District Damsel

As soon as I placed my order with Rose Wholesale for this stunning maxi dress, I knew I wanted to wear it to our September Bubbles & Bloggers meet up. (Shout out to Jia for these photos outside of Illusions of Georgetown!) More about the event later, I’m super behind on my event recaps this month but it will be up soon!

I’ve partnered with Zaful before, but had never heard of their sister site Rose Wholesale until my partnership contact told me about it. Think of Rose Wholesale as a Costco for clothes – aka the site retailers turn to to purchase items in bulk at a highly discounted price. I was shocked at how inexpensive everything was on the site – this dress was only $16.00! I had a hard time choosing what to order because there were so many items to browse on the website. I suggest pouring yourself a glass of wine and spending some time exploring the site so you have a chance to actually check out their inventory. Just as I suggested with Zaful and SammyDress, I would stick to shopping items where a model is wearing the pieces so you know how they fit on a person versus a flat lay.

Since my dress was being shipped from overseas, I received the same great tracking updates via text so I knew exactly when my package would arrive. When I got my package and tried on the dress I freaked out because  I didn’t see the fabric belt fall out on the floor and the dress DID NOT look like it did online and banished it to the Girl Cave (a room in my new place that I’ve turned into a sports-free safe haven.) A few days later I went back to the Girl Cave to try it on and found the belt on the floor and oh my gosh it made SUCH a difference. Moral of the story – belting a dress can seriously transform it. I got so many compliments from my blogger baes about this unique dress and I can’t wait to break it out again next spring! Shop the dress below:

Bohemian Plunge Neck Wrap Maxi | Rose Wholesale

 

A solid moto jacket is my go-to topper in the fall. I toss mine over dresses, tees, sweaters – you name it – I’m convinced that a structured leather jacket instantly pulls a look together or gives a girly outfit just the right touch of edginess. Since I think that every girl needs one in her wardrobe (I have three!) I’ve rounded up a few of my favorites from ASOS, H&M, Nordstrom, and Forever 21 that are all under $100! Shop by picks below.

ASOS

Only PU Jacket With Contrast Sleeves

Noisy May Jacket With Hood

ASOS Leather Biker Jacket

ASOS Suede Biker Jacket

NORDSTROM 

Vigoss Leather Jacket

Levi’s Quilt Leather Racer Jacket

H&M

Coated Biker Jacket

Biker Jacket

FOREVER 21

Rust Moto Jacket

Olive Moto Jacket

Full disclosure – I ordered this tunic a size too big in hopes that I could get away with wearing it as a dress and I was sorely off on my measurement guesses. However, it forced me to branch out and try a look that I never would have usually put together, and I’m pretty obsessed with the way it turned out!

I wore this SammyDress tunic with my trusty Levi’s for a girls’ outing to Union Market with my blogger fairy godmother, Dani, and I loved the juxtaposition of a dressier tunic with cutoff jean shorts. SammyDress is a sister site to Zafaul and I was super excited to partner with them because a) their styles are super unique and b) the prices are amazing! This tunic was only $17.00 but retails around $32.00 on SammyDress – that’s a pretty great discount.

Just like my shopping experience with Zafaul, my check out experience was seamless once I’d finally decided on what I wanted to order (their selection is insane – I spent an hour surfing their site!) and I got text message updates throughout the shipment process so I knew exactly when my order was going to arrive.

I can’t wait to style this tunic with my OTK boots and leather leggings once cooler weather rolls around, but I love that it’s a top that can carry me from the dog days of summer into the fall.

Tunic | SammyDress

I have a tendency to dislike outfit repeating, which is great for my Instagram feed, not so great for my wallet. Fast fashion (think forever 21, H&M, Zara, etc.) is great for people who are on a budget but don’t like wearing the same thing multiple times – but when it comes to wedding attire sometimes I want a step up from a $25 dress. The solution? Rent The Runway. (BTW, this isn’t a sponsored post, I just really think it’s a great solution!)

Think of Rent The Runway as an all-access pass to your stylish best friend’s closet, except that everything is in your size and comes with a price tag that retails upwards of $300. (If you have best friends with closets like this, then please, introduce me.)

The theory behind Rent the Runway is simple – you pick a dress you want to borrow, sign up to have it delivered to you the day before the event, then simply drop it off at UPS location the day after your event! No worries about dry cleaning – it’s all taken care of as part of the rental. Rent The Runway operates primarily as an online retailer, but we’re lucky enough to have one on M Street in Georgetown where you can try on ALL THE PRETTY DRESSES. Seriously, it’s like the adult version of playing dress-up. If you don’t have a brick-and-mortar store, you can chat with a stylist online who can help you pick the perfect frock from their vast collection of couture. Plus, you get two different sizes with your rental incase you accidentally deem yourself a size bigger than you really are. (Don’t you love when that happens?)

This was my second time using Rent The Runway and I tried on both dresses before renting them at the DC location. Both dresses were borrowed for weddings, and it was really fun to wear something with a designer label to the events! Plus, a dress as memorable as this Milly number can only be worn so many times. This dress retails around $400 but was mine for $65 (I had a 20% off code) for the occasion.

I highly recommend trying it out for your next special event, and hit up my girl Sam if you need to make an appointment at the DC boutique!

Who doesn’t love a good happy hour deal, especially on the weekend? I’m a little bit over the pregame parties on the weekends(*thinks of taking shots of Fireball and dies a little inside*), so I’m always on the hunt for new spots that offer Saturday and Sunday happy hours. I love going out, but don’t have an unlimited fun budget so I like to try and find a spot to catch a happy hour deal before dinner dates or bar hopping. Since weekend happy hours are a rarity in DC, I’ve rounded up some of my favorite spots to save you the trouble of searching for your own!

Before I give away my cheap booze secrets – I wore this look to my ultimate happy hour spot, Chaplin’s, with a girlfriend last weekend which is why I’ve included outfit photos in this post. It was chilly enough last weekend to top of my slip dress with my go-to moto jacket and platform heels. BTW, if you go to Chaplin’s, order the Vegabond and thank me later.

DC Weekend Happy Hours

SHAW

Chaplin’s | 1/2 off all draft cocktails, wine, and beer

Thally | $4 off all draft beers and speciality cocktails

Shaw’s Tavern | $5 house wines, $5 rail cocktails, 1/2 off select appetizers

14th STREET/LOGAN CIRCLE

Red Light |$4 pints, $6 mugs, $5 wine

Ghibellina | $6 cocktails, $5 wine, $4 drafts

Commissary | literally everything is $3 – $7 including apps

Logan Tavern | too many different discounts to list, but it’s extremely solid

DUPONT CIRCLE 

Agora | Sunday Only: $4 beer, $6 wine, $7 house cocktails

Bar Dupont | $7 cocktails, $6 wine, $5 draft beer

Café Citron| assortment of discounted beers, margaritas, and cocktails

You’ve heard me lament about how hard it is to dress for warm weather outdoors and freezing office temperatures in a previous post, and I know I’m not alone in my struggle because I’ve seen women in my office bundled up with full-on blankets this summer!

I’m a big fan of jumpsuits for a night out on the town, like this look from a fashion show and this one from a girls night out, but I never really thought about how they’d made a great solution for Arctic office temps. I’ve had this jumpsuit for a few years and it’s always been a default piece to throw in my luggage when I’m traveling to warmer places because I’m always freezing on planes, so I don’t know why I haven’t been stocking up on more of these for the office! Additionally, the elastic waistband on this piece makes it feel like I’m wearing PJs to the office, plus the fact that I don’t have to think about pairing a top and bottom combo when I’m running out the door definitely makes getting dressed in the morning easier!

Disclaimer – I have an extremely casual dress code at my office, so a jumpsuit as office attire might not be super appropriate at certain companies, unless you top it with a blazer and pair it with conservative heels. I’ve linked a few of my favorite, affordable options below that you’ll be able to transition into fall!

Palm Print Strappy Jumpsuit | TopShop

Long Sleeve Lace-Up Jumpsuit | Leith

Stripe Wide-Leg Jumpsuit | Adelyn Rae

Vanilla Bloom Jumpsuit | TopShop

If you’ve been following me on Instagram, you know that the manfriend and I made the plunge and moved in together last week! (P.S. The manfriend is the one who usually takes my blog photos because he’s actually the best.) I wore this flirty floral dress to the Bitches Who Brunch Summer Soirée, but also wore it to our celebration dinner on the day I moved in to the manfriend’s place.

I feel like I’m at a point in my life where a lot of my friends are getting serious about their relationships and are also making the decision to move in with their significant others, so I thought it might be helpful to share some of my tips for making the big change.

Some background on the move – we’d been planning it for about 7 months, so I should have had a lot of time to prepare, but per usual I waited until the month before to actually start getting ready. I ended up moving into my boyfriend’s place after his roommate moved out, so there was a LOT of prep work to turn the former frat house into an inhabitable residence. (Love you babe!)

• This is an obvious one – but patience and willingness to compromise are the most important factors when moving in together. For example – the “Captain’s Chair”, an overstuffed leather chair that was pretty much meant for watching sports, and also my boyfriend’s prized possession. The chair is  old and didn’t match my other furniture, but it was important to him to have a comfy, manly chair, so the Captain’s Chair got to stay, but I was allowed to put a faux fur pillow on it.

• My boyfriend had been living in our place for the past four years, so there were a ton of things that former roommates had left behind or pieces from when he first graduated college (9 years ago) that were outdated and just needed to go. My boyfriend is pretty sentimental, so when we first started working on cleaning out the apartment he was not too happy with me when I suggested we throw out approximately half of his items. We did end up selling a lot of things on Craigslist, but since they were his things, we spent the money on really good seats to a Nationals game because he loves baseball (compromise, people!)

• This last point brings me to Craigslist – which is an excellent tool that I highly recommend you use if you’re looking to get rid of a lot of items. If you’re selling furniture, make sure you measure everything and post the dimensions on the ad. We didn’t originally do this and got a LOT more interest in our pieces once we updated the posts to include the measurements. Also, make sure you’re both there if you’re having someone over to look at something. While we didn’t have any sketchy interactions with our sales, it’s a weird world out there.

• Painting is HARD, but the good people at ACE Hardware will help teach you everything you need to know. We were insanely ambitious and decided to repaint the apartment since it hadn’t been painted in six years, and man that project was a major undertaking. Pro tip – drop cloths are your best friend. I’m still peeling dried paint off of our hardwood floors.

• Do a major closet clean out right before you move. I’m horrible about getting rid of clothes, but it definitely helped to have less clothing to move slash merge into a smaller closet space. I sold my nicer items to ThredUp and donated the older pieces to Goodwill. There’s also a lot of clothing donation bins around the District if you don’t have a car to make the trip up the Goodwill donation center.

• Lastly, we’d suggest setting a date for a Housewarming party! Originally, we decided to throw a housewarming party so we had a deadline to get the place in order, but now it’s turned into something to look forward to and we can’t wait for our friends to see all the hard work we’ve put into this place! Seriously – it’s been transformed.

I could offer up a lot more about this topic, but this post is long enough. Feel free to reach out with any questions you might have if you’re thinking about moving in with your SO!

Dress | Forever 21

Shoes | Amazon

Bag | Rebecca Minkoff

I’ve been going to Uncle Julio’s Mexican Restaurant (formerly known as Uncle Julio’s Rio Grande) for as long as I can remember. Seriously, my parents used to take my brother and I there when we were babies because its lively atmosphere was loud and people didn’t care if we cried. The restaurant has recently gone through some rebranding and when they reached out to me to come try their made-from-scratch fajitas, fresh margaritas, and chocolate piñata (yes, you heard right a CHOCOLATE piñata) I was ecstatic and recruited a friend to come along. (FYI, we visited the Arlington/Ballston location which is directly across from the Ballston Metro so getting there from DC couldn’t be easier!)

We started out with their housemade tortilla chips and fire-roasted salsa which every guest is greeted with when they sit down. I could eat their salsa by the gallon – it’s amazing and the perfect amount of spiciness! My friend and I are major cheese enthusiasts, so we split an order of queso and guacamole which was delish. Since we got the combo appetizer with queso, we didn’t get the guac made tableside, but I highly recommend you order that if you go! A chef will make the dip right in front of you and you can completely control everything you want to go into, adding in extras like jalapeños or reducing the amount of salt that goes into it.

Of course, no Mexican meal is complete without a margarita. Typically, I default to the traditional house margarita, but our waiter Alex (who was fantastic by the way), sold us on the fresh squeezed kiwi marg, and I’m so glad we went with those because they were unreal. Confession – neither of us had ever had a kiwi before this drink! P.S. This may be the prettiest margarita I’ve ever seen.

For our main meal, my friend went with the chicken enchiladas with red sauce, and I ordered the grilled vegetable fajitas. The fajitas came with more guacamole, sour cream, cheese, pico de gallo, Mexican rice, frijoles a la charra, sautéed peppers and onions with homemade flour tortillas in addition to mesquite grilled portobello mushrooms and squash. The dish was served sizzling hot on a metal plate and all the toppings took up half the table! I could have eaten the entire dish because I’m a bottomless pit but I’d recommend splitting this with a friend if you want to save room for dessert.

Now what you’ve been waiting for – the chocolate piñata. (Side note, I apologize for the lighting on these photos, we sat outside and since we went after work it was dark out by the time we got around to dessert!) We weren’t entirely sure what to expect, but the head chef Carlos, presented us with what can only be described as as masterpiece. The piñata was crafted out of creamy milk chocolate and filled with cinnamon sugar mini churros, fresh strawberries, blackberries, and pineapple. My friend did the honors and cracked the piñata on her first try and it was so much fun to watch everything fall out! I definitely regret not taking a video of it. We felt like we were eating Mexican fondue as we dipped the fruit and churros into housemade whipped cream, chocolate, and caramel sauces. We talked about how this would be the perfect dessert for a birthday party or special occasion, and how kids would love getting the chance to crack it open!

We left the restaurant in a total Mexicoma, but the food, service, and atmosphere was amazing and we’ll definitely be back! Thank you so much for having us, Uncle Julios!

If you haven’t heard me rave about my Bubbles & Bloggers meet-ups before, you clearly don’t read my Instagram captions. Just kidding – but seriously I talk about these girls so much I feel like all of my followers must know about them! In case you’re a new follower or reader, Bubbles & Bloggers is a network of DMV area bloggers who meet up once a month to chat about the blogging world, exchange fashion tips, and overindulge in brunch food and drinks. If you’d like to be invited to the next meet up, shoot me a DM or email!

The morning of our last Bubbles & Bloggers meet up was one of those mornings you wake up completely disoriented and have approximately 60 minutes to get your act together before you have to be out the door. (In my defense, the night before was one of my best friend’s birthday parties.) I had an outfit in mind that I wanted to wear to the brunch, but it was just my luck that it wasn’t working for me that morning so I dove into my closet and pulled out the dress I wore on the same friend’s birthday party last year and threw it on.

One final check in the mirror as I walked out the door told me that this was NOT a daytime appropriate look, but I channeled my inner Carrie Bradshaw and decided to just go with it. (The woman is pretty much famous for her unreasonable daytime attire and sky high heels – hello tulle skirt in the opening SATC credits.) The gladiator sandals helped tone my look down a bit and I still felt a tad overdressed, but I figured if I couldn’t be overdressed in front of a bunch of bloggers than who was I kidding, they would probably embrace the nighttime look during the day.

Regardless, I love the fun print and asymmetrical hem on this dress and think that this color blue may be my new favorite color swatch. This dress is another one of my sale finds off the Urban Oufitters rack, but I’ve linked some similar options below!

Side note – our brunch was held at Bourbon, and I highly recommend it! The food was fantastic, the service was amazing, and the owners were insanely nice. Definitely worth the trip to Adams Morgan for it!

Urban Outfitters

LuLu*s

Tobi

LuLu*s

Tobi

I go through phases of music genres like I go through phases of my personal style. There was the time in college where I was obsessed with rap and wore body-con dresses, that lovely phase where I would only listen to alternative bands and decked myself out Pac Sun and Hot Topic graphic tees (sorry, mom), and right now I’m into Indie music and a bit of an edgier meets boho look. One thing will always stay the same though, there’s nothing like cowboy boots and a country concert in the summer.

Fun fact – these cowboy boots are from 8TH GRADE. I don’t know what compelled me to beg my mom for a pair when I was 14, but I do remember that everyone made fun of me when I wore them to school. Well haters, I’m one of the few people that didn’t have to run out and buy boots for WMZQ because these bad boys have had a permanent spot in my closet for over 10 years. I used to wear these boots a lot with dresses in college and when I first moved into the city, but now I keep them reserved mostly for music concerts. (Honestly, it’s kind of hard to walk on uneven city sidewalks in them because of their long pointy toes.)

I try to go to at least one country concert each summer and this year it was The Band Perry at Wolf Trap – *raise your hand if you have a major girl crush on Kimberly.* As soon as I got tickets I knew this was the outfit I was going to wear. I’ve worn this matching skirt and top set to both a Florida Georgia Line concert and WMZQ, so I guess you could say it’s my country concert go-to. I love matching sets because they give the illusion of a dress or romper, but the crop top and skirt combo makes the look a little more unique. I got this set at Urban Outfitters off the sale rack a few years ago, but I’ve linked some of my favorite matching sets below!

Forever 21

ChiChic

Azbro