My Little's Beautiful Wedding

May is a great month for weddings. Exactly one year ago today, I was at Bradley and Kiersten's wedding (one of my "top 5 favorite weddings of all time"), and just a few weeks ago my beautiful “little"Anne got married.

For those of you not familiar with sorority lingo, a “big” and “little” are paired together (through a magical mix of preference and fate) during the little’s freshman year and big’s sophomore year, and they remain big/little throughout college (slash life). This highly anticipated pairing is revealed at an event (aptly called “Big/Little”).  For Anne’s Big/Little, all the freshmen collected gifts/clues that led them to a pair of cute pajamas. They then went downstairs to find the girl wearing the same pajamas, thus revealing their big. After this grand reveal, we all went roller-skating and showered the littles with more gifts.  Partyyyy! ;-) 

I knew I wanted Anne to be my little the day she became a Tri Delt.  All the new pledges spent the night at the Delta and somehow it came out that she had attended Kids Across America, the inner-city sister camp of Kanakuk, which I attended/worked at for the majority of my youth. We broke out into a few KAA cheers, and I instantly knew we were meant to be. On several occasions, we googled “national best big/little contest,” because we were certain we would win.  (Unfortunately we never found one to enter).

Anne is an amazingly intelligent and talented nurse and she met Alex (her now hubby) when she was interning in Washington D.C. Alex is amazingly intelligent and talented as well and has been living all over the world the past couple years, getting his masters at Oxford and working in South Africa. As such, this was my first time to actually meet him in person. Fortunately, they invited all their guests to their festive Oklahoma-themed rehearsal dinner so we all got to meet each other, eat delicious southern fare, and dance the night away the night before the big day. 

It felt equal parts weird/wonderful to dust off my old cowboy boots for this lovely affair. :-)

The wedding itself was also a beautiful affair held at the Mayo Hotel.  Alex is Jewish so the ceremony and reception incorporated several fun Jewish traditions like him breaking a glass with his foot, the horah dance where everyone holds hands and runs around in circles, and the lifting of the bride/groom in chairs.

There was also other more universal traditions: Delta-ing the bride and singing the Tri Delt wedding song (which I still don't really know all the words to), fun dancing, and double-fisting drinks when it was last call. ;-) 

To make this joyous occasion even better, since it was my first time back in Oklahoma in quite some time, I got to spend some quality time with my sweet brother and have long over-due reunions with several of my dearest friends (including but not limited to: C Gunn, Randis, Sarah, Chelsea, Vanessa, Uran, Patrick, Beckham, Blake, and my very own "big", Cory!). It was SO amazing to be back in my beloved home state. 

Basically, it was an absolutely wonderful weekend with wonderful people. The only sad part was saying goodbye to Anne because she and Alex moved to South Africa a few days later. (Don't worry, they'll be back in August 2013... whew). I'm so glad I got to be there to celebrate with my darling little and new little-in-law. ;-) 

xoxo, 

Annie. 

Best Coast Album Release Party

Alternate title of this post: Why I Love Twitter

I had one of those crazy and very uniquely "LA moments" on Saturday.  As I was doing my usual morning perusal of Twitter, I saw that one of my favorite bands, Best Coast, posted this: 

BEST COAST ‏ @best_coast:

Who is coming to party tonight at space 15 twenty?! Record release/launch of BC for UO. 

Bobb + @Juan_Vigoda DJ! 7-10PM.

Um...okay, I'll come party with you, Best Coast! They have a highly anticipated new record coming out May 15 (which you can listen to in its entirety here).  The first single, The Only Place, is a love letter to California and officially my summer anthem of 2012. I love it.  Equally exciting is that lead singer Bethany Cosentino is releasing her first clothing line for Urban Outfitters this month.  Get. It. Girl. 

In addition to being a big fan of her music, I also have a straight up friend crush on Bethany. She just seems so fun and hilarious.  Plus she loves cats (like me). Plus she's Italian (like me). Plus she loves LA (like me).  We're basically a friend match made in heaven. So when she essentially just invited me (and all her other Twitter/Facebook fans) to a party to celebrate these two very cool occasions at a venue 5 minutes away from my apartment...how I could I NOT attend this?! 

I immediately RSVP'd for myself and a guest and went about my day.  I hadn't received any confirmation about my RSVP, so I thought the guest list was already full and made other plans.  Then, as fate would have it, I received a confirmation email around 6:30 (the event started at 7:00). I quickly canceled my dinner plans and started going through my phone to find a plus one. I landed on my sweet friend Molly and an hour later, we were ready to party with Best Coast. 

It was at Space 15 Twenty, which was very cool.  When we arrived, there were only about 30ish people there. As Bethany was mingling with people, Molly and I were trying to determine if all the other attendees at this semi-intimate gathering were her close friends or if they too had been invited via social media. Hard to tell. We got a drink to help ease the potentially awkward situation of being the only Twitter invitees there, and when we returned to the party, there were more people and some definite fans asking for photos and what not. (whew!)  We then made some new buddies as we waited for a chance to say hi and congrats to the woman of the hour.  

Then she did a raffle drawing (which I sadly did not win)...

....and then Bobb Bruno (the other half of Best Coast slash the awesome DJ for the event) played Taylor Swift's "You Belong With Me" and they danced a bit (yet another reason I legitimately want to be her friend)...

... and then we got to meet her! (I love Bobb in the background of this photo...ha).

She was just as nice and cool and funny as I thought she'd be. I love that she wanted to share this very exciting celebration with her fans. 

So, if you're reading this Bethany, thanks for the fun party! I'm excited for your new music and clothes. Annndd.... let's hang out? Maybe? 

:-)

xoxo, 

Annie. 

8:11 April Highlights

Yowza... how have 3 weeks passed since my last post?!  My last 3 weeks have been full of wonderful things... a visit from Mary, a trip to Oklahoma for a wonderful reunion-filled wedding, putting on a charity event at WB for foster youth, seeing my teenage dream, Adam Brody (aka Seth Cohen from "The O. C."), etc. ;-)  Busyness aside, please forgive my blog negligence. 

Here are my top 11 favorite things that happened last month at 8:11 PM.  (After Garrett's snarky comment about having too many 'highlights' for March, I've decided to put a cap on it...harder than one might think! I'm not the best at the process of elimination.) 

8:11-food truck Monday with @mike_beier. We have the coolest neighborhood. :-)

8:11-a fun night in downtown Houston w/ my dear mother. Dinner and a play...next up: dessert at the aquarium. Holla!

8:11- so excited to see my darling @salvie! a definite benefit of my parents living in houston. 

8:11- such a lovely Easter relaxing with my parents. Love them and love this wonderful holiday.

8:11- we just zumba'd. It was hilarious and fun.

8:11- art opening/music video premiere w/ @jinahbean, @johnnyhollywood, and @jessicacmitchell. cha chiiing.

8:11- post-church din/drinks at Spitz w/ 3 of the coolest girls I know. :-) 

8:11- commencing another epic Los Feliz pub crawl with @marygaris and @mike_beier. Hollaaa.

8:11- wonderful duncan reunion at Bar Marmont w/ @marygaris and @missalf. #cheers.

8:11- din at my fave restaurant (Masa) w/ my fave people ( @marygaris, @garrettfbaker ). #snarkytrio.

8:11- @jinahbean brought me to a backyard party/fireside comedy show. Raaaandom (slash amazing) Friday night.

Another great thing that happened in my life in April....

That's right... I became a fan of the British boy band sensation, One Direction. hahah. Pure curiosity about this group that was formed on England's X-Factor and was suddenly taking America by storm caused me to YouTube them one night. I really was like a skeptical old lady..."well, let's see what all this crazy hype is about..." And the next thing I knew, I was like "hmm... this song is really catchy."  And the next thing I knew, I was listening to them on repeat and know all the lyrics (Mary and I had some legitttt sing-alongs on the way to Palm Springs) and  I can rank the members in descending order of how much I like them (Harry and Liam are my faaaaves). ;-) Yes, I realize they are young children and this is slightly embarrassing/ridiculous. But I defy you to give them a listen (I suggest "One Thing" (shown above) and their other single "What Makes You Beautiful") and NOT be singing it all day in your head. It's impossible!

xoxo, 

Annie.