While most girls were probably spending last weekend (President’s Day/Valentine’s Day weekend) with their significant other, I was visiting my bestie up in Sacramento celebrating Galentine’s Day.

Nicole and I have been best friends since high school, and we constantly laugh about how we are similar in many ways, but are also total opposites. The perfect example is our personal styles; we like to shop at the same stores, but we hardly ever gravitate towards the same things. I love dark, solid colors, and she is consistently drawn to bright prints. With this in mind, it seemed only fitting to compare our different interpretations of what one would wear on a day of celebrated friendship.

I’m not a big fan of wearing pink, so I chose to wear springtime colors instead of typical Valentine’s Day colors. I totally nabbed that scarf from Nicole’s closet, by the way. That’s what best friends are for, right? 🙂

Nicole, on the other hand, completely embraced her feminine side with a darling, bright coral-colored dress.

This borrowed scarf adorned my neck instead of a traditional necklace. I really liked how it added more spring colors to my outfit.

Nicole’s beautiful statement necklace added a level of maturity to her look.

Has anyone heard of bag shapers? I actually hadn’t until Designer Base Shapers contacted me and offered to send me one for review. My curiosity peaked, I gave it a try. Guys, I totally love it. I was skeptical that a bag base shaper would add any value to my Balenciaga, especially since a Bal bag is meant to look slouchy, but it really does make a difference!

So what exactly is a Base Shaper? It’s just a thin layer of acrylic that is cut to the specific dimensions of the bottom of your bag. Once placed in position, it acts like a durable shelf that maintains the integrity and structure of your bag whenever you are carrying anything big, bulky or heavy. The only indication that my Balenciaga is housing a Base Shaper is the straight bottom edge of the bag in the picture below. (Photos of my Balenciaga without a shaper can be seen here; notice how the bottom of my bag curves downwards because of the contents inside.)

I swear we didn’t plan this, but we both choose to wear nude colored shoes. Again, we’re similar but different!

BFF! <3

Nicole and I had a lot of fun with this shoot, but it was definitely anything but a walk in the park to pull off. We both had the same vision of both of us being in the photos this time around, which meant we needed a tripod, a remote control, and her brand new camera this time (since my camera doesn’t have a remote control feature) — and that meant both of us had to learn her camera quick! After thinking we had figured everything out, we got up bright and early the morning of the shoot to pick up our balloon props, then headed out to a small country town about 30 minutes outside of Sacramento. When we saw this beautiful cherry blossom field we both knew we had found our location.

The morning light was absolutely perfect and we quickly set everything up the way we wanted it. We then took a few test shots with the remote control… or at least, we tried to. Turns out, we were too far away from the camera for the signal to reach! Oh no, we panicked, if we can’t be this far back from the camera, how are we going to both be in the photos with the balloons?? That was definitely not anything we had considered in our planning process. Sadly, we didn’t get the one shot we really wanted, but there’s always next time!

Outtake #1: Trying to figure out how far away we could be for the remote to still work.

Outtake #2: We wanted to get a photo of us each holding a small bundle of balloons, but the ribbons holding the balloons together got tangled in the car! After over 30 minutes of trying to untangle them (while also competing with the wind) we gave up and just worked with one big bunch of balloons instead. Another lesson learned.

Outtake #3: Though it looks warm in these photos, it was anything but! It was 10am and probably about 55 degrees at most, and poor Nicole was in a dress and heels. After her set was finished (don’t worry, we shot her outfit first!) she quickly ran to the car and put on as many layers as she could.

Outtake #4: We put the balloons down so we could look through the photos we had taken, and a minute later the wind pushed them a far distance away and into the trees. Whoops!

Wow, this was my longest post to date. Did you really make it down to the end? You are awesome. Thank you for reading about our Galentine’s adventure!

Christina’s outfit details:

Top: Target (similar here)
Bottoms: 7 For All Mankind
Shoes: Coach (old, similar here)
Bag: Balenciaga with hidden Bag Shaper (c/o Designer Base Shapers)
Accessories:
– H&M scarf (old)
– Rings from Emitations, Svelte Metals and Stella & Dot
– Burberry watch
– Stella & Dot bracelet
– UP by Jawbone wristband

Nicole’s outfit details:

Dress: ASOS
Shoes: Zara (old, similar here)
Bag: Rebecca Minkoff (old)
Accessories:
– Express belt (old, similar here)
– Bracelets and rings from Jewelmint and Forever 21 (old)
– Watch from Khol’s

Photographers: Nicole (aka elegant lil lady) and myself