I'm a Homebody

It's true. I'm a homebody. More specifically I'm not just a homebody, I've never left the Mother Country, and by Mother Country, I mean the United States. The Man is also a homebody, as he has never left the U.S. either.

I have always wanted to explore the world, but financially was not able to. So when it came time to pick our honeymoon spot, leaving the country and exploring some place new was not only something I wanted to do, but something I needed to do.

I have learned that more often than not, you can't predict the future. Life throws you curve balls and sometimes, even with the best intentions of accomplishing something, you don't always get the chance or opportunity to. I wanted to make sure I got to leave the country and go to another one at least once in my lifetime.

Several posts ago, I posted that we booked our Honeymoon destination- Jamaica. I can't even put into words how excited I am to go there. However, there is a little somethin' somethin' on my mind.....

I don't have one. The man doesn't have one. We are getting closer and closer to August.

We took so long deciding where to go and I wasn't quite sure if we'd be needing these babies, so we haven't applied for them yet. With 4 months left, I am a little worried about getting it in time. I am pretty sure that the wait time is a lot quicker than it used to be, but I'm not really sure what I'll do if it takes longer than 4 months to get!

The Man had gone to see a Travel Agent when we first started looking at places and the Agent told him about something new that New York State was offering called the Enhanced Driver License.

The travel agent told the Man the requirements of getting an enhanced license and told him that it was good for travel between the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the Carribean. The Man was all about getting these instead of passports because they are quicker to get, and also cheaper than a passport. The applications have been sitting here for about a month and a half. I hadn't really done anything with it, mostly because I hadn't had time to go to the DMV.

Secondly, I was a little ify about getting one of these for travel out of the country. I have a fear of being trapped and not allowed back into the U.S. if I used this for travel.

Because of my gut instinct telling me I need a passport to travel, I did a little more research on the enhanced Liscence and here is the deal: It is good for travel by LAND or SEA between the U.S, Canada, Mexico and the Carribean. There is nothing saying that it is good for AIR travel to or from the Carribean. Therefore, it looks like we will be in need of passports afterall. I'm glad I realized this now so that hopefully we'll have enough time to get our passports!

Has anyone gotten and used the Enhanced License for travel? How did it go?

Thanks, for Nothing.

This past weekend I had my meeting with my make-up artist. If you remember several posts ago, I was quite undecided if I should spend money getting a make-up artist or if I was going to do my own make-up day of.I found an add on Craigslist and promptly replied to it. The stylist sounded like everything I was looking for, and she traveled to your hotel room so you did not have to go anywhere. Plus, she did hair and was willing to do updo's for all the girls. She actually sounded like a dream.

We spent several weeks e-mailing and setting up our meeting date. She was going to do my make-up trial and I was quite excited about it. I had never had my make up done by anyone before. I spent some time collecting pictures of make-up looks I wanted to go for and I sent them to the Stylist.

Friday I hadn't heard from her to confirm, so I took the initiative and contacted her to make sure we were still on for our appointment as I had made it several months ago. She seemed excited and said we were on and she was actually going to contact me to confirm later that evening. She also told me I would need 50% of the total for services we'd be requiring for a deposit. I had taken a poll of my girls and the deposit would have been at least $200, which I was fine putting up, but I hadn't asked the Stylist about one thing.... a contract.

After thinking about how I'd be putting so much money down to hold the date, I asked her if there was a contract, because I wouldn't feel right putting down that much money without one. She said she didn't have one. I promptly voiced my concerns about putting so much money down (virtually to someone I didn't know) and not having any kind of proof of services to be provided or proof of payment. She told me she'd invoice me and it would serve as our contract and proof of payment. I was still a little leary, but figured I was a pretty good judge of characture so I'd be able to tell when I met her if she was legit or not.

Saturday morning came and I got up early and got ready, sans make-up. I saw the Man off as he was going home for the weekend and I waited for the Stylist to arrive.

I waited, and waited and waited.

She never showed up. At first I thought she must be running late and our road is easy to miss. I had given her my phone number and told her to bring it with her in case she couldn't find me. She never called.

After an hour, I knew she wasn't coming and I got pissed off.

After another hour, I knew she wasn't comming and felt relief.

Relief for what could have been a bad mistake. Relief that I didn't put down that much money just to have her not show up on the day of my wedding. Relief that my girls wouldn't be sitting around on the day of the wedding waiting for her to come and make them pretty and have her not show up.

I also felt annoyed. Annoyed that I had spoken to her the night before and she said she would be there in the morning. Annoyed that she couldn't even call and tell me she wasn't comming. Annoyed that I sat around waiting for her all morning on such a georgeous day. I also had a slight thought of perhaps something bad happened. I called her home(the number she gave me) and was going to leave a message to make sure she was okay, but someone answered. They were not very nice and informed me that if there was an emergency, they would have been called and would know.

So there you have it. My make-up trial that didn't happen.

I look at it as a blessing in disguise.

Rest & Relaxation- Part II

Since the Man and I decided on the Carribean, but didn't have a set destination, I decided to start doing some of my own research.

The first Island I liked was called Dominica. However, it's not your typical Honeymoon Island.

It is more of an "Adventure Island," with lots to do including: hiking, snorkeling, canyoning, scuba diving. I thought it would be the perfect spot for the man. Plus it was oozing with waterfalls, lush green rainforests and one of the only boiling lakes in the world(you hike up a mountain to see this). It sounded like it would be a lot of fun and I could see it being romantic as well. I saw great reviews on the beauty and friendliness of the Island. The only downfall was that it is a little underdeveloped in terms of what you'd expect for a hotel or nightlife. You aren't going to find a pampering 5 star luxury hotel here. It also didn't have a lot of beaches, but I was okay with that.

The Man vetoed Dominica once he saw that it didn't have a lot of beaches and told me the complete opposite of what he told me before, he wanted beaches. He also thought they might not have a very active nightlife, which is something we wanted as an option. So Dominica is out for our honeymoon, although I wouldn't mind going there someday. After all the positive reviews I read, it is supposed to be the "undiscovered beauty of the carribean," and I would like to check it out someday.

Next stop, Aruba. Aruba has some beautiful beaches and some amazing sunsets. Aruba has scuba diving, snorkeling, boating, historic caves, casinos, looked like it had a great nightlife, and it is not in the hurricaine belt(which is super important during hurricane season).

But, the Man found some reason to hate on Aruba too.

We were seriously considering Antigua for quite awhile. BUT, the Man decided the water wasn't "blue" enough for him and I found a horrible article on a couple that was killed while honeymooning there. I'm not gonna lie, that article killed antigua for me.

The we saw beautiful Punta Canna in the Dominican Republic.

And they had everything we were looking for in a place, but the Man, once again, found something to not like.

Are you getting tired of our indecisiveness yet? At this point, I was really getting annoyed. I wanted to find a place that we both would be happy going to, and it seemed as if the Man had become the most pickiest man alive. I would have been happy going anywhere in the Carribean with the Man, and I told him that. I left it up to him to find a spot since he was so unhappy with the choices we were making. He did a lot of research, and after finding spots and looking up reviews and prices, we finally found the "One."

We are going to Sandals Negril, located on the island of Jamaica. Yes, I know, it's in the hurricane belt during hurricane season (what are we thinking?). Don't worry, we got Travel Insurance through the resort and if anything should happen we will get a refund or get the chance to rebook our honeymoon at a later time. Secretly, I think the Man has high hopes of ridding out a hurricane together-- he's just crazy like that.

Photos of Negril-

Look at this sunset!

We chose Sandals because it is all inclusive and couples only. I'm so happy we finally settled on a place!

We tried to book through Orbitz (they have the cheapest package), but encountered a problem. We ended up calling Sandals and they matched the price that Orbitz had on thier website.

Oh August, you can't come fast enough.

Rest & Relaxation: Part I

The man and I had a seriously HARD time choosing a honeymoon location. We both wanted different things. Very, very different things.

While the man was daydreaming of Alaska, cruises, deep sea fishing, and bear hunting,

I was thinking something more like Hawaii, the tropics, romantic sunsets, beaches,and snorkeling.

Usually we agree on things, but Alaska was not the spot I wanted to go to after the long, COLD, snowy, hard winter we just had here in upstate NY. Not only that, but I didn't want to go on a cruise for our honeymoon. We have a boat that we go out on often in the summertime, and I sometimes feel trapped on it and I didn't want to have that trapped feeling out in the middle of the ocean. And while I think Alaska would be a beautiful spot to visit, I wasn't willing to go on our honeymoon. I do hope to go to Alaska someday and take in it's stunning beauty, just not this August.

The Man told me he didn't want to sit around on a beach all day, which I understand and had no intention of doing. I wanted to go somewhere different to explore it, not to park my butt on the beach the whole time we are there. Don't get me wrong, there will be some sort of relaxation on the beach, just not every second of every day. Once I told the Man I wasn't going to lob on the beach all day, he was totally down for a warmer vaca. Hawaii is somewhere I have ALWAYS wanted to go. Unfortunatly, since we are paying for our own wedding, Hawaii was slightly out of our budget -so it was out too. So there you have it, our top 2 choices, gone.

I made some other suggestions of different places but the Man didn't want to fly over the whole ocean to get to Italy, Greece, Ireland, or Australia(he has a fear of flying over the ocean and crashing). There are wars going on in Mexico which makes it uber unsafe for tourists right now.... so we were left with the dilema of where to go for rest and the ultimate relaxation.

We FINALLY narrowed it down to the Carribean, and in case you can't tell... that wasn't really "narrowing" since there are so many islands to choose from.

How easy was it for you to choose your honeymoon spot? Was your number one choice the same as your Significant Other's?

I like the Sparkle

I have always been attracted to things that have a little sparkle to them. I've never been a big pearl person. I like them, but I like sparkle/bling better. So when it came time to pick the jewlery for my wedding day, naturally I was drawn to the bling and this came as no surprise to those who know me.

Bridesmaid Hot Mama knew exactly what jewlery set I wanted and from where and surprised me with it as a Christmas gift. It is actually a lot more sparkly and beautiful in person than it is in this picture. This picture does not do it justice!

Because I was impressed with the quality, sparkle, and customer service Hot Mama said she received, I decided to order my tiara from the same place. After debating over a few different tiara's I settled on this one. It's cute, it's blingy and it would look good in either an updo or a half-up/half-down look. I wasn't dissapointed when it arrived in the mail. The man snuck a peek at it and liked it too.

I got both of these sparkly beauties at USA Bride and I wasn't dissapointed. In fact, I highly recomend this sight if you're still looking for that special sparkly necklace, tiara, or hair pin. They have a lot of other items too.

AND because I love you guys I'll share my cuopon for Free Shipping & 10% off Your Accessory Order (I think you need to spend a minimum of $100)
Enter Code: SAVE10

Expires: April 30, 2009

Happy Shopping.

We Rock!

I had BIG plans to finish a project I've been working on this weekend. I wanted to share with everyone, but alas, we had company on Saturday and then Sunday something else happened.

Sunday, after our company left, The man and I decided to go into town and take a stroll through Bed, Bath and Beyond (where I was hoping we'd register finally). We got there and began strolling around and I could tell the Man was just not in the mood to register. In fact, I truely believe him when he says he "just doesn't care" about kitchen stuff. He isn't the one cooking on a normal basis, so why would he like kitchen things? He told me he really isn't into registering and I honestly believed him when I saw how A.D.D. he got in the store.

We quickly exited the store without registering for anything, and went nextdoor to Best Buy. This is where we should register! The Man was in his glory here and we ended up leaving with a purchase.... we have joined the ranks of

Guitar Hero. We were going to get RockBand, but they were all sold out of the Rockband for the wii, but they had plenty of Guitar Hero's in store.

And as soon as we got home, we busted it out, and began the madness. I was one with the drums and singing and The Man was one with the guitar. All. Day. Long. we played.

We accomplished nothing except spending some quality time perfecting our band!

I woke up this morning without having finished my craft projects, with a soar throat (from belting out tunes for hours), and with a sore toe (felt like a "stiff toe" which may or may not be from the foot pedal on the drum set).

Have you found a creative way to spend quality time with your man?

Save our Date!

I've seen some amazing Gocco'ed invites, save the dates, cards, ect. from some very crafty people. Although I don't hate the way my Save the dates turned out, I wasn't totally in love with them either. I know I could have done better if I had spent more time on them. It was a decision that was made and after talking to all the hotels in the area, they needed to go out as quickly as possible.

I busted out my Gocco and got ready to start being creative. At this point we didn't have a theme or anything really picked out besides the colors.

The first step in Gocco mass production is burning the screen.

You simply line up your printed out/copied image on the grey sticky pad. The top of the gocco is made of a see through plastic. You can see what the actual image will look like and if it's lined up correctly or not. Move your image around as much as you want, until you get it where you want it and it looks perfect.




Once you have your image lined up, you open the top of the Gocco (it flips up) and insert the blue filter and then the screen on top of the filter.



place 2 bulbs in the housing(the yellow thingy), line up the arrows on the housing with the arrows on the Gocco (orange part) or your housing will get stuck--don't ask how I know this.

Close your eyes, turn your head and push down. The gocco will flash and your image will be burned onto the screen. If you have done it properly, the paper with your printed image will be stuck to the back of the screen. Don't remove this just yet.


Next,pull the top layer up, bust out your ink block (the squishy silver stuff) and block your image off. This helps the ink stay in the area you need it to stay in and the image stamps clearer when you use it.



ink up
peel off the paper, put the screen back into the gocco, place your blank cardstock down and stamp you little heart out.

Sounds a lot more complicated than it is.

I burned two screens to make our save the dates (well, three really, but my image moved and was crooked so it was a wasted screen).

This is the first pass I made for our save the dates


I used a clear embossing powder which I sprinkled on, and the tipped the card to get off the excess, then I used my embossing gun that I bought at AC Moore with a 1/2 off cupon to heat it up. Easy, but time consuming. It raised my image and made it look more professional. I highly recomend embossing if you want a little texture.


My second pass is what I wish I had spent more time on. The words should have been larger, and I wish I had used a cooler font. I was limited at the time with the font thing because we didn't have a working printer, so I printed it off at work, and I didn't want to download a font on my work computer, so I was chained to the ones that came in word 2003.


in retrospect I wish I had done the writing on the bottom in black so it showed up better. I am a little disapointed with my results, but felt like I was on such a time contraint that I really didn't care at that point. I made these before I really realized the potential of what they could have been, but in reality not tooooooo shabby for my first mass production.

The next project will be better, I swear.
I have big plans for the invites.

Did you send out Save the dates? How creative did you get?

The save

Where was I? Oh yes, Track Season in Saratoga Springs and realizing it may possibly be a problem finding hotels for my guests. Not wanting my out of town guests to feel out of place, I wanted to find several hotels that offered blocks for guests, so that they would have a choice of where to stay.

Our obvious first choice would be The Fort William Henry Resort since that is where our wedding and reception are taking place but they wouldn't offer to "block the rooms." They did, however, offer a discount code and "fake hotel block" for our guests. The discount code wasn't very discounted and the room rates were a lot higher than I wanted to ask our guest to pay, plus I wasn't impressed that they wouldn't actually hold the rooms or guarantee rooms for our guests.

Since I wasn't overly impressed with our place, The man, MOH Cooper and I all went up to Lake George one weekend and checked out every hotel up there. We got the same answer at all the hotels: they were more than willing to block rooms for us and all we'd have to do would be to call them back and set it up with the "manager." They even went as far as to show us the rooms and give their rates. After viewing all the rooms and the rates, the Man and I decided on two we really liked.

I called them the next day to set up hotel blocks, like they told me to do, and I was then told that they don't set up blocks and the rates were totally different and they had a 3 night (at least) minimum stay since it was track season.

Track season, track season, track season. That was the answer to them changing their minds. I was annoyed that I had wasted a whole day looking at hotels and was told one thing, when really it wasn't an option. I wish they just hadn't wasted my time.

So I decided rather than chance it or go crazy, we would just use the Fort William Henry fake block because they didn't have a minimum stay since it was for our wedding. The rates were higher than I wanted to find, but I was litterally up a river without a paddle on this one. I decided we needed to send out save the dates really early and include a little note to encourage people to book ahead of time. I was informed back in September, that rooms were booking up for August of 2009 already.

I created my save the dates in Microsoft word and prepared to bust out my Gocco for the first mass produced product since I bought it.



Have you decided to complete a project you had no intention of doing?

So you wanna get married during Track Season?

I talk a lot about track season in my blogs, and I realized that some of you may not know what exactly that is, so I'm going to try to show you.

ahhhh the track, located in Saratoga Springs New York, the bane of my existence...

Track season begins during the last week of July and goes through the first week in September.

When you decide to go to the track, you make a day out of it and plan on spending lots o' money. The track is cool though because you are allowed to bring in your own coolers and chairs and pretty much anything you want as long as it's not glass. Bringing your own cooler with drinks and food will save you a lot of money.

This is an outside view of the track, the front before we go inside. It's so pretty. Once you enter, madness ensues, but out here it's peaceful.

Once inside, you buy a program that includes all of the races for the day.

You decide on which horse you're going to put your money on, and you head up to the window to place your bet.
There is always a huge line, but you suffer through it, place your bet, and then go patiently wait for the race to start.

This is the seating out front. The benches are free seating (you will get so sunburned sitting out here in the hot sun all day) and the building behind that is the "clubhouse" seating. You have to pay to sit in there. There is also seating indoors with TV's set up all over-- however you do not get the same feeling as sitting out front watching it unfold in person. There is seattin out back with large TV's set up all over the place. It's more shaded in the back. You need to get to the track early to get a good seat out back and set up your own chairs to save your spot. Be prepared to be crowded and for people to pretty much sit ontop of you out there.


This picture captures the essence of the busyness of the track. Anywhere you go it usually looks like this:

As soon as the race starts you're standing on the benches screaming for your horse to win and it looks something like this



What does this have to do with weddings? Well, nothing normally, but it does effect my wedding since my wedding falls in the middle of track season. Track season brings in hoards of out of towners and is really great for Saratoga. It brings in a lot of revenue for the year. People come and rent out hotel rooms for months. Prices go up on everything, and for those two months it is torturous to drive anywhere in Saratoga. People who come back every year secure their hotel for the necxt year when they leave.

My biggest concern was securing a hotel block for my out of town guests. My family is basically all located here, but The mans is all coming from out of town, out of state, and will need somewhere to stay.

Despite my first decision to not make "Save the Dates," I quickly changed my mind after trying to unsuccessfully secure hotels for my guests.

Stay tunned for the Save the Date project....

The List

Most debates occur over the list of invitees to the wedding. The man and I pretty much have had our list completed since, well, last October. Yeah, that's right. I had to bug him and bug him and bug him for the addresses on his side of the family, and then finally ask him mother for it since he wasn't producing it for me. But she sent it to me and I entered it, along with the names of people I was inviting, into an excel workbook.


I Love excel.

I figured our list making was over. Done. Complete.

I was wrong.

This past weekend, I decided to install my new printer on our computer. I should preface this by saying, if I haven't already said so, that I am electronically challenged. And what I mean by that is, everything electrical I touch, breaks. Yeah, you probably see where I'm going here now.

So there I am installing my new printer on the computer and after it had completed, it's not reading the usb cable so it's not reading the printer. I decide that if I restart the computer it should pick it up. So I restarted the computer, not thinking anything was wrong.

The computer shut down, but would not re-load. It would not start up. I have absolutely no IDEA what happened to it because it's less than 1 year old and shouldn't be having problems, but that's what happened.

After I played with it FOREVER trying to figure out the problem, the Man decided to use his windows recovery disk to fix the problem. And it did, somewhat. However, the problem lies in where I saved our list. I had saved it, along with some mock up invites and table numbers I was working on, on the C drive. Since we had to use the recovery disks the C drive was wiped out.

Disastrous! All is gone. The computer still isn't working correctly. Last night I tried to install excel again, and it wouldn't read the disk. I think we are going to have to have it looked at.

Have you experienced any disastrous setbacks along the way and how did you overcome your obstacles?

The Baker Jackpot

This past Saturday morning I met with our baker.


If you've been following my posts, you know I wasn't *quite* sure what I wanted (even after already meeting with another baker). In leu of making a decision, I decided to bring my top 3 cake photo's with me and see if Jeremy, my baker, and I could come up with a cake plan.

I needed some helpers and brought my mama and MOH Cooper with me for support and boy was I glad Cooper was there. She was fabulous (as usual) and super helpful since she's been through the wedding process before. Jeremy loved her so much, he almost offered her a job there... almost.


Jeremy was very friendly and brought out a book of his fantastic work for me to look through. Which was a bad idea. Bad, Jeremy, bad. You only confuse me more with your masterful skills. I liked his work a lot better than baker No. 1's and he was a lot more personable, plus my nut allergy problem didn't seem to phase him, as in, he was more than willing to work with it.

I showed Jeremy my 3 top cakes and he looked at me and said, "well, we have three very different cakes here. The only thing I can see that's similar is the fact that they are all white"

Seriously? I thought there were some similarities, but I'm no cake baker, so I guess my pictures were just like me- all over the place.

I picked out some qualities that I wanted my cake to have such as: round, tiered, textured looking (like the first photo), and butterfly's.

Jeremy said he had just what I was looking for. He went in the back and returned with this:

can I just say, I love the butterfly cascade. LOVE. I liked it before as well, but figured since the first baker I went to was going to charge me per butterfly, that it was out of our budget and should be out of my mind... but Jeremy, Jeremy said he could do whatever I wanted and he does not charge per decoration.

Now, the butterflys will be a little labor intesive but he said the fee would be minimal if any, and definatly not per butterfly.

The cake is going to be textured somewhat like picture no. 1, only all the way around each layer and white with the pink butterfly cascade(no flowers like in the picture above). We have a monogrammed initial I created for the topper. I think it'll look fabulous.

but what about the taste?

Well, you are not going to believe this, but Jeremy not only make beautiful cakes, but they taste like heaven. He baked me some samples to try, and I was expecting to try them in store. However, he baked me a small cake. My own little cake to bring home, which was perfect because now The Man (who was working) could taste the cake too.

The man preferred the more plain flavors of vanilla and chocolate (he wanted marble to begin with) and I fell in love with the raspberry cake. Mama and MOH Cooper favored the raspberry cake too. Want more fabulousness? the raspberry cake is PINK. How fun to cut into a white cake and have pink inside.

Ultimately our cake is going to be 4 tiers, so I figured we can do two raspberry tiers and two marble. The man seconds the decision.

Each tier of cake is consisting of 4 layers of cake and 3 layers of filling. We have yet to decide on the filing flavors... that's just too much to ask of me for one day.

Jeremy doesn't take deposits but holds the date for you, and you do not have to pay until AFTER the event and if it isn't the way you imagined it would be, then he doesn't require payment at all. He is THAT good that he pretty much can guarantee that your cake will be fabulous, or you don't have to pay him.

I feel like we hit the baker jackpot! Anyone else feel really excited to be working with a certain venor of theirs?

Inspir-cake-tion

I'm meeting with my Baker tomorrow. You would think I would be prepared for this, afterall, I already met with one. But, I'm not, because I'm indecisive. I still don't know what I want. What's a girl to do when she doesn't know what she wants?

Look for inspiration and become more confused of course!

I wish there was a magical place you could go to to look at cakes all day long. I'm sure there are some places like that, but I didn't know of any. And lets be honest, I really don't know the name of any bakers that are famous to look up their websites and portfolios. So I turned to the next best thing, Google images.

Google Images is great. You type in what you want and tons of images come up... of course you have to weed through them, but you can find some great things that way!

Here are some cakes that i'm currently interested in (in no particular order):

#1

#2

#3

#4 This one I think is a little too busy, so I would take out some of the stuff, and it's a little more non-traditional, but I kinda like it.

#5

I originally wanted a turquoise cake, but now i'm thinking it may be a little too much and that white is the way to go.

I just can't decide!

How did you decide on a cake design? Where did you find your inspiration from?

Bakery:Nuts::Cake:___________ (Part II)

So there I was, with my mama, sitting in the bakery at what had to be the smallest table I had ever seen. Out came the woman who was potentially going to make my dream wedding cake become a reality. She was carying three huge binders with her.

We met, she shook my hand, we sat down at the small table and she piled all the books in front of me to look through. However, I had brought a picture of what I wanted with me. I showed her and she said that she could make it easily and we quickly discussed colors of what I'd like to have. She then said she was going to go and "price it out" for me.

Off she went to price my cake, and left me there telling me to look through the books at her cakes.

It felt a little..... awkward. A little ---off. She didn't seem personable at all, she didn't seem like she loved what she did...... she just seemed -very- business like.

She didn't even discuss options with me such as cake flavors or fillings. And in the quickness that was our "meeting" I forgot to mention one very important detail. The allergy. *doh*

When she returned, my mother spoke up and told her immediately of my allergy to nuts, and asked if there was a way she could guarentee that my cake would not/could not be contaminated.

She immediately froze as if I had just told her I had a contagious disease. She looked at me, and pretty much told me there was no way, in her bakery that consisted of (4) four employees, that my cake would be guarenteed to be nut free- it simply could not, and would not happen. She told me no baker would ever guarentee me such a thing because bakery's use nuts.

AND That was pretty much the end of our meeting.

Whatever, I wasn't impressed with her anyway.

I can't and won't be taking any chances with having an allergy attack on my wedding day. I know someone out there will bake me a wedding cake, and it will be guarenteed to be nut free and uncontaminated. I just have to find a baker that is willing to work with my problem.

In fact, I have a meeting with a different baker this weekend. He has said he would guarentee that my cake would not be contaminated AND at our meeting he is going to make cake for us to taste. I already like him. Yum.


Have you met any vendors that were unwilling to guarentee something very important to you?

Bakery:Nuts::Cake:___________ (Part I)

Everyday, all day long, nuts are on my mind.


Get your mind out of the gutter, I'm not talking about THOSE kind of nuts.





I'm talking about the kind of nuts you eat in general, but more specifically this little guy:

It doesn't look like much, this pile of peanuts, but several years ago this little peanut almost killed me.

I won't bore you with the details of how I found out about it, but when I was 21 I suddenly developed a food allergy to nuts. Not just peanuts, but also almonds, cashews, hazelnuts, pine nuts, tree nuts, etc. Pretty much any kind of nut produced I can not consume.

They say that food allergies, specifically nuts and fish, can develop at any time in life. I just so happened to get lucky enough to figure out what was causing the reaction in time.

Once I found out about what was causing the reaction, I had to change everything. I no longer was able to just buy what I wanted, I have to read EVERY label for anything I buy; I have to ask at restaurants what ingredients are used in the food I'm about to eat. Things you wouldn't think nuts are in, they are. If a company makes anything with nuts in it, most likely they use the same machinery to produce other items, and in using that machinery that previously had nuts on it, they contaminate the product that doesn't have nuts in it, so I can't eat that either.

I avoid Bakery's like the plague--they are a definite no-no for me which I found out the hard way by eating a blueberry muffin because I didn't know about cross-contamination at the time and I wasn't thinking when I bought it.

What does all this have to do with weddings? Well, it definitely has to do with my food at my wedding, or more specifically my wedding cake.

I have always dreamed of having a wedding cake. I like cake, that's all there is to it, and really I can't imagine my wedding without one. I decided to go on mission to find a nut free- contamination free cake for my wedding. I knew it wasn't going to be easy, but I was positive that it could be done.....

So, I met with a Baker a few weekends ago to see what she could produce for me.

The sweet smell of chocolate and delicious baked goods surrounded us when we walked in. I had forgotten how good a bakery can smell. I saw all the "goods" in the display case and wanted to try everything- it smelled so good in there, but instead, I focused on my mission of finding a cake.

The cake baker came out to meet with me and my mama and we sat down with her to look at cakes......

....to be continued

Have you come across any huge obstacles you've had to overcome during the planning process?

They're Here, and they are Fabulous!

I never would have thought I would have had such a problem making a decision on my shoes. But when you think about it, the shoe decision is really quite an important one... after all you are going to be standing on them all day, so they need to be comfortable. And they need to be cute- because every woman knows what a cute pair of shoes can really do for her. That being said, as much as I liked my Amigas, I had to send them back. They were cute, yes, but they just weren't the ones and they were a little too big AND I found a different pair that I liked better.

So....

I got a new pair of shoes.

I think they are fabulous.

They came the other day. And I took a picture.....

from the front



and I'm so happy I bought these. They are really comfortable and sturdy and I can totally see myself wearing them all day long and being okay with them. It was a simple choice, shoes, but it took me buying three pairs before I found the ones. With finding the shoes I feel a huge sigh of relief.

Have you made a simple decision that just seemed to lift a huge weight off your shoulders?

The Evolution of a Centerpiece

When I first became engaged, I started doing some research and looking for inspiration everywhere. I decided early on, since I'm not hugely into flowers, that I didn't want HUGE floral displays on the tables, but that I also wanted something more than just candles.

The first centerpiece idea I coveted was, none other than, the Crystal Tree:

It's outdoorsy, it's different, it's bling-y-- and really, what's not to love?

I realized these could get a little costly to make with the branches and crystals, and I wasn't completly sold on it, it was missing something, and I don't know what it was missing, but something. Maybe it was a little too much for me.

So I continued to search for centerpiece ideas that were different. I'm not your run of the mill typical girl, so I needed something that wasn't run of the mill for my wedding.

Elegance at it's finest--The Ostrich Feather:

I came across these and thought they would be stunning and so unexpected and fun.

Anyone know how expensive ostrich feathers are? Yeah-so- I do now, and as pretty as I think these are these were not in the budget or anywhere even close to being in the budget! I even looked into crafting them myself, and buying ostrich feathers in bulk was not that much cheaper... so they were out, and I moved onto the next idea.

The next centerpiece idea I coveted was the submerged flower:

So Pretty!

oh la la!

and there is nothing better than seeing it all put together:

And really, I LOVED the submerged flower idea. REALLY thought it was georgeous, but the vases... the vases were boring me. They were just so plain. Obviously you need a clear vase for this to work, but there was just something about the straightness of the vases that was not doing it for me.

Then I came across the perfect centerpiece picture on Flickr. It was in someone's "photostream" and I came across it by accident when I was looking at her cakes. The photo is copywrited and non-copyable or postable or printable. I wrote to her asking if she would mind if I printed it and used to to show my florist, and she said sure, but didn't change any of the settings, and so, it wouldn't print. A picture can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/glassslippergourmet/2272433272/

I love that vase. It is elegant and feminine and just oh so beautiful. That is the centerpiece I wanted that no one could give me. AND because I couldn't print the picture out, I had a hard time explaining the vase to Both my florists. Price Chopper had NOTHING even remotely similar, and Cindy kind of knew what I was talking about, but didn't have the vase.

I had been on my own hunt for the vase as well. I came across something very sililar at Pier 1 (yay), but they only had 2 left in store (and it was slightly more than I wanted to spend). Nonetheless, I was going to buy them from every store in the northeast if they had them. Sadly, the only other Pier 1 in the northeast that had any of these vases, only had 3- making a total of 5 non-doable.

While I was looking through Cindy's books with her, I found something else. Something different. Something stunning. Something so simple and yet so pretty. Something very US.

Cindy is going to craft the boxes herself and they are going to be hot pink. She will set up the centerpieces the day of wedding and glue the orchids onto the branches. The orchids are going to be hot pink as well. (i'm lusting over the Chivari chairs in the background)

How many centerpiece ideas were in your centerpiece evolution?