With a Side of Hope

Good Morning!  We are halfway through the week!  This week just feels so incredibly long for some reason.  I’m not really sure why.  It just does.  We are having awful weather here today.  It’s raining and cold.  I don’t mind the cold weather.  I just despise the rain.  I think we had enough of rain this summer to last me a lifetime.  All of that rain certainly makes me nervous about the winter.  I have a feeling we are going to get a lot of snow this winter.  I guess we shall see!

Anyway, after work I hung around the Willow Grove area because Mike and I were going to a Macy’s bridal event at the Willow Grove Mall.  I found a shopping center where we were going to be eating dinner to hang around until Mike got done work.  I went into The Fresh Market to explore.  I was greeted by samples of hot apple cider. Mmm..that store has so many great things!  It’s VERY expensive.  I would never be able to afford to grocery shop there.  It was nice to walk around and see what they had.  I was almost tempted to buy decaf pumpkin spice coffee but then I saw how much it was and I thought, hmm..no so much.  Beautiful store but very high prices. 

My next stop was Ulta.  I spent a while around the store browsing at new nail polish colors, smelling new perfumes, looking at makeup and hair products, etc.  I was surprised that I actually walked out of the store without buying anything!  I had a coupon for 20% off too.  I was impressed that I didn’t buy anything.  I had some more time to kill before Mike met me so I just relaxed in my car.  Finally, he showed up and we were ready for dinner!

Our restaurant of choice was Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza.  There is an Anthony’s by my work  and I took out pizza for lunch from there before.  I had never dined in for dinner.  So I was pretty excited!  They were offering $1.50 Peroni’s!  Not a bad deal if you ask me.  I started off with a Peroni which I never had before. It wasn’t bad at all.  Not something I would normally order but for $1.50, how could I pass that up?

Menu

 We started off with an Italian salad to share.  It says on the menu that it’s big enough for 2 to share.  Honestly, I think more like 3 or 4 people could share this salad.  It was huge! 

Italian Salad

The salad had tomatoes, chickpeas, kalamata olives, celery, hard-boiled eggs and red onion tossed in a light vinaigrette dressing.  It was absolutely delicious!   It was the perfect blend for a starter salad.

For our entrée, we ordered a small traditional pizza with half plain and half pepperoni.  You can probably guess which side was mine.

Pizza

I got the first slice

Their pizza is excellent!  I love that the bottom is crispy and you can taste that it was cooked in a coal oven.  It almost tastes like a grilled pizza. It is by far the best pizza I’ve ever had.  I really enjoyed our experience at Anthony’s.  The service was great and the food was delicious.  I hate when you go out to eat and the food and service are both bad and you wasted so much money.  This time everything was spot on and I really enjoyed myself.

We had some time to spare before the event so we explored Macy’s and then we walked around the mall.  I think we spent like 20 minutes in Williams and Sonoma.  I seriously love that store.  I could spend so much time just looking at everything in that store.  They were also giving out samples of hot apple cider.  Of course we had some.  Before we knew it, it was time for the event.

Macy’s has an event which is partnered with The Knot called Macy’s Sip & Scan.  This event allows for engaged couples to have a special night to start their wedding registry.  There is a DJ, mocktails, hors d’ourves, and vendors from a lot of different brands such as Cusinart, Keurig, Lenox, and KitchenAid, just to name a few. 

Once you see a date on the website that is located at a mall near you, you simply email the contact who they have provided and RSVP.  You must RSVP because they set up your registry for you so all you have to do is grab a scan gun and start scanning!   

If you have a Macy’s Star Rewards card, which is merely their credit card, you should register it and attach it to your wedding registry.  If you do so, anytime someone buys you something off your registry, you receive 5% back.  If you go shopping and use your Macy’s card, you get 10% back as long as the items are eligible.  At the end, you will receive, I believe a gift card for your rewards that you have earned. 

Mike and I were debating whether or not we were going to register at Macy’s.  So we decided to go to this event to explore and see what it’s like and see if there is anything at Macy’s that we would want to register for.  When we got there our registry was ready for us to begin using the scan gun.  Mike was in charge of that while I took the list and started exploring.  We didn’t see all that much that we absolutely loved.  A lot of the items in the store were very expensive.  It was really overwhelming because there were so many items scattered all over the store.  We found a few things that we liked. 

I really like Villeroy & Boch.  I think their items are really unique and modern looking. 

I also really like Kate Spade china but what girl doesn’t like Kate Spade?

We thought this event was really informative and that it helped us realize what we need, what we want, and what we don’t want.  I don’t think we will be using Macy’s for our registry.  I think we are going to register with Bed, Bath and Beyond as our main registry and also register at Kohl’s.  We might also do a honeymoon registry.  I don’t think we will be using the Macy’s one that we created.  I guess we will think about it.  I think I would feel much less overwhelmed if we registered at Bed, Bath and Beyond.

Don’t get me wrong, I thought it was a good event. It just wasn’t the right place for us to register for items that we need or would like to have.  It’s not for everyone.  The most important thing that is you both agree on things together and have fun registering together.  After all, it’s supposed to be fun.

Where do you want to register?  If you are married, where did you register?

Alright time to get back to work now.  Have a good day! 

Filed under: Uncategorized