Wedding

So if you've been following along on my honeymoon recap (part 1 and part 2), I think it's pretty clear we loved our stay at the Four Seasons Wailea. Everything about this hotel was top notch, from the service, to the amenities, to the food. You name it, and the Four Seasons staff probably will be one step ahead of you.....

Today I thought I'd highlight some of my favorite parts of the hotel, as well as share a video of our room at the end! I did a TON of research prior to our honeymoon to figure out where we should stay. There really are so many great resorts to chose from in Maui, and I think I debated staying in West vs. South Maui for probably weeks..... Ultimately, I kept coming back to the Four Seasons because it met all of our criteria. Turns out, it far exceeded all criteria!

I know hotels in Maui aren't cheap, but I scored an amazing deal booking our stay through WhataHotel.com. I definitely was a little skeptical as a first time user, but turns out booking through this preferred partner website was such a breeze. We received a ton of perks, since it's ultimately like booking through a travel agent without the hassle. For our stay, we received free breakfast (which is normally like $40/person), a $50 daily credit plus an additional $100 on top, as well as a free room upgrade! The perks definitely paid off, and we used our daily credits for drinks and a few meals.

Basically,  we felt like the Four Seasons was worth every penny and here's why:

The best of the best:

Friendliest staff that goes above and beyond. From the moment we arrived, we were greeted with leis, fresh lavender towels, and cold water. Check in was a breeze. We booked a garden view room, but were immediately upgraded two levels to an ocean view room for free! We were then given the option to upgrade to an ocean view prime room for a steal; naturally we took it. We ended up savings hundreds and have zero regrets.....

Beautiful pools. There are a few pools at the hotel including my favorite, an adults only pool for privacy. Throughout the day the staff brought out snacks including popsicles, frozen grapes, and muffins, as well as ice cold water. There's sunscreen available for free to use as well.

The food is AMAZING, especially for a hotel. We had dinner at Ferraro's and Duo, as well as lunch at Ferraro's more times then I can count. There's also another restaurant, Spago, which I'm dying to try on our next visit. Breakfast too was amazing with so many options. Basically, you won't go hungry during your stay here. Myles and I both agreed that we had some of our best meals of our two week honeymoon at the hotel!

Myles' breakfast one morning..... turkey bacon, bacon, chicken sausage, prosciutto ha!

Rooms were large and very modern. Our room was basically a dream and what I would love our future town home to look like. The bathroom even had a speaker in it, so we could listen to music while getting ready.

Our ocean view room also had a balcony that over looked a beautiful garden below. It was super private, and we loved watching the sun come up in the morning.

The views. The Four Season is located right on Wailea Beach. There truly never was a bad view from anywhere in the hotel....

The ambience. The grounds themselves were stunning, with flowers everywhere. Add an open air lobby, beautiful pathways, and this hotel couldn't have been any more colorful or vibrant. I felt like every time we went out to explore we'd find a new hidden part of the hotel!

Location! We loved the location in relation to the other hotels in Wailea. We were able to walk to the Shops at Wailea, as well as home from Monkeypod a few nights. They also have a shuttle that'll take you throughout Wailea at no cost.

And just for fun, here's a tour of our room. I think it pretty much speaks for itself!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsNSMAeYp_A

Our stay at the Four Seasons Wailea was truly a 5 star hotel experience that I'll never forget. Thank you to the staff for making our first few days in Hawaii so memorable. Until next time 😉

I'd love to hear where ya'll went on your honeymoon?!? Or if you've ever been to Maui!

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Today's post will be short and sweet. I wanted to share our save the dates with ya'll because I loved how they turned out! I used Minted to create our design, and the entire process was super easy and affordable.

In my opinion, save the dates set the tone for your big day. Since they are the first thing that your guests receive regarding your wedding, it's important to stick with your wedding theme/style early on.

Once we received our engagement pictures back from our photographer, we gathered all addresses and uploaded them to Minted's easy to use address book. For simplicity, we chose to have Minted print all addresses on the front of the envelope, as well as our personal address on the back for any returns. I'm SO glad we put a return address because we had a few that never made it to our friends!

Choosing the actual template was difficult since Minted had SO many options. Everything from foil press, letter press, to magnets and postcards. After a ton of debate (on my end of course, lol!), we ended up going with this classic template with gold foil-press font. It was exactly what I had in mind!

Also, just a quick side note. Be sure to add your wedding website to the back (or front) of your save the date so that guests can start looking into travel arrangements ahead of time. But for the most part, keep the save the date short and to the point. Guests really just need to know what day to set aside on their calendar and the location. More details will follow with your formal invite!

We also chose to use Minted for our stamps. Looking back, this definitely wasn't necessary but was a fun little touch. I'd probably recommend just using wedding stamps at the post office to save a few dollars.

And there you have it. Overall I was really impressed with the quality of our save the dates. I highly recommend using Minted for save the dates, or any paper needs, since we had such a great experience. Outside of save the dates and invitations, Minted also would be great for baby/wedding showers, parties, birth announcements, or any holiday! I know for a fact we'll be using them again in the future.....

Even better, they're almost always running some sort of promotion. Our save the dates were at least 25% off when we placed our order- win!

Have ya'll ever used Minted? I'd love to hear your experiences!

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I'm back today with part two of our Maui honeymoon! Be sure to check out part one here. We stayed at the Four Seasons for five nights, and definitely took advantage of the time to relax while enjoying time spent at the pool, beach, and eating delicious meals. It was so nice to kick back without too much on the itinerary outside of our sunrise at Haleakala.

But nonetheless there's still a lot to share, so here's a little breakdown of what we did do (or should I say ate, we did a lot of eating ha!)

Day Three:

Our morning started with a 90 minute walk along the beach. The sunrise was once again insane, notice a theme yet? Every morning spent in Wailea truly was a treat...

The Wailea Beach path is a great way to start the day. It's about 1.5 mile path that lines some of Wailea's most beautiful hotels such as the Andaz, Grand Wailea, Marriott, and our hotel the Four Seasons! I told Myles we need to come back and test them all out 😉

After another delicious breakfast of omelets, pancakes, bacon, and way too much pineapple we snagged spots at the adult only pool for the rest of the day. Probably the only con of our hotel was the pool chair situation, but luckily there were enough chairs for everyone....

The adults only spot is so peaceful. There's an infinity pool that looks out over the Pacific, and a swim up bar that makes the most delicious drinks. The drink above was some sort of lemonade, but our favorite was a blackberry mojito that was to die for. Extra strong of course 😉

Somehow we managed to get ourselves up for lunch and decided to try out Ferraro's, since we enjoyed our dinner so much the night before. Oh my gosh this was the best decision we ever made because lunch was phenomenal. As well as the view...

I had the crab avocado toast and ya'll..... this was the most epic avocado toast I've ever had in my life. Which is saying a lot. The most delicious crunchy bread, topped with lump crab meat, probably an entire avocado, cherry tomatoes, drizzled with olive oil. Food heaven. Myles had a mahi mahi sandwich which I think he had two more times during our stay, ha!

At this point I was convinced there was no way any meal could top the ones we'd had so far in our trip. But once again, I was wrong! We tried out Miso Phat for dinner and it was the best sushi of my life.....

We first discovered Miso Phat when watching an episode of Diners Drive-Ins and Dives. Immediately we knew that we had to add this to our list, specifically the famous TNT roll....

Miso Phat was about a ten minute drive from our hotel and tucked in a little strip mall. Don't let the outside fool you, this food was outstanding!

We ordered a few rolls, but the star was of course the TNT roll- 'Shrimp Tempura and Crab roll topped with Ahi Poke and served with Unagi sauce and Agave Honey. So big you could explode!'

I've never tasted poke like this in my life, and it's safe to say no sushi will ever live up to this roll again. Do yourself a favor, add Miso Phat to your must try list when visiting Maui. You won't regret it!

Day Four:

By the fourth day we were finally getting into somewhat of a routine, but still waking up before the sunrise. This morning walk might have been my favorite of the entire trip.....the sky was purple and pink, no filter needed!

We ended up sitting in the main pool area on this day to switch things up. At one point Myles left and came back with two coconuts. Apparently they were cracking them open further up by the pool, and it really doesn't get much more fresh than that. Yum!

We spent the rest of the day reading, napping, eating delicious acai bowls, and ordering room service later on. Figured we had to try it out at least once while on our trip 😉 Naturally we ordered chips, salsa, and guac which they set up on our balcony....

As if we hadn't eaten enough, we decided to try the all you can seafood night at our hotel restaurant Duo. I can't believe I didn't snap any pictures, I think I was probably too busy feasting......We had unlimited lobster, shrimp, crab legs, crab claws, and every other seafood imaginable. Highlight was definitely the lobster. Between the two of us, I think we at like ten!

I wore an off the shoulder striped high low dress from Forever 21 and it was so perfect for the occasion. Stretchy and light weight, plus the perfect amount of flow. Forever 21 really came through as far as honeymoon attire!

Day Five:

This was our last full day at the Four Seasons, so we took advantage of all of our favorite things starting with another sunrise walk....

Cotton candy skies for days.....

Crab avocado toast (again)....

Shopping at the Shops at Wailea. I was lucky enough to pick out my birthday present a little early. Thanks Myles <3

Followed by an early dinner at Monkeypod. Mai tais, pizza, fries, and of course strawberry pie.

We rang in my birthday - east time time- while listening to a band play Somewhere Over the Rainbow at dinner. It truly was a dream.

Followed by another beautiful sunset. I really couldn't think of a better way to kick off my birthday than celebrating with my husband in Maui!

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I'm SO excited for today's post! After sharing a little bit about our honeymoon on Instagram, I figured it was time to dive into the details of our time in Hawaii. Selfishly, I'm really just day dreaming about going back......

Our honeymoon was amazing and better then I could have even imagined. In order to maximize our time, especially because a flight to Hawaii from the east coast is quite the trip, we chose to spend two weeks in paradise. We visited Maui and Kauai and loved each island for different reasons, which I'll talk about more later.

Here's a quick overview of how I'm going to break down all honeymoon posts. Once all are up, I'll make sure to link back. I hope this series will be helpful for anyone planning a honeymoon, especially those going to Hawaii. Can I tag along? JK

Our Hawaii Honeymoon:

Maui:

• Floral Kimono in Hawaii
• Maui Pt 1
• Haleakala Sunrise
• Maui Pt 2 
• Four Seasons Wailea Review
• Maui Pt 3 (Mama's Fish House and Road to Hana)
• Hotel Wailea Review

Kauai

• Kauai
• Waimea Canyon
• Marriott Kauai Review
• St. Regis Kauai Review

Today I'll be sharing our first days in Maui. We stayed at the Four Seasons Wailea and it was hands down the best hotel.

Day One:

We had a long day, but  were so excited we didn't even care! Our flight left Richmond at 5:00 AM, and we had a quick layover at Dallas Fort Worth. Before we knew it, we were landing in Maui a little after 12:00 PM (Hawaii time).

At this point we were starving, but  still had to pick up our rental car at Avis. Note to those traveling to Maui, have one person grab the luggage and another grab the car. Doing this would have saved us over an hour!

We rented a jeep for the week, and while I loved it for the most part I wish we'd gotten a four door. Trying to fit all of our luggage in the trunk was really interesting to say the least....

After a quick drive from the airport, we made it to our hotel! Check in was a breeze and we were upgraded to a lovely room with a view. More to come on that.....

At this point it was around 3 pm and we were ready for dinner (hello time change!), so we made a quick loop of the hotel just to check it out before catching a shuttle to one of our favorite restaurants.....

Monkeypod! We knew we had to kick off our honeymoon at this restaurant, which was one of our favorites a few years back when we visited Oahu- I think we went three times in a week? Monkeypod has an awesome happy hour with discounts on their famous mai tai's and $10 pizzas. Sold!

The pork and pineapple pizza was to die for, as well as the mai tai's which were made with pineapple foam on the top. However, the star was definitely the strawberry pie which we finished in about 30 seconds....Needless to say after a few drinks and delicious food we were stuffed, but determined to catch our first sunset before an early bed time. Jet lag is no joke.

The sunsets in Hawaii are some of the best in the world, I'm convinced. These pictures don't even do it justice. Such a perfect end to our first day in paradise....

Day Two:

We had a lovely wake up at 2:30 AM, which thankfully was more like 7:30 east coast time. Once again jet lag for the win! Today's plan was to watch the sunrise over Haleakala, approximately 10,000 feet above sea level. I heard that it was COLD at the top, but I don't think I was really prepared......

The two hours driving in the dark was worth it for this view......I think Myles and I were both speechless...

I'll be sharing more about our trip to Haleakala on another post, but needless to say it was one of my favorite parts of our trip. Myles and I felt like we'd accomplished so much and it was only like 8:00 by the time we got back to our hotel. Which meant- breakfast!

Our hotel rate included free breakfast everyday and it was amazing. I think we both agreed it was the best hotel breakfast we'd ever had..... Plus the views couldn't be beat!

We spent the rest of the day relaxing by the pool, which was SO needed after weeks of wedding planning. The weather and temperature were pure perfection...

Floral Tunic (on sale for $11) / Tote

After some time in the sun, we got ready for one of my favorite dinners of the trip which happened to be at our hotel- Ferraro's! We made reservations almost two months prior to make sure we had a good seat for the sunset, so definitely plan in advance if you want to eat here. Tables fill up quick and now I understand why!

I wore this jumpsuit which I'm obsessed with! It's only $25 but the material is really good and lightweight. I ended up wearing it again later on in the trip - whoops!

The view from our table was insane. There's nothing more romantic than watching the sunset over the Pacific, while eating the most delicious lobster gnocchi. Still dreaming about it to this day.........

Finally, if there's one takeaway to get from this post, it's to eat at Ferraro's in Maui. Order the gnocchi. You won't regret it!

 

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Hey there, it's me!

I sat down to start this blog post, and I realized it's been almost eight months since my last update. How is that even possible? I knew it had been a while, but oh my gosh I didn't realize the months had flown by like they did....

Life has been absolutely insane lately, in all the best ways of course. Unfortunately, the blog had to be put on the back burner while I tried to navigate wedding planning + a busier than normal work schedule. Basically I felt like I was in survival mode 24/7.

But now that things have died down for the most part, I figured the best way to get back into blogging would be an update type post. Clearly a lot has gone down over the last few months....

First things first.....

1. We're married!!!!!! 

I'm officially Mrs. Kimberly Britton. Well technically I still need to get my name changed, but I'll add that to my growing to do list. It'll get it done eventually!

Myles and I got married on May 5th and had the most perfect day with our family and friends. Actually, it was pretty much the best weekend ever. All of the stress and planning leading up was SO worth it. I'll be sharing more details later, don't worry!

2. We bought a townhouse!

More specifically, we're building one....

I know... we were insane to do this right before our wedding. I really began to question my sanity at one point before we made it official. This was actually out of the blue for the most part. We weren't even looking, but it was one of those things where we knew if we didn't act fast, we'd lose out on our chance.

We signed the paperwork mid- March, just about a week or two after touring the unit. Once again - insane- but we both couldn't be any more excited. Construction should be complete Q1 of 2019. Wahoo!

Now to determine whether to go with light grey hardwood vs medium grey? Decisions, decisions.....

3. I'm officially an aunt!

My sister and her husband welcomed sweet baby Avery into world January 26th and ever since then she's completely stolen our heart. I may be bias, but Avery is the most adorable little girl. I can't wait to watch her grow! So far, loving being an aunt so much.

Fun fact: My sister, her husband, AND Avery share the same birthday. What are the chances?!

4. I've been loving a few things lately, specifically:

• No shop June. Yes, I know we're only 1/2 way through June, but I made it a goal to NOT buy any clothes until the Nordstrom Anniversary sale late July. As a shopaholic the struggle is real, but I'm really trying to wear what I have and stop frivolously spending. So far so good, but I'll let you know how the next few weeks go....I even shopped my own closet for a most recent wedding (WIN!)
• Reading. While on our honeymoon I FLEW through this book in two days? I've been on such a reading kick and ordered two new books from Amazon. Can't wait until they get here!
• Decor browsing. Can ya'll tell that I can't WAIT for our new townhousee?! We'll be going from 1,000 square ft to 2,000+ which is a major upgrade. I've already gotten a headstart pinning styles I'm loving, seeing as we'll need to buy a good amount of furniture. Do ya'll have any recommendations for good furniture companies that won't break the bank? I'm honestly loving Wayfair but I'm not sure about the quality....We'll need a new couch, dining room set, king bed, etc just to name a few.

• Music. This one may seem random but I've been LOVING listening to Mr. Revillz remixes on Youtube. Since I work in an office, I constantly am listening to music to drown out any noise. This song specifically is a favorite that I listen to on repeat.

5. I can't wait for upcoming content that's in the works.

Now that wedding planning isn't consuming every ounce of time, I can't wait to get back to blogging. I'm making Simple Yet Chic a priority for the remainder 2018, so I hope ya'll are excited. A few posts I have in my queue:

• Wedding related: including my bridal shower, our rehearsal dinner, wedding details, and a recap of what I wish I'd known before planning a wedding
• Life lately posts: Myles and I have SEVEN weddings this year and a few more little trips planned
• Our experience as first time homebuyers: I have a feeling there will be some lessons learned...
• Fashion posts: these may be few and far between since we're in SAVE mode now before we close on our townhouse, but I'm planning on trying to style a lot of pieces I've picked up over the last several months in different ways. I also picked up a few investment pieces prior to our wedding that I'm thinking might be helpful to review (if ya'll are interested?)
• Travel: our honeymoon recap to Maui and Kauai. Can we go back, please?!

Okay I think that's it for now. I can't wait to be back to writing and sharing on this little space again. It's funny, but I always notice that I'm my happiest when I'm blogging. Myles even mentioned it again tonight, and it just made me so excited for what's to come.

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