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5.4.15

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You get in life what you have the courage to ask for. - Oprah Winfrey @WeAreSoulSparks

A Quote That Clicked

Friday Finds: No. 164

Chicago-based travel blog Bows & Sequins shares a luxurious list of reader favorite warm winter destinations. It's a mix of hotels and resorts with a few homes and VRBOs, too.

Warm Vacation Spots: The Ultimate List

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𝐒𝐡𝐞’𝐬 𝐛𝐚𝐚𝐚𝐚𝐜𝐤! I feel like I’ve been living under

𝐒𝐡𝐞’𝐬 𝐛𝐚𝐚𝐚𝐚𝐜𝐤! I feel like I’ve been living under a rock the last couple of months, but really it’s been a 𝘱𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘶𝘮𝘱𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘴. 😅

This fall, I launched a new business (!!!) called @goldcoaststoops, a seasonal styling service for Chicago stoops and entryways. What started as a little idea last year turned into the busiest, most creatively fulfilling few months I’ve had in a long time. ✨

I had every intention of sharing the journey here as I went, but when you’re running a one-woman show out of your garage with thousands of pumpkins, weekly pumpkin runs across county lines in a 20’ delivery truck, and a crash course in logistics — posting on Instagram fell to do the bottom of the to-do list. It’s been sweaty and chaotic, but so worth it.

Now that installs are wrapped, I’m honestly a little sad it’s over! But there will 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺 be a Round 2 next year — and to celebrate, I’m doing a little GIVEAWAY! 🎃

I’ve got extra pumpkins (heirloom, specialty, white, and pie), straw bales, and even a giant grand prize pumpkin sitting pretty — so I’m going to do 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐨𝐩 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐥 before Halloween! Yes… I’ll even deliver it to the suburbs. 😉

To enter:
1️⃣ Sign up for the Gold Coast Stoops email list (link in bio!)
2️⃣ Comment below so I know you’re in! 🎃
3️⃣ Bonus entry if you share this post to your Story + tag @goldcoaststoops!

Winner announced this Friday — just in time for HalloWEEK! Thank you for cheering me on while I build something I truly love. 🫶

1️⃣0️⃣‼️ Yesterday marked TEN years since I moved

1️⃣0️⃣‼️ Yesterday marked TEN years since I moved back to Chicago from NYC. It feels like yesterday and ~20 years ago all at the same time. How’s it possible that I can viscerally remember so many little details from 7.1.15, yet can hardly recall what I’ve eaten for lunch this week. (Yesterday was homemade egg salad on some parsley crackers, but it took me a minute.)

Swipe for some Chicago* throwbacks during the 2015-2019 era… A lot of which include a hat because the blonde blindness was soooo real. 🫣

It’s interesting how I get sooo nostalgic for that time, even though it was nowhere close to rainbows and butterflies. I currently have so much of what I wanted then, but look back at that time through rose colored glasses for some reason. I probs need to dig into this, but I’ll stop there and save the deep cuts for a future Substack post. 🤪

*When I scrolled through TEN YEARS of content on my phone last night, I was reminded of just how little I was actually in Chicago during that time. (Which probably contributes to the wistfulness…) But it was fun re-living so many favorite moments from alllll over the globe ✈️🥰 Maybe I’ll re-share some of those here, too! 📸

Had the coziest NYE at home this year 🫶 It’s the f

Had the coziest NYE at home this year 🫶 It’s the first year we haven’t been traveling this week between Christmas and the new year and I was craving a slowwww pace. (NGL, was kind of worried we’d regret laying low, but we ended up having SUCH a fun night at home, just us!) Some snaps…

• espresso martinis to kick things off ☕️
• shrimp cocktail and champagne for the first course 🍤
• if you want to switch it up from Veuve, Taittinger is my favorite around the same price point 🍾
• learned this from a somm on our honeymoon, but champagne is so much better out of coupes (or even white wine glasses)
• Dave made Marcella Hazan’s bolognese + steamed spinach (also made her focaccia but it didn’t really turn out) 🍝
• baked salmon just for Marley 🐶
• MSG livestream 🐟
• I made espresso cinnamon rolls from scratch that were illegally good 🤤
• mimosas not served in flutes is a hill I will die on 🤪
• fancy pajamas allllll day today ✨

Happy New Year friends! 🥳

Ahhhh FINALLY kicking off my Wedding Wednesday ser

Ahhhh FINALLY kicking off my Wedding Wednesday series! Each and every Wednesday for the foreseeable future, I’ll be sharing everything from the wedding planning process over the last ten months. From our non-traditional decisions (like separating the ceremony and reception) to outfit inspiration, decor details, vendors, etc.

The very first place I tried on bridal dresses was actually at @bellabridesmaids back in April! I knew I’d have a few different occasions for little white dresses, and wasn’t yet sure what direction I wanted to go for our backyard ceremony. Highly recommend grabbing a few of your besties to try on LWDs as you get a feel for your bridal style, as it feels wayyyy more fun and breezy than shopping for THE dress! 👰🏼‍♀️

As soon as I tried on this bow-front dress, I knew I wanted to wear it somewhere along the way. As details got ironed out, it was perfect for our ‘engagement party’ of sorts!
While I’d only been to @bellabridesmaidschi as a bridesmaid in the past, I was so impressed with their selection of little white BRIDAL dresses! (And shoes and accessories, too!) 🤍🤍 Since it was my first stop on the dress shopping journey, they were all SO lovely and accommodating with letting me try on probably 20 dresses to get a feel for what I liked. 🙏 And again, it’s so much more fun with your girlfriends!

#ChicagoBride #2024Bride #bellabridesmaids #bellachicago #bellachi #engagementparty #dessygroup #dessy #littlewhitedress #bowdress #jessanddave2024

HBD to my HUSBAND! (First year I can officially sa

HBD to my HUSBAND! (First year I can officially say that.)

I think it was a gal in my mahjong group that once said “I’ve never met a Dave I didn’t like,” and my Dave definitely fits that bill. To know Dave is to love Dave — he’s friends with everyone, always down for a good time, and is guaranteed to bring the laughs.

Here are twenty of my favorites… most of which I don’t think I’ve ever posted 📸🎥 Overkill? Yes, but that’s what birthdays are for 🥳

February 2025 is going to be a tough one to beat…

February 2025 is going to be a tough one to beat… 🫶🏼

From hosting such a fun Galentine’s party to the most incredible trip I’ve yet to go on (add South Africa to your travel list!!) to the once-in-a-lifetime special safari moments, I’ll forever remember February as being my favorite month yet. 🍯🌙

🇿🇦🐘🐆🦏🦓🐊🦛🦁

2024 Highlight Reel ✨🫶🏼 If you read my Substack p

2024 Highlight Reel ✨🫶🏼

If you read my Substack post yesterday, I admitted that I have a bad habit of writing something personal and then letting fear get in the way of actually publishing it. (If you’re interested, comment READ and you’ll get a DM with the link to that post.)

In the spirit of creating new, better habits, here’s my 2024 Highlight Reel of mostly unpublished moments…

📍Quebec City, Vermont, Curaçao, Steamboat Springs, Las Vegas, the Sphere, Walloon Lake, Santa Barbara, Santa Ynez, Nashville, Rosemary Beach

❤️ Married Dave, celebrated with all of our best friends (a few times), officially gained another family that I love, got to enjoy the special moments with some of my family members, and soaked up so many Marley snuggles.

Looking through my camera roll over the last 12 months was such a great exercise, as it reminded me just how many fun times and wonderful memories this year held 🥰 Obviously there was SO MUCH to celebrate in 2024 (wedding, bachelorette, reception), but it was simultaneously a pretty tough year for me internally. Just a friendly reminder that social media is mostly a highlight reel and two things can certainly be true at once… it can be the happiest of times, while also being some of the most stressful.

On New Year’s Eve when we were down in Rosemary Beach, I had Dave read the above paragraph to make sure I didn’t sound like too much of a Debbie Downer. He may have not been my best choice in an editor, though, because he feels like he had one of the greatest years yet. It’s funny, isn’t it? How we all have such individual experiences, even while together?

But I’d honestly feel like a liar if I tried to act like this year was all rainbows and butterflies… my grandma passed and I had her funeral smack dab in the middle of my wedding festivities, I rolled back some familial boundaries I’d set years ago only to end up regretting it, work felt harder to come by, my mom skipped my wedding, weddings cost a nauseating amount of money these days, and the whole wedding planning process felt all-consuming for this detail-obsessed people-pleaser 🙋‍♀️🥴 (So grateful to be on the other side 🙏)

Continued in comments below ⬇️

This year’s holiday decorating motto: put a bow on

This year’s holiday decorating motto: put a bow on it 🎀

#holidaydecor #bowseason #bows #frontdoordecor

DONE 🗳️✔️🇺🇸 Crossed voting off my to-do list a lit

DONE 🗳️✔️🇺🇸 Crossed voting off my to-do list a little bit early this year!

On Election Day (THIS TUESDAY — 11/5), you MUST vote at your assigned poling place. This should be pretty close to your home address where you’re registered to vote!

If you want to vote early, you can vote at ANY of the early voting sites. (Swipe for a picture of the hours and locations ➡️) There are weekend slots on Saturday and Sunday if you can’t make it on a work/school day!

A few tips from a former (and current!) Election Judge…

1. If you have the option to avoid the before work and after work rushes on Election Day, your wait time will be way shorter! ⏳ In March, my polling place was the busiest from 4:30-7pm, but some voters had the place to themselves during the off/peak times during the day.

2. The polls close at 7pm, but anyone who is IN LINE by 7pm is guaranteed the right to vote. ⏰

3. Double-check your polling location! These things can change from time to time. For the primary election, we had to send away so many people who were in the wrong spot. (But FYI — we are able to look up your correct location and send you the address! 🗺️)

4. Be friendly to your poll workers! We’re essentially volunteers. 💙

Interested in learning more about getting involved with Chicago elections? Comment JUDGE and I can send you my blog post with my experience! 👩‍💻

#iamavoter #votevotevote #ivoted🇺🇸

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and wishing all o

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and wishing all of you the most joyful holiday season from my little fam 🫶🏼

Jessica Sturdy founded the women’s lifestyle blog, Bows & Sequins, back in 2010 and has been writing about style, travel, beauty, and wellness ever since. You'll find personal stories, refreshingly honest reviews, helpful tips and tricks, and lots of laughs along the way!

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