My Twenty Sixth Birthday + Dress

I celebrated my twenty-sixth birthday this past Sunday! When I was little I would always think about the future, about being independent, decorating a cute space, wearing beautiful clothes and loving my job. I think younger me would be pretty proud of the life that I’ve created but I am still trying to make older me proud of myself. In the meantime, I am enjoying this moment in my life where I can focus on myself, my career, my friendships, and my cute puppy.

P.s. A really good inspirational book to read if you’re in your 20s is The Defining Decade by Meg Jay.

For my birthday, this year I only wanted one thing- a dress from Gal meets Glam. Last April, one of my favorite bloggers and a huge source of inspiration Julia Engel launched a beautiful, feminine dress line, named after her blog, Gal Meets Glam. However, the dresses were a little out of my budget. So, I made a goal to buy one for myself for my birthday. Gal Meets Glam releases a new collection of dress lines each month and the January dresses were inspired by the vintage romance of classic films. Each collection is previewed with a beautiful look book filled with styled shoots of each dress in dreamy settings. I immediately loved the pattern in the Kelsey dress.

When I tried on the Kelsey dress at my local Nordstrom I immediately felt…..well beautiful. The dress wrapped around my waist perfectly and the skirt flowed beautifully. The sleeves fit a little long so I ordered the petite version online (Short people problems). The best part about the dress is that it has POCKETS, I knew that I had to buy it. The only hard part was deciding whether to buy the dress in navy or baby blue. Ultimately, I decided on the Navy dress.

Before my birthday, my beautiful friend Luisa snapped a few pictures of me at Hotel Ella, a boutique hotel in Austin. Although we didn’t stay at the hotel, we did have coffee at their restaurant, Goodall’s Kitchen and definitely planned to come back for their afternoon tea.

On the actual day of my birthday, I celebrated with brunch (my favorite meal of the day) at Matties– my favorite restaurant in Austin with my closest friends in Austin. Then, we enjoyed the beautiful, sunny weather at Rainey St.- a street with houses that have been transformed into very cool bars and outdoor patios.