This weekend we headed to Tampa with Maggie and Gabe for Maggie's 30th birthday. Maggie was jonesin' to go back to the big T for Gasparilla, aka the pirate-themed sweatfest. It was a great time and Maggie's best childhood friend, Laura, was such an amazing hostess. First of all, I am obsessed with her house (pictured above) - adorable, right? Ben and I were fortunate enough to stay in the guest-house (yes, I did say guest-house) in the back ... complete with a kitchen, living room, 2- bedrooms, a deck and clawfoot bathtub. Heaven. The only downside was that the heat was broken and we happened to arrive in Tampa on the night it was about 35/40 degrees ... thank goodness Ben's a good snuggler.
The festival kicked off at EIGHT A.M. on Saturday. Laura (who I've decided to dub Martha Stewart) pulled out all the stops: mimosas, an amazing breakfast platter and an i-pod playlist that could rouse even the most pathetic morning person (aka myself).
We spent the majority of the morning at Laura's on her front porch - listening to music, chatting with the crowd on the streets and hanging with all of Maggie's friends from home. Around 3 p.m., we ventured to Bayshore Drive (where the parade was taking place). Everyone was either dressed as a pirate or, at the very least, donning a few beads in the spirit of the festivities.
(Bayshore Drive in Tampa, FL)
(Me and Omar in our pirate-themed t-shirts)
Sadly enough ... after all of this early-morning action, we were all in bed by 8:30 p.m. No joke. Pathetic, huh? We're officially getting old.
Happy birthday, Mags! Maggie - you were one of my first friends in Miami and I know you'll be a forever friend. You and Gabe mean the world to me and Ben - thank you for letting us be a part of your world back in Tampa!
The next post will introduce our official wedding party!! I must ask you brides-to-be, brides-that-have-been or possible-brides-to-be-who-are-waiting-on-the-big-question for your help: any advice on where to order invitations? Ben and I had these incredible aspirations to design our own, but we think we're just going to order them for the sake of saving time, money and, of course, stress. Any advice is much appreciated!
Many more wedding updates to come...
And, finally, a big THANK YOU to all of you who commented, called and messaged about Amanda. Her surgery was a success - thanks for your positive energy!
Let me start by saying I am one of your blog stalkers, I know Rachel Webb through UK, so I started stalking you from her pregnancy blog. Onto wedding invites...I got married August 11, 2007. You are in the same boat we were in back then with invites. Postage went up in May 07, and is going up again this May, so what we did was make sure to get all invites out before May to save a little money. And we also had to account for the postage increase on our RSVP cards coming back after the increase, so make sure to do that if your are putting postage on your RSVP cards. There are a million little things to keep up with, so I thought I would throw in my 2-cents of knowledge!
Jessica Turner, Lexington, KY.
Posted by: Jessica Turner | February 11, 2009 at 08:32 AM
Ken and I used Sara at dot-the-i-stationary.com. She is originally from Dennis but now lives in the Albany area I think.
Posted by: Jill | February 11, 2009 at 09:14 AM