Happy Friday!! Ending the week on a little wanderlust from our trip to St. Lucia. Because we wanted both the exotic mountain and luxury beach experience, we stayed in two different hotels on our trip! We spent the first few days at the rustic Stonefield Resort and the last few days at the luxurious Sugar Beach resort.

The thing I didn't realize about St. Lucia is that you honestly and truly have to take a taxi everywhere you go. Forget walking around town to find a great place. You better have somewhere in mind ahead of time and be prepared for a fairly expensive taxi.

Luckily, there was a great restaurant on-site at Stonefield called The Mango Tree. The food was much pricier than I'm used to, but we found that's pretty common for the area. Oh well, YOLO.

I wanted to wear something super special for our last night at Stonefield, so I wore my custom Zophia blouse (named the Julien Top!) My good friend Betsy designed the shirt and I knew St. Lucia would be the perfect occasion to rock it. I love that this piece was totally tailored to me, giving it the perfect fit. Oh, and did I mention it's on sale right now?!

I paired this with a pretty Elizabeth and James skirt that I initially tried on the top with. It was my first fitting and we met at Intermix so Betsy could show me how versatile the top was. I tried it with this skirt and WOW it fit like a dream...but the price tag left me feeling very, very sad. $265 was a bit much for a summer skirt, so I sadly said goodbye and vowed to snag it as soon as it went on sale. WHICH IT DID 3 months later!! Yes, it's a summer skirt, but you know full well I am going to try to do everything in my power to make this work for fall. Challenge accepted.

I also brought along this gorgeous clutch from Jeffrey Levinson. I've never felt leather so soft in my life. It's an investment piece for sure, but in the few weeks I've had it, it's garnished more compliments than any other bag I own. Not to mention Olivia Palermo has one of his bags and so does Diane Guerrero (from OITNB!)

I finished off the look with some jewelry from my favorite local jewelry gals...the cutest Rachelle Celine midi rings and rose gold necklace from my babe Sophie Blake. Stay tuned for more St. Lucia goodness next week!

Wearing Elizabeth and James skirt, “The Julien Top” via Zophia (on sale!), Jeffrey Levinson clutch, J.Crew mules, Sophie Blake necklace in rose gold and Rachelle Celine midi rings.

Before I get into all the juicy deets about this day in St. Lucia, I wanted to share a little story about how we decided to go on this trip.

It was mother’s day. After many weeks of evaluating the trip options we had come up with, we had decided - we weren’t going on a big trip this year. We’d go to Florida, get a beach house with some friends, take it easy.

But then, over dinner with Shawn’s family, his brother and sister-in-law announced they were going to have a baby! GAME CHANGER. All of a sudden we all looked at each other and instantly knew - this was our last chance.

Not to sound like a downer here…I’m sure you can take your baby lots of places. But it would be the last time the four of us took a trip together. So we knew it had to be somewhere amazing.

We went through a few ideas, Aruba (mainly because we had milage points but ultimately decided against it since we wanted more than just a beach atmosphere) and St. Lucia (which I discovered existed during a season of the bachelor many moons ago.) After seeing a few photos my favorite bloggers took there, we decided that it would be the perfect spot to celebrate our anniversary and our siblings-in-law’s babymoon.

On our first day on the island, we took a little boat to Anse Chastenet Beach, right around the corner from where we were staying. We spent the afternoon snorkeling, eating at Petit Peak (thanks to a rec from Gal Meets Glam) and soaking in some much-needed sun. Taking the boat ride was a perfect way to get a little introduction to the island where we’d be spending the next week.

Stay tuned for more St. Lucia posts in the next few weeks!

On Julien: AMI Clubwear dress and sandals c/o, South Moon Under necklace, vintage straw bag via Snobswap and borrowed hat.