Coffee Break: Loraine Loafer
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Readers have loved the Loraine loafer from Sam Edelman for several years now, and I'm somehow still shocked by the huge number of colors available for it right now — I count 26 different colors available at Nordstrom right now, 35 at Zappos, and 48 at SamEdelman.com! Animal prints are big for fall, and while this particular print is usually not my jam, something about it with these loafers feels super chic and cool.
This particular iteration is available in sizes 5-11, but many of the other colors are available in sizes 4-13 in both medium and wide sizes. Nordstrom has several colors on sale for as low as $59; the pictured loafers are full price at $170.
As of 2025, some of our favorite loafers for work are from Sam Edelman, Everlane, and Madewell. If you want something more classic, readers love Sperry and Ferragamo; if you want comfort, Vionic and Naturalizer have options. Meanwhile, if you want something a bit more feminine or slouchy, the Tory Burch loafers are all really highly rated at Nordstrom (especially this “ballet loafer“)!
Sales of note for 9/5/25
- Nordstrom – Summer sale has started, up to 60% off top brands
- Ann Taylor – Friends of Ann Event: 30% off your entire purchase, including new arrivals
- Anthropologie – 30% off clothing and accessories
- Banana Republic Factory – Up to 50% off everything + extra 20% off
- J.Crew – Everyday styles from $34.50 — see our full roundup of what to buy for work at J.Crew
- J.Crew Factory – 50% off fall faves + extra 60% off clearance
- L.K. Bennett – 20% off all new-season
- Nordstrom Rack – Season Closeout: extra 40% off select clearance dresses, sandals, shorts, and swimwear(ends 9/11)
- Rothy's – Up to 50% off last-chance sales
- Soma – 5 panties for $39 + 35% off 3+ styles + buy 2 get 3 free panties — readers love these PJs and these no-VPL panties
- Talbots – 25-40% off select fall styles + extra 30% all markdowns — here are all the reader favorites at Talbots
- White House Black Market – 50% off all sale styles (ends 9/5)
We need to buy a roof cargo box for our car (crossover size) to accommodate skiing, camping, and road trips with our baby. We borrowed a very old one from my parents for a recent trip and it made a WORLD of difference to the space level in the car during this “tons of baby gear” phase. I’m looking at online reviews for general recommendations, but any specific recs from this place for boxes that are easy enough for a petite woman to maneuver and install? We need it to be long enough for the aforementioned skis, but not so flat/small that it can’t hold suitcases on other trips too.
Everybody has Thule roof boxes where I live.
I’m 5’4 and we have a Thule on our Prius. It holds xc skis, duffel bags, and camping equipment. I have to get up and into the car to open the rooftop box fully, but it makes a big difference on our camping trips and roadtrips.
We have and like a Thule; whichever one is sort of low-profile (quite long front-to-back, but the shortest available car-roof-to-top-of-lid). “Easy enough for a petite woman to maneuver and install” may be a tall order, though, unless you’re unusually strong. It’s pretty heavy but, more than that, is an awkwardly shaped weight that’s tough to maneuver. Once it’s on the roof of the car I can handle installation from there, but I can’t get it up there (or take it down) myself. Same story for my husband, who does indeed lift weights regularly, for fitness (though isn’t like, a bodybuilder or anything).
We have a Thule also and love it. We bought ours second-hand. If you don’t need a really nice-looking box, I recommend finding one locally on Craigslist or Nextdoor.
Anyone have a big expensive wedding, either destination or home-based? Was it worth it?
Parents have offered us $200k for our wedding. Would have to be destination wedding since everyone’s coming from around the world, but probably at a resort in Phuket. It would be 3-4 days of events. My fiance is excited about it, but I think it seems like so much planning and work. Would love to hear perspective from people who had destination weddings or big elaborate weddings.
have you parents offered this specifically for the wedding or if you don’t spend it on the wedding can you “have it” for something else? If the former then go for it although i would strongly encourage you to use some of the money to subsidize the trip for some of your less affluent guests as opposing to expecting everyone to pay their own air fare and hotel.
Yeah, money would only be available for a wedding, but we couldn’t have it otherwise. Hotels will be covered for everyone, flights for those who can’t comfortably afford it.
200k ain’t gonna cover all that my friend.
Flights / hotel are a separate budget from the wedding. His parents will be covering that. His side is located in Asia, so the flights are $300ish.
Are you in the United States? You can’t host a wedding with 3-4 days of events and covered flights to Asia and accomodation for $200k. It’ll be $2000+ a head just for the tickets + hotel. If you have 80 guests that’s 80% of your budget gone.
You may be overestimating how much $200k is for a wedding. Don’t get me wrong, that’s a ton of money, but you’ll also find it’s silly easy to burn through.
No, flight and hotels are a separate budget from the wedding itself.
I had a microwedding during the pandemic, so I’m not helpful there.
This does sound like a lot of work to plan, which would not interest me at all. Which means either hire a wedding planner and tell that person to just handle it and you’ll be happy with whatever is done within the budget or have your enthusiastic fiance handle it if he’s the one who really wants to do this. Or some combo thereof.
We had a destination-ish wedding, but it was small and less than 10% of your budget. I say “ish” because it was in the US and although it was held in a resort area, the wedding would have involved flying for 90% guests of our guests no matter where we held it, so instead of having people fly to my boring Midwest hometown we had people fly to a more interesting place. No regrets — I loved getting married in a beautiful place and we spend time as a family in that area every summer.
YMMV but although it would be fun planning an extravagant destination wedding with a big budget I would still want to keep the guest list fairly compact. I’m an introvert and the idea of having hundreds of people I don’t know well at my wedding would make me really uncomfortable. I also think with that kind of budget (especially in an affordable place like Southeast Asia) if you kept it smaller you could likely cover accommodations for guests, which would be a really nice gesture if people are buying an international plane ticket to get to the wedding.
Can you choose a resort that handles weddings frequently so you are just picking out options? Or can you hire a wedding planner?
A planner, preferably as part of the venue package, will be an absolute must.
Well, you could use some of the money to hire a wedding planner, right? And/or pick a resort that has that kind of built-in capacity.
I’ll be honest, I know this board tilts towards “If you have the money, do whatever you want”, but spending 200k on a wedding seems obscene to me.
That said! I can see it being fun if you treated it like a “reunion”, if you could cover expenses for people who….aren’t from 200k wedding families? That is kind of my dream wedding – a big but informal party for people I like, I just come from a world where you do that by hiring a good band, buying a pile of Costco wine and renting out the KoC hall. And maybe you could use some of the money to hire a wedding planner?
We did a destination wedding in a vacation destination. We spent all our energy choosing a resort. All the resorts had dedicated wedding planners. I told the planner the few things I cared about and told her to make reasonable decisions about everything else. For the few things I decided, I asked her to give me three choices from which I could choose. We had the rehearsal dinner and all of the other wedding events at the resort and she brought in all the vendors.
Beyond that, we planned several activities in the days after the wedding for those guests that stayed longer. We were clear that those were totally optional.
The one thing I would say is that you may not want to go this direction if you are very invested in all the details of the event because you are planning from afar with little familiarity about the landscape. You won’t be able to easily try the food or the cake or look at the flowers or test out the hair and makeup providers. But for me, it was amazing to make very few decisions and then just roll with what happened. And everything went great — these planners are very good at what they do.
We ended up with 40 guests and people still talk about it fondly 18 years later.
Mine was close to but not quite at that price level. It was paid for by my parents (except DH’s parents paid for the rehearsal dinner and flights for some of their family). It also had an international travel aspect and was bigger than I would have chosen on my own. I loved having our distant and far flung family and friends be able to meet up with each other. It was such a cool experience and built a number of lasting connections. A few things to think about:
– Hosting expectations? We ended up hosting a number of people at my parents house (which involved some renos) because it was seen as unfriendly to ask them to stay at a hotel or vacation rental. The wedding was in my home city so I conceded on this but it made things more stressful. Even in a destination situation – what are the expectations for how accommodations will work?
– Dates – cost is only one aspect of a destination wedding, timing is another. In our case, we chose my home city because my family would have been less able to travel for a variety of reasons, most of which were not financial. Some were related to who could get sufficient amounts of time off to travel. We went with an earlier date than I would have liked to accommodate DH’s family and friends who had to travel. Earlier date meant we were limited to a one week honeymoon.
– Guest List – are your parents paying or his or both? Do you expect issues around how many people and who are invited? My parents paid and invited more of their friends than I would have paid for if DH and I were paying. Their friends were all people I’ve known since childhood but it did formalize the atmosphere.
I had a big expensive wedding, but it was in town and so were almost all of the guests. (In fact, tomorrow is our 9th anniversary!) We planned the whole thing, with the help of a planner, in exactly six months. It was made a lot easier by the fact that there were no parents involved except as guests, also we had only one attendant each, so it was just the two of us and the planner calling all the shots. It was a BLAST and I would definitely do it over again in a red hot second!
That said, I think we are unicorns and for most people the stress and expense outweigh the benefits.
Oh, and I agree with CMS about trusting the planners for a destination wedding. I have also planned a big destination party (for a big birthday) and the most stressful thing about it was having to let go and trust that things would go according to plan. It was going to be on a party boat and I remember traveling from my hotel to the dock thinking “I sure do hope there really is a boat!” (Which there was, and it was all great.)
I had wanted a big nice enough (but not fancy) wedding because as I always say, there are two times in your life you get (most of) your loved ones in the same place: your wedding and your funeral – and you’re not at your funeral.
Unfortunately life had other plans, so I didn’t get the big wedding.
Obviously, a destination wedding is a different beast as not everyone you’d want there can reasonably make it. But, you’d gave this problem regardless (whereas I live in Baltimore and probably > 90% of the people I would have invited to my wedding live between NYC and NC).
That being said – are a lot of your guests already in or near Thailand? If you’re posting here you’re probably based in the US, Canada, or the UK. Could you get married somewhere closer to where you live?
If you’re thinking Phuket because you’re based in or have family in Asia or Australia – is Phuket convenient for them? If it’s not – why not your family’s hometown, if reasonably easy to get to.
Could you do two weddings? My SIL is originally from Singapore but grew up outside of DC and my brother is from Baltimore, but they were living in LA when they got married. They did a Singapore wedding for her family there and then an LA wedding. The concept of two weddings was great, but choosing to do it in LA rather than Baltimore/DC caused some drama (basically that her family had a local wedding but our family had to choose to fly across the world or fly across the country. Grandparents weren’t comfortable flying that far, other relatives couldn’t afford it). Speaking of affordability you mention offering to cover the airfare for those who can’t afford iy – how are you determining this? I’m sure many guests can afford airfare but not without it being at the expense of something else.
Finally, not sure if your social circle has kids yet or not. When I was 31 and single and spending so much time and money going to weddings and the associated festivities I was very sensitive to the fact that by the time I got married, most of my friends would have kids and what if they wouldn’t reciprocate attending things for me? It’s one thing to invite a friend with a kid from NYC to DC fot a wedding … it’s anothrt thing to ask them to fly across the world
Agree with others that if you want to do this, you 100% need a local planner. I did a destination wedding, albeit with a fraction of that budget. It was in a place that didn’t have resorts, so it wasn’t a full package deal. Instead we had local wedding planners who had to do everything, including events in the days leading up to the wedding.
I loved it because I also didn’t have the energy to plan, and I’m not picky about details. Planners would give us 2-3 choices for each decision that needed to be made, and we’d pick. All via email or video call. If you don’t care so much about details and trust your planning, I would recommend this approach!
A couple thoughts, feel free to disregard this random internet stranger’s opinion:
1. I hate destination weddings (in a location where no one is from/has ties to) but will happily travel halfway around the world to the groom’s hometown in the middle of nowhere or the city the couple now lives in or somewhere else that is “local” for the bride/groom. I would have the wedding somewhere that is local to you, your family, or his family, somewhere you have specific, on-the-ground connections, even if that means most people have to travel.
2. Please invite kids. People can decide for themselves whether they want to actually take their kids or not – we always do; we love traveling with our kids and we all have a great time at weddings. Weddings I have to travel for but can’t take my kids = not coming.
On the other hand, my kids love weddings and we take them to most weddings in the US (assuming they’re invited) but I would jump at the chance to go to Phuket with my husband sans kids, lol.
I think the bride & groom should do what they want with respect to kids.
the most elaborate wedding i went to, she was divorced a year later! but they were young, mid 20s.
I had a big expensive wedding, but 20 years ago. It was fun and I don’t regret it, but I do regret 1.) not having a day-of coordinator (the church and the venue both had coordinators that were included) and 2.) kind of cheaping out on my dress. An all-wedding coordinator would have been super helpful, tbh.
We had a big fancy wedding and i had the best time ever planning it with my mom. Wish we’d had a videographer and spent more on flowers. It was 15 years ago so idk that it was $200k. Most of our friends/family have had weddings with 200+ guests. The fanciest wedding we went to was a 400 person extravaganza at the Plaza in nyc. I don’t like inconveniencing people so our wedding was accessible to most guests via train or car. We got married in DC where I am from but had a lot of friends/family coming from NY. I don’t really get random destination weddings
I did not have a $200k wedding. I have attended several but not all of them. I just want to remind you that even with your generosity on paying for plane tickets, fewer of your circle will be able to travel to Phuket vs. a wedding in your hometown and please be gracious about that! Obviously, I speak from personal experience.
Best wishes to you!
i just asked about shoes to wear with khacki and black suit in the earlier chat. these are perfect!
Is anyone familiar with TurnItIn.com? My 15-year-old daughter was accused of using AI to write a paper because the program said it was a 65% chance. I looked at the writing and it looks like a college paper; she basically used every big word she could because her old teacher used to like that. (It’s not “good” writing, but it looks fancy.) Just trying to figure out what the teacher’s “investigation” with entail and whether TurnItIn is problematic in general for false positives.
TurnItIn is bog-standard AI & plagiarism checker software — it’s certainly not the worst out there, but *all* of them are quite vulnerable to both false-positives and false-negatives. 65% isn’t that high of a score anyway
TurnItIn is notorious for false positives; AI detection is especially unreliable. Writing instructors and higher ed faculty I’ve spoken with really wish that admin would not invest in it or its ilk. I didn’t know they were using it in high schools!
It was used for every high school paper (for plagiarism not AI) when I was in high school in the 00s
+1 turnitin has been a thing for decades, and has been problematic for that whole time.
The best thing she can do is show her version history to her teacher.
I was just listening to Hard Fork, a podcast that covers tech and AI, and the one of the hosts Kevin Roose had a whole tangent of how terrible these programs are because there is no program that on a large scale can accurately detect AI. I was convinced. If I was a parent (easy to say since I’m not) I’d be against teachers using them.
The entire episode (“A.I. School Is In Session: Two Takes on the Future of Education) is worth listening to if you have kids in school right now, or if you’re interested in how AI is infiltrating life. It’s really cool to listen to teachers who are actually living in the present moment and embracing AI as a reality and changing the way they teach to adopt and not uselessly/pointlessly fight it.
We use the plagiarism function for student essays but don’t have access to the AI function. I have never seen a reliable AI detector and wouldn’t base consequences / grades on one. I’d push back if your daughter has evidence she wrote the paper – early drafts, notes, etc.
Turnitin can flag suspicious activity, but is part of an academic integrity investigation, not the whole thing. Can she explain her writing, her thought process? What’s the document history look like? She should have a record of revisions and be able to articulate her thought process.
good point on the revisions. the whole paper was put together in class, on her chromebook, while filling out prompts the teacher had given her on theme. the whole point was to blend quotes from the book with their thoughts on the book.
i was worried at first because it really did look like AI, but when I engaged with her it was clear she had written it, along with some word misuse that seemed age-appropriate. (she called something a “stark theme” throughout the book when she meant it was a steadfast, non-changing theme, which isn’t usually how i would use the word stark.)
Did your daughter use Microsoft online on Google docs? Both have version control functions and will prove she wrote it with all the edits tracked.
Unfortunately, there are now apps that will manually type each word out and make “revisions” to the work to make it look like there is a revision history. It’s pretty hard to detect AI use any more if you are a teacher, and it’s most unfair to the students doing the actual writing.
I’m 31, every paper I wrote in middle school, high school, undergrad, and grad school wss run through Turnitin and I never had any issues with it falsely detecting something.
However, this was before AI wss commonplace and it was used as a plagiarism check only.
I’m still mad about the time turn it in flagged my paper for plagiarism for the phrase “jewel of the British empire”
I am a 32DDD and am searching for a supportive strapless bra…. for the well endowed ladies here please let me know your recommendations!
Same size and it’s a struggle.
Also interested! I’ve been wearing a sister sized DKNY which does not in fact fit very well, so I can’t recommend that option.
Freya strapless. Order your normal size, then order a second one in a smaller band size (30) with one cup size higher.
How confident are you in that size? It’s a size that’s pretty often given to women when it’s the best thing the store has in stock. And that’s fine with straps, but for a strapless, you reaaaaally want the band size to be correct, so if you’re actually like a 28G, your options are just different.
To answer your actual question, Bravissimo’s customer service has never steered me wrong, even online!
+1 for this, as well as the Bravissimo rec.
if you can find a longline one that works with your dress, those are the best – often have to look in the wedding section or old school places like macy’s.
when i want a strapless look i usually just wear my regular bra without the straps, shoving the straps into the top of the dress. easier if it’s only strapless on one side.
I’m one of the 32DDD posters above and… I try that… and it often doesn’t work because the cups gape out and there simply isn’t enough support.
That reaaaaalllllly sounds like you’re in the wrong size.
I hate to bravangelize but please do your measurements at this link
https://www.abrathatfits.org/calculator.php
i asked on the morning chat, but really late — how much do you pay your financial advisor, if you’re paying a fee instead of comission?
I paid $1000 for the initial 2hr meeting and analysis of my financial plan, followed by a written action plan / summary. Prior to the visit, I filled out detailed information about my finances and sent him my investments/prior taxes and more. I thought this was a bargain, as he is a well known and respected fee-only financial planner. Took me a year to get in to see him though. Ongoing, he charges $400 per hour for as needed appointments / questions.
I do all the day to day management. He doesn’t sell any products, or get any fees or % of my portfolio. I just pay per hour for his advice.