Little House of Chic: The Graduate

Let's take a moment to just stare at all this pink.....

Have you ever felt like you just wanted to hug a place?

That was my immediate feeling when I walked into the Graduate Hotel in Oxford, MS. As soon as we walked through the front door I immediately squealed! I got a few sideways glances and heard one man even say "Oh, geeze...really?" but I just didn't care! I felt like I had died and gone to chic heaven! Never in one place have I looked around a room and honed in on every detail. The way that these items were mixed, the unexpected details at each corner, keeping a fashionable ambience that is quirky and darling and at the same time you want to say "ohh...that is so Oxford" about little details...it immediately was a place I wanted to cozy in and stay for a while.

So some of you reading are fellow southerners who have been or at least have heard of this adorable town. The others of you who are asking yourself, "wait, that is in Mississippi?.." while yes, it is. In fact Oxford has recently received a ton of publicity. While it is home to The University of Mississippi and has received some rave reviews over the party scene and tailgating, Oxford itself has also won a few accolades. It has received no. 15 on the Fastest Growing Small Towns in the country by Forbes as well as in the top 20 Most Charming Small Towns in the US. Yes, if you haven't heard of this charming little town, I'm happy to introduce you. Garrett & I (my better half) met in this little town just three years ago. It is the hometown of our alma mater and the special place that we like to think of as a honeymoon when we go back.

We met in the Grove (where we tailgate before our football games) for a home game. Our mutual friend introduced us. As soon as we introduced ourselves, he jumped in to telling me jokes and making me laugh...hard..like the kind of laugh that's really not that feminine or attractive. It's not that I have a weird sense of humor or anything but I feel like it is unique. For the man I just met to have me laughing so hard that I snorted was kind of a big deal. The rest of that day we kept wanting to hang out with each other, stealing glances and getting caught with a sweet grin. You could say that we were smitten. For the next few weeks we were absolutely inseparable, being asked by friends if we were okay because they hadn't heard from us in a while.

Things were pretty much perfect for the first few weeks..well that was until I received some AMAZING news for me, but not so good for us. I had recently graduated and was still in Oxford applying and hoping for opportunities in the city. My dream job out of college was to be an event planner. I had been applying for weeks to some of the top planners in the biz. A letter to Dallas, a letter to Charleston, and a few to Atlanta and Charlotte.

Well, one of them bit!! I was ecstatic! That was, until I looked over at Garrett while I was receiving my offer... I knew what this meant. I was leaving Oxford and leaving him.

He was so happy for me, but we both just sat there and stared at one another with polite grins both thinking the same thing. "What will this mean for us?" We told each other we would be able to make it work and that I should accept the offer. After all, Garrett was raised around Atlanta. To him it was still home in a sense.

So I moved.

A few weeks of traveling and seeing one another things were getting harder. I was having to work more weekends and he wasn't able to see me as much as we both wanted. We knew things were getting to a make or break situation. I was devastated but I was working my dream job! I mean, I worked my whole life for this! I couldn't give up on it now, and especially not the opportunity I was given.

So Garrett did something kind of, well, crazy... one weekend he came into town to see me with a lot more stuff than usual. We spent the weekend together, and then the week turned into another week, and finally a month. I mean, they say time flies when you're having fun, but a month seems like a stretch, right?

Then it occurred to me....

"Wait, do you live here now?"

..well the answer to that question is yes. Here we are now, three blissful years later and neither of us have looked back...however the one place we look back at is the place we met.

This sweet little town called Oxford.