So last Sunday I worked the Eastern PA Bridal Expo at Lehigh University’s Rauch Field House, as I do every year. It’s a lovely event for those who just got engaged and are in the wedding planning process. Brides walk about aisles and aisles of wedding resources-everything from officiates to travel experts-with their red stickers identifying them as the bride.

Watching the women wander about with glazed-over faces, drifting from booth-to-booth enjoying cake and hors d’oeuvres samples, I wondered how accurate a statistic I recently heard on the “NBC Nightly News” was. It stated that for the first time in U.S. history, the census calculated that the percentage of single households was higher than the percentage of married households. To put that into perspective, in the ’70s the statistic reflected married households outnumbering single households by nearly 20 percentage points. While the difference amounted to just two percentage points in this instance, I was curious as to whether this trend would continue and what would happen if it did.

Rushing down Route 22 yesterday—as per my usual—I reached for my cell phone to call my mother’s hairdresser to let her know that I would be 10 minutes late dropping my mom off for her weekly Friday wash and set. (Yes, I said “wash and set,” but that’s subject matter for an entirely different blog.)

If you know me, you know this is my SOP-Standard Operating Procedure.  I generally arrive 10 minutes late for everything. I totally expect that St. Peter will have a good 10-minute pacing session at the gate upon my “untimely demise” because when God says, “Time’s up!” I intend to use my last breath to utter, “Can you give me just 10 more minutes?” This is entirely contingent on whether my tardiness has deemed me unfit for Heaven in the first place, lest I be presumptuous.

The Met

Fashion was out in full force Monday evening at the Metropolitan Museum of Arts Annual Costume Institute Gala in New York City.

In any event of this nature you have the showstoppers, the traditionalists, and the true

Beyonce in Emilio Pucci

fashionistas. You also get the individuals whose adornments “wear them” as opposed to the other way around. Here are our biggest offenders in this category:

Beyonce’s splashy black and gold mermaid number was so tight from the waist on down, she needed to be physically assisted up the stairs.

Hoping at least one of these helpers is Jay-Z

Christina Ricca did not fare much better as her dress’s designer Zac Posen actually helped get his creation up the red carpeted steps.

Ricci with her dress's designer, Zac Posen

Rhianna was another beauty in black struggling with her dress.

Don’t you just hate when you feel you just can’t control your own clothing? When she was able to tame the lace beast it was actually a gorgeous look on her.

Rhianna looked amazing once she addressed this train issue

Others that really hit the fashion mark for the night were: Sarah Jessica Parker in vintage (2005) Alexander McQueen, Jennifer Hudson, Gwenyth Paltrow and Madonna (absolutely loved her in this).

Madonna: Still rockin' it!

SJP

So who got the worst style grades for the evening? Mary Kate Olsen, Isabel Lucas and Ginnifer Goodwin all made ill-fiting misguided color choices…

The biggest disappointment came from the Met Gala’s most noted benefactor, Vogue EIC, Anna Wintour. She is usually the epitome of style, however, she must have made a deal with the devil to wear this less than flattering frock.

Anna and her daughter in red.

Our favorite photo of the night was Renee Zellweger in her backless Carolina Herrera.

And how was your Monday night?

Mary Kate

This just didn't work on Jenn G.

Now that's glamour. Thanks, Renee!

Well, we just couldn’t wait for the grand opening of our very own DSW here in Allentown, so the staff at Style hopped on the Northeast Extension and went to Plymouth Meeting last Friday. We have been named “Agents of Chic” after all, and we take our role as shoe ambassadors very seriously.

Shoe Heaven

At first sight this particular location is overwhelming. There are aisles upon aisles of shoes, sandals, boots, sneakers-almost too much for the eye to comprehend-I said, “almost.” I did not see my fellow co-workers for at least an hour after we all headed off on our own to pursue the perfect peep toe pump, flip-flop, or corded wedge-the shoe of the season.

We found that shoe shopping in this manner takes much stamina. Luckily, we all work out to some degree and are physically fit. We needed to be. We needed to be able to cruise all the aisles, parade around obstacles with one shoe on at a time, and carry tote bags laden with shoeboxes until we were ready to check out.

Our associate publisher, Pam Deller found the perfect pair at the last minute!

My Levity wedge

Little did I know that about 45 minutes into my own shopping journey I would literally walk off with the exact shoe I had pre-shopped for online earlier in the week. This Levity wedge with multi-colored tassels will go well with many of my spring wardrobe additions. I added to this a great pair of Me, Too! booties and a Polo wedge flip-flop. Success! Three pairs of shoes purchased means many happy steps to follow! In fact, all of my co-workers made out just as well, as we headed home with a hatch full of bags.

Ah, a well-stocked hatch is a thing of beauty!

Don’t forget to save the date for the grand opening festivities of our DSW on Thursday, April 28 at 7 p.m. We will be in attendance with the Style wall and we hope to see you there!

Meghan, Denise and Caley—all shopped out!

If you ask me, any day is a good day if it involves shopping for new shoes. Guess I am every bit the girl when it comes to that stuff. Even though every nook and cranny of every closet in my home has been infiltrated with shoes, I still always feel like I don’t have enough, or that I don’t have just the right one for a particular outfit.

We had a special delivery today

So you can imagine my abject glee when I found out that DSW is going to be opening a store a mere 5 minutes from my home. Wait! It got even better than that-the staff at Style was approached to become “shoe ambassadors,” or as they later refined it- “Agents of Chic.” We weren’t quite sure what this meant when we agreed to participate, but innately we all knew this would be a good thing.

Today, we found out how good when our Agents of Chic gift boxes arrived at the office. To prepare for the store’s grand opening at Allentown’s Airport Center on Thursday, April 28th, we were encouraged to start our shoe shopping online at DSW.com and we were each given a $150 gift certificate. We received “Ask me, where’d you get those shoes?” t-shirts and were encouraged to share the love with our shoe-obsessed friends by handing out invitations to the store’s grand opening.

Invitation to the DSW Grand Opening on April 28th!

Each invitation comes with a chance to win a $250 gift certificate from DSW for those present during the Grand Opening and a shoe-shaped key card redeemable for a variety of prizes. Each Agent of Chic has been given 10 invitations to pass out to friends. We decided we would start handing them out tonight at our Happy Hour at Sangria in Allentown.

Got my eye on this style!

We are also devoting this Friday afternoon to some reconnaissance shopping at the DSW currently closest to the Valley in Plymouth Meeting. It should be a fun excursion, but we will certainly be happy when our own Lehigh Valley store opens on April 28th at 939 Airport Center Drive, Allentown. Festivities begin at 7 p.m.

We hope to see you there!

Don’t worry—Mr. Blackwell’s and Joan Rivers’ jobs at accessing the best and worst dressed celebrities are safe. We just thought we’d chime in on the fashion winners of last Sunday night’s Screen Actors Guild Awards.

First of all, the one feature we noticed over and over again was the synched with a belt waistline. No one looked better pulling this look off than Claire Danes in this frilly feminine floral print gown by Louis Vuitton.

Other winners in this category include  January Jones in Carolina Herrera, Mila Kunis in Alexander McQueen, and our overall top pick for best dressed, but we’ll get back to that.

And although we loved her strappy heels, the synched waist aspect of Jennifer Lawrence’s bubble-gum pink Oscar de la Renta dress did not help in her cause for best-dressed; just too gimmicky for our tastes.

But Oscar redeemed himself with our next pick. The award for Most Improved goes to Tina Fey—known for her questionable choices—in her flaming red Oscar de la Renta.

I’d have to say I consider myself a middle-of-the-road driver. Not that I drive in the middle of the road, mind you, but I do observe traffic laws and practice common courtesy while on the road. I do not take my driving to extremes, in other words.

Case in point; I do not hang out in the left lane for any amount of time, as I understand and was taught in Driver’s Ed that this is the “passing” lane. I feel that the slow pokes who insist on using this as their easy cruise lane are dangerous because they force the speed-demon drivers out there to lane-shift even more so than they are already habitually inclined. This leads to drivers being cut off and others just being plain startled when a car whizzes past their window.

As far as courtesy goes, I also clean off my car when it snows. And when I say “clean off my car” I mean the entire car, roof and all. I do not just tunnel out a path for the front and rear window and then go on my merry way. The worst offenders on the roads seem to be the SUV drivers and the semis. When you are on the highway and are driving behind one of these types, you are taking a risk for sure because those chunks of heavy snow that are stuck on the vehicle will, no doubt, come whipping off at some point. God help you if you are the car behind one of them when this happens.

It’s been a while since I have posted a blog and figured it was about time we catch up. In the last several weeks since our 10-10-10 party, we have been doing double-time to put together our January issue—also our annual Weddings In Style guide. For us, this means working around two major holidays and still putting together a great issue plus a bridal supplement in less time. Since we are rolling out a re-design with the January issue we also had that extra factor to contend with. Well, you get the picture.

First Cover of 2011

In the meantime, my loyal blog readers have been asking me for an update on my progress with the weight loss and training program I embarked on in August. I can say I am very pleased with all of the progress I have made. I see a new more toned and slim person emerging, but I have to admit, it has been more difficult to stay on track since Thanksgiving.

A moment on the lips...

I don’t know about anybody else, but with every fall I seem to become a hungry maniac. This fall is no exception. It could be the increased use of the seasonal spices: cinnamon and nutmeg that is driving the hunger monster. Blast, the smells are everywhere right now! It’s in candles, schools, and coffee shops. My parents have a fresh pumpkin roll on the counter, just bursting with cream cheese filling. NO!

This year I promised myself I would not give in and I certainly have incentive not to. Officially, my 10-week self-improvement journey ended two weeks ago and my numbers do, indeed, show I have made progress.

I started on 8/2/10 and my latest numbers were recorded on 10/10/10.