wedding

Jan102011

Party Set-Up… 5 More Days

On an entirely different note, our wedding reception is in 5 days. And I gotta tell you, I cannot wait for it to be here… then be over! I am not putting nearly as much thought and time into the reception as I did with our wedding/ vacation to Las Vegas. It’s going to be truly amazing to see family and friends we haven’t seen in years and to introduce Steve to all of them. Hey, the gifts aren’t that bad either… 😉

I mentioned a few weeks ago about the new location for the reception. It’s in the much larger part of the yard and already beautifully decorated with orchids, bromeliads, bonsai and palm trees. My father is a truly amazing, even if amateur, landscape artist. On Saturday, we (mom, dad, Steve and myself) set up 3 tent frames, trimmed tree branches, moved the tables and benches my father built, and raked up the loose rocks and branches. Dad put down an entire palette of mulch (75 bags!) and then we went back to Home Depot to buy another palette and check our options for the centerpieces. It turned out he needed another half palette, but everything is finally complete. Wow, that’s almost 200 bags!

I’ll leave you with a few pictures of the setup. Kayla and Jake were instrumental in helping by standing on and in front of the golf cart, lying in the grass and licking everyone. The next pictures will likely be after the party. 😀

Dec272010

The Actual Reception Location

Seeing as it’s now less than 3 weeks from our wedding reception, my folks called us outside Saturday afternoon to start discussing the logistics and layout of the tents, tables, food, drinks, etc. I’d posted pictures on here not long ago of the yard where the party was going to be held… well that’s totally changed! Rather than party in the big open yard with bad lighting and trenches where dad pulled all the trees out, we’re having it in the yard between their house and ours.

Dad decided to hang a few more light strands around the yard to increase the lighting. It’s a gorgeous area with tons of plants and natural beauty already in place. AKA zero need for additional décor! The strung lights cast plenty of light, but there will also be several spot lights around the yard. Over by the tents, there will be more lights. Good thing my father is so crafty as there are electrical outlets all over the yard perfect for additional lighting.

He’s also going to buy mulch to even out the ground so no one else trips like I did a few weeks ago. I’ve been checking the weather and it is going to be the perfect Miami “winter” with a high of 73* and a low of 53*. So much for my idea of wearing a cute dress! More like a cute sweater with a pair of jeans and maybe boots.

The plant house in the middle of the area

The large tree surrounded by seating, the appetizer/ drinks tent

The food tent

The whole area taken from the area where the seating tents will be located

We still need to make the favors. I bought 100 sheets of origami paper to make the candy dishes and 7lbs of candy. Also need to…
* organize the guest book canvas boards and markers
* make the flags for the centerpieces
* order the food!
* make sure we can borrow tents and chairs from Cathy’s family or else find a place to rent
* buy the centerpieces (6″ plants) and plant sleeves [or maybe make them]
* find table cloths
* clean our house!
* and probably several other things

Dec202010

Chocolate Chip-Walnut Cookies

What? How do those relate to babies, weddings or knitting?

Well, the next month 26 days is all about testing desserts for our reception. These are potential winners! My favorite site for recipes is definitely Annie’s Eats as she has stuff from every imaginable category, but is a great writer to boot! So yes, I took her Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe and split the chips to about 3/4 cup and added 3/4 cup of chopped walnuts. OK, more like “chopped then smashed up even smaller by hand” walnuts.

In case there was any doubt how big these suckers were...

Last weekend I broke in our new KitchenAid Stand Mixer by whipping up Annie’s Challah recipe. While delicious, I’m really not sure how she got such a huge loaf. It was delicious and been requested to have a presence at the reception. Guess I’ll be playing with it a lot more in the coming weeks.

Check her site out, and be sure to let me know what kinda stuff you’ve made!

Dec182010

Chocolate Favors!

OK, so favors. They’re not necessary, but I still think they’re adorable. No, i’m not talking about some little trinket our guests will throw in a drawer, stick on a shelf or throw away… I’m talking about food! More specifically, chocolate Kisses!

Yep, I decided on Kisses bc they’re a lot bigger than M&Ms and they come wrapped. I don’t really want to be touching food people are going to be eating.

Here’s my next choice… the packaging. Do I buy the 2x2x2 boxes and decorate them, or make boxes? Tonight at the bookstore, I was flipping through one of Martha Stewart’s big books of crafts and found a super cute origami candy dish.

So of course, I had to rip a piece of paper out of my little notebook and make one…

Background removed in PhotoShop

I was digging around online to find out the size of standard origami paper, which seems to come in a huge variety of sizes, and found the image below. It’s made of felt sewn together in 4 spots and might just be easier to make. If I find a rotary cutter and a thick mat, I can cut big felt pieces down to size.

Another option, made of felt

The thing with the paper dishes, is I’d buy a bunch of 12×12 scrapbook paper and cut them all down to 6×6. I’m fairly sure it could work.

The other option is to buy some 2x2x2 cardboard boxes and twine to tie them shut. The paper and felt boxes have that personal DIY touch, whereas the boxes have none. Hmm… What to do? What to do?

What would you do?

Dec132010

Reception Location

Picture it: Lush green open space, swaying palm trees, hanging orchids and bromeliads, candles and bunches of carnations in a fishbowl on all the tables, and twinkle lights and paper lanterns as far as the eye can see.

That is the vision I have for our reception. In this space, which is to the left of my parents house. My father has been landscaping and cleaning up the area for a few weeks now. They had a holiday party last night in this area.

I just love all the gorgeous land my parents have and that my father has a real eye for landscaping. No wonder where I got my creativity from! Only mine comes in the form of graphic design and knitting. 🙂

Whatcha think? What do you picture when you see this raw open space?

Dec122010

Thank You Notes Revealed

I totally forgot to post this! About a week or so ago, I ordered our Thank You notes from OvernightPrints. For those curious, I designed them in PhotoShop CS4 using their basic guidelines to ensure everything stayed in the printing lines, popped it onto their system and boom, ordered! One of the main reasons why I love OvernightPrints over VistaPrint is they don’t charge an upload fee.

After finally deciding to go with a horizontal photo, I messed with different fonts, wording, and layouts. In the end, it was down to 5 pictures. We chose the following picture and simply Thank You in a beautiful script font…

And of course gave credit to our fabulous photographers, Emeric Photography on the back of the card. I just love the blue, but maybe I’m biased…

Dec112010

First [Non-Cash] Wedding Gift!

beccablogsWhy yes, we did get married 2 months ago. But that doesn’t mean we got any presents then. When you essentially elope – even though the whole Facebook/ Twitter world knew about it – you get no presents. We also weren’t expecting any. Duh.

Our “wedding reception” is in just over a month. Holy cow, that’s soon! Our registry is finally getting some notice, and stuff being bought.

Yesterday afternoon, my mom called to ask if I had ordered anything as she saw a big box inside our fence. Upon further inspection, it was a Bed Bath & Beyond box and, according to the Fedex label, weighed 29 pounds. Being the registry stalker that I am, I knew exactly what it was… only I was wrong.

The problem begins with Fedex’s complete disregard for fragile packages and customer service. We live on a large piece of land with lots of animals and have a fence going around our entire property – like everyone else in Homestead. This fence is electric and without the remote, you can’t get in. long ago, Fedex and UPS decided to not even bother honking to let us know a package is here and to just chick it over the fence. But hey, at least they put the boxes in a plastic bag in case it rains.

So, yeah, 29lb box sitting inside our fence wrapped in a bag. I suspected what it contained and was terrified that it was broken. When I got home from work, I lugged it back to our house and proceeded to open it.

My wedding present, and mom was excited to open it too. Nice.

Without further ado…

hmmm... what could it be??

The kids didn't care, they were otherwise occupied by the plastic bag and a bowl of water.

Ahhhhh! KitchenAid Stand Mixer! (insert hyperventilation here)

Mmmmmm Pretty *pet pet pet*

My family, they're awesome! <3

And what's this? A surprise gift! Gorgeous flatware.

That’s right, the coveted KitchenAid Stand Mixer is mine! Errm, I mean ours.

Right right, ours.. there’s a husband here! He actually does cook quite a lot, but I have a feeling that I’ll be using this baby more between baking bread, cupcakes, cookies, pastries, etc etc etc.

When I said I was wrong about about knowing exactly what was in the box, it’s because I had no idea they’d bought us the flatware too!

I called to thank my aunt and she said she knew how much I wanted the mixer, but the flatware was so we have “no excuse to sit down to eat dinner together with [our] matching flatware.” Love her!

So there it is, our first non-cash wedding gifts. Now to get our thank you cards from @OvernightPrints so we can deposit the checks and send the thank you notes!

Dec082010

January Reception on my Mind.. Among Other Things

We’re closing in on the January reception pretty quickly. As of today, we’re about 5 weeks out.

Over the weekend, I started a list of things I want to price check, such as the disposable plates, cups and flatware, the paper lanterns, string lights, and favors. Good thing is, the Christmas clearance sales will be a few weeks prior so I’ll be able to pick up a few dozen twinkle lights for dirt cheap.

Tonight I was debating between Hershey’s Kisses and M&Ms. They’re both chocolate, so chances are it’ll come down to price. I found both on Amazon, free shipping and no tax, so that’s an option if we can’t find them locally. Also, the containers – 2” square, cones, or organza bags – was researched and all can be found on eBay for a song! While the cones are adorable, they’ll only work if I end up with M&Ms as the Kisses will only fit 3 or 4 at most. The 2” boxes max out at 11 Kisses, but I don’t know about the bags. I want favors to have enough chocolate, but not too much.

Hey, at least they’re delicious favors and not something that’ll get thrown in a drawer or stuck on a shelf to collect dust.

We also need to decide on the food, desserts, music, and everything else. Dad has a good rental place for tables and chairs that he uses for a lot of events here. The music is most likely going to be iPod music for background noise.

Food? We’re thinking Pollo Tropical, a bunch of desserts both homemade and store-bought, Publix cake is a given. Umm, yeah I don’t know what else. I know it’ll all work out in the end.

I’m really excited about this party as there are a lot of family members that we haven’t seen in AGES coming in for it, but I also cannot wait for it to be over. I kinda feel like it’s keeping me tied here.

Steve wants to stay for a while so we can pay off/ down our debt, but the job market is horrendous here. For me. He has a job. I wish my aunt had enough work for me to make 40 hours every week instead of every 2 weeks.

I recently updated my LinkedIn profile to denote that I’m doing a nationwide search, not that I think it’ll help. We’ll see. I also started look at alternative options like Teach for America and AmeriCorps. If nothing else, I can do all my research for my yarn store while we’re still living here.

Not having the best day. Sorry for ending this post on kinda a downer note.

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