

zappos, endless, and piperlime are the three musketeers of my shoe collection. they unite to bring joy to me and my closet. though each offers something a the other doesn’t. zappos has the couture outpost. i love the search offerings at endless. and piperlime is owned by the gap, so i get points on my banana republic card every time i buy something there.

if you’re not looking for shoes, but might be on the hunt for the perfect going-out clutch or a new pair of earrings? you’re in luck, because all three sell clothing and/or accessories!

 

save some dough

i haven’t been able to make a single online purchase without a quick search on retail me not ever since i discovered the website. like magic, it gathers coupon codes that you can copy and paste into that ever-present (yet all-too-often left empty) promo code box before checking out. i used it last year for all sorts of stuff, like the shoes i wore as a bridesmaid and the candy i bought for a sweets buffet and the jars it went in.

so go forth, find codes, and save!

free for all

i’ve always been into graphic design and typography. which means that by default, i tend to obsess over the paper elements involved in a wedding… from the invitation suite to the program to the favor tag.

so the thing is, a fabulous font really makes a difference. particularly if the paper item is  DIY labor of love. just because it’s being done on the cheap or at home, there’s no reason you have to stick to the 12 basic fonts your computer came with. of all the stationery pieces i’ve designed this year (i’ll show you soon, i promise), i’ve integrated fonts i’ve downloaded online.

so, without further ado… i’m letting you in on a few of my favorite sites:

dafont

free fonts

fonts for peas

if you’ve got good penmanship, turn your handwriting into a font! but don’t even think about using it for your thank you notes. that’s what a pen is for. learn how with your fonts.