Last Friday I was able to attend a blogger preview of the newly opened Boscov's at the Connecticut Post Mall in Milford! Boscov's is a family owned department store and this Milford location is their 47th store. Boscov's is the largest family owned department store chain in the nation; selling clothing, shoes, handbags, jewelry, watches, home items, bedding, and toys!

Our day started with breakfast and an introduction to the brand by Jim Boscov himself! He really loves his brand and makes sure that the stores all uphold the family-friendly values of the original store in Reading, PA. Boscov's aims to open one store per year with the reasoning that they take the time to find the perfect location and everyone at the company spends weeks preparing the co-workers at these new stores. They are also committed to the communities they have stores in and make sure to support local charities. At this year's grand opening they had a ribbon cutting ceremony with $100 bills and each one went to a member agency of the United Way of Milford and $1000 for the United Way.


The Connecticut Post Mall in Milford is currently in a redevelopment phase to revitalize the shopping center. In addition to Boscov's, they will also be opening a Dave & Busters, Muse Paintbar and Kidz Klub. Soon The Post will be your one stop shop for activities whether that's going to the gym, seeing a movie or shopping for anything you need!

The store is THREE packed floors of merchandise offering anything you could possible need or want. They have all the brand names you're used to in a department store at even better prices! No one is left out when it comes to clothing. They carry petites, plus sizes, kids, misses, adults, mens and they have an amazing men's suits section!


I walked out with a $29.99 cashmere sweater, $60 Mickey pearl earrings and two $5 long sleeve tees for Christian. In addition to those already low prices we were given a 15% off coupon and a $15 gift card for our purchases! Mr Boscov also treated us each to a pound of DELICIOUS fudge! I got dark chocolate and it's amazing! So smooth and only $5.99 a pound!  Unfortunately I had to return the tees I bought because they were too big and they didn't carry Smalls in the styles I bought. I also ended up exchanging the cashmere sweater for two sweaters (dark ruby and dark teal) that were only $9.99 each and just as soft, haha. I went back with my parent's and Christian yesterday so they could check out the store.


Make sure to head to the store this week to check out all their grand opening sales! In addition, Debbie Boone - of You Light Up My Life fame - will be performing daily at 2pm and 7pm!

The store also has an auditorium where they hold all sorts of classes and events. They even have a Melissa & Doug play area within the toy section!

And, if you plan on doing some holiday shopping, make sure to stop by the courtesy desk for complimentary gift wrapping on your purchases!


*I was invited to a preview of the store and received a 15% coupon and $15 gift card as compensation. I was not required to write this post but chose to because I enjoyed experience.*

I'm not into the whole huge wedding say your vows in front of everyone thing. I enjoy going to weddings but I don't personally want to be the center of attention - thanks social anxiety. Luckily Christian wasn't big on the idea of a large wedding either so we opted for a small ceremony in the park where we go for our daily walks with just my parents and my grandparents in attendance. His immediate family decided to come for the party instead of the ceremony since they're a 20 hour drive away.

The following week we had a party for family and friends in my parents backyard.  I let my mom do most of the planning because she has great taste and I knew it would be easier that way. I had made a Pinterest board with a few things I liked and we went off of that. Christian's brother also hand carved an amazing Lord of the Rings sign for us as a wedding gift so we brought it to the party since it was on-theme (see photo above.)

We decided on a color palette and chose a bunch of hanging lanterns as well as string lights. After that I pretty much took a back seat and approved or vetoed her decisions. (aka always approved because she's great at planning and decorating.) The only thing we disagreed on was tables. I wanted rectangle instead of circles because it looks less formal that way.



Rather than cooking food ourselves we chose a caterer that had more than just the basic Italian food options, The Executive Chef. We had a great menu planned with appetizers and a dinner buffet. My mom took care of the desserts - she's an amazing baker - and we both made a ton of french macarons to give out as party favors.  My mom also created a really cute candy bar for the dessert table with purple treats! She thinks of everything. Unfortunately we were all so caught up in the day we forgot photos of the dinner buffet! GAH!


Update: The caterer posted photos of the buffet! YAY! And a few close-ups of the appetizers.





A family friend generously offered to make the cake for us so my Mom would have one less thing to do. We wanted a super simple cake (chocolate with white frosting) and decided to be cheeky and put our Wall-E and Eve figures on the top instead of a bride and groom. What can I say, we're weird.  I did indulge our guests with the traditional cutting of the cake. Note my excitement in the photos below, haha.



Photos by me, my Dad, a couple other relatives and Lydia!

I guess I should also share our engagement story during what I'm now dubbing "wedding week" on the blog. I had Christian write up the story for you all to enjoy:

Proposals are no easy task.  People have romantic dinners, the Eiffel tower is in the distance, and a soothing quartet has to be nearby. Except none of this happened.  While camping in Vermont, Megan showed Christian the Overlook after a 1 mile hike.  The view was wide open and full of trees down below.  After spending the rest of the day enjoying various camping activities, Christian discussed his desire of capturing the sunset on camera from the Overlook.  Of course Megan would support him, but it seemed a couple others, her brother and cousin, wanted to join in this venture!  Panic started filling his mind as to what to do now.  Fortunately, they were very willing to skip this evening after he had a quick talk with them.  The time came and off they went.  Saying the mosquitoes were doing their best to muster the troops to attack us would be an understatement.  The second hike in one day was much harder than the first, as well.  Sweaty, aching, and covered in itching bumps, we finally reached the top.  Christian decided to take his time setting up and risk losing sunlight in order to give them time to get their breath back.  After carefully setting up the camera to capture the orange sunlight spilling across the hills and trees in the distance, Christian asked Megan to check on some other equipment across from him at the edge of the cliff.  A few moments passed, and Megan turned once she heard him start to speak.  The camera captured everything.  The sunset was only one part of Christian trying to secretly capture the moment.  Surprisingly, she said Yes, and here we are.

After I said yes, we sat up on the cliff together for a bit soaking in the view. Then we called our parents to tell them the good news before going back down to the campsite to see our vacation buddies. My 2 brothers, aunt, uncle and cousin were all there and were very excited when we shared the news.

We were actually supposed to go camping alone for the 4th of July (our anniversary week) but changed it when we had a family reunion to go to that same weekend. It just so happened that there were campsites open when my aunt and uncle were going on their yearly trip so we decided merge our trips. My extended family on my Dad's side used to camp here every Summer when I was younger and then I continued the tradition with my 2 best friends.

Normally I skip posts on Wednesday but I figured today could be a hodgepodge of photos that I didn't post the rest of the week! So here are some "getting ready" and other pictures I like from our special day.  (I had to narrow everything down from 699 pictures Lydia took, yowza! And that's just the wedding day, not the party!)

Wedding Dress: Needle & Thread Mirage tiered embellished tulle dress (Net-a-Porter), Wedding Shoes: Nicholas Kirkwood Lola embellished Lurex sandals (Net-a-Porter),  Wedding Band: Sofia Zakia Altair Ring (Catbird), Engagement Ring: Custom Sofia Zakia Wandering Star  Ring, Opal

Men's Button Down: Ryan Seacrest Ultimate Slim Fit,  Pants: Apt. 9 Slim Fit Twill Suit in Dusty Blue (we scored the pants only for $15 on the clearance rack at Kohl's!)

Wall-E and Eve Ring Box

Growing up I never pictured myself with a big diamond engagement ring. I wanted something more unique if I was ever going to get married - which I thought was a very small possibility because I was far too shy to talk to boys. My parents would joke to the rest of the family that I would be the one taking care of them in their old age because I would be alone. Then Christian came into the picture and the rest is history. We knew fairly quickly that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together so we started researching rings.

Quick backstory - The first "date" we ever had was watching Wall-E one night during the Game of Thrones convention we met at. It's one of his favorite movies and we all know how much I love Disney/Pixar. Needless to say, we're very into space representing our relationship.

We came upon Sofia Zakia while browsing Catbird for ideas, not thinking I'd find a ring there.  I didn't want Christian to have to spend a lot on my ring but we both fell in love with her Wandering Star ring featuring an opal (my birthstone!) It's an opal surrounded by diamonds (as the stars) and 2 crescent moons on either side. On Catbird it only came in regular gold and rose gold but I wanted white gold so we set off to find something else. Here is an early inspiration image I made. Notice how large the Sofia Zakia Wandering Star ring is featured ;)



In the end, Christian found her website and saw that she did white gold versions of her rings. He also customized the ring by trading out some of the diamonds for sapphires, his birthstone. It was such a wonderful surprise to see the ring of my dreams when he opened up the adorable Wall-E & Eve box he ordered to put it in. It's the perfect ring to represent us and our story.

Sofia Zakia makes special wedding bands that fit around the interesting shape of the Wandering Star ring. We had a few to choose from but thought the Altair was the prettiest and most complimentary.  I insisted on buying my band because it was a lot pricier than we would have spent with any other ring. Luckily Catbird offers a 10% discount when signing up for their newsletter so I was able to save a bit of cash that way.

For Christian's ring, he wanted something a bit more unique and in a darker metal. Originally he wanted something with meteorite or a textured metal but decided that would be too fragile to wear every day based on research. He went with a dark gray ceramic ring with a blue inlay so it would sort of match the sapphires in my ring.

We used the ring box Christian proposed with to hold our wedding bands on the day.

Wedding Band: Sofia Zakia Altair Ring (Catbird), Engagement Ring: Custom Sofia Zakia Wandering Star Ring, Opal

Sofia Zakia Altair Ring, Custom Sofia Zakia Wandering Star Ring, Opal

Dark Gray Ceramic Wedding Band with Blue Inlay, Sofia Zakia Altair Ring, Custom Sofia Zakia Wandering Star Ring with Opal, Diamonds and Sapphires

Wall-E & Eve with Custom Sofia Zakia Wandering Star Ring, Opal