Get Me to the Church On Time

With a wedding party of 18+ people, transporting them all around could get out of hand. How many limos would it take to transport them!?! How many can we afford!?! What's the answer to our plight? Lucky for us we didn't have took to hard. Black Swan Antique Limo Service in Bethlehem, CT had our answer.

Party Limo!

The 22 person party bus will hold the whole wedding party. We went to visit the place and it was spotless, the limos were ridiculously clean and the people really nice. We also were excited to learn that the party bus runs on BioDiesel, which goes along with our green/minimalist wedding plans.

The party bus will pick the groomsmen and myself up at the Heritage and bring us the church. Then it'll zip on over to Rachel's where the the beautiful Bride and Bridesmaids will be waiting.

We really like that everyone will be together on the way to the Heritage after the ceremony. Its going to be a fun ride!!

Manzanita Trees (Part One)

Yes... there is more than one part for this one and yes, this post is about trees. My parents could stop scratching their heads and actually see what we have been talking about for 14+ months. They thought I was insane for buying tree branches from Nettleton Hollow when we essentially we live in a forest! Chris and I worked on our manzanita trees last weekend. We will show you the final product in a future post when we get the hanging votives on them.


*DISCLAIMER: Please excuse the mess of the garage. I am in the process of packing and hording furniture. My parents have been without a garage for a VERY long time and it is all my fault.

This is a gratuitous picture of Chris and a bit of the tree. He's so dreamy!

First, my mom painted "R" and "C" on the black pots that we got from Jamali Gardens. We got square Styrofoam from Jo-Ann Fabrics and a little tub of joint compound from Home Depot. Chris drilled a hole in the styrofoam so the tree would fit and then put the compound in the hole.

Here is the tree stuck into the compound. To make sure that the tree would stay in place while the compound was drying, we hot glued the edges where the tree met the styrofoam.


Then we took little round rocks that we got from IKEA and hot glued them to the styrofoam.

Then we filled (hot glued) in all the cracks between the rocks with reindeer moss that we got from Jo-Ann Fabrics. We made sure we hot glued extra moss at the base of the tree to cover the compound. Essentially, all of the styrofoam is covered. (Better pictures will follow!)

So, the whole thought is that we will string our placecards between the two trees in the cocktail hour room. We are really happy with how they came out!

Mini Aussie Pups

Baby Darcy is here!!!  The pups were born last night. 

We are going to get one of the red ones. 

Since they were born early we'll be able to get her right after our honeymoon. 

They look like fetuses.

Oh Give Me A Home...

It's official. We are moving to Hamden, CT. We just chose our apartment and put through our deposit and applications. The apartment will be open June 13th, so we will be moving things in and getting settled bit by bit before the wedding.

The apartment is in a large complex called Town Walk at Hamden Hills. (See the pictures below!) Our apartment's entrance is on the first floor; however, it is situated on a hill so we have balcony porch off our bedroom. It has a nice view of the woods. It will be just like home! It also is on the end of the building so our bedroom has an extra window. Natural light galore! The apartments butt up against the canal trail. Chris will be able to hop on his bike and have a very safe ride to work every morning.

We are excited to be coming home to such a great place! (And of course, eachother!)

We were Movie Stars.

There are pictures that we like more than others... but here they are in all of their glory. Can you spot the "zombie couple" picture??

The Tuxedos

Rachel's dresses for the bridesmaids are a green, its either sage or mint or jade or kelly. I have no idea. It is green. We went to MW Tux to check out their rental packages and colors and things. The first step was to find a vest that matched the color, thankfully Rachel carries the swatch around wherever she goes. This proved to be something impossible. Its like MW Tux called Alfred Angelo got a swatch and made sure that none of their greens would match ours. It was really that bad. So we started playing with other colors. Brown or red or bright blue, ok maybe not bright blue. No matter what we picked it didn't look good, Black tuxes and brown vests....no good. We were there about an hour and tried nearly every possible combination or types of clothing and colors and patterns, with the exception of cummerbunds, whatever happened to those anyway? There was a set up of a brown tux with a cream vest that kept catching my eye, and after enough prodding Rachel let me try it out and see how it looked. Bingo, that was it. Brown tuxes with an ivory tie and vest for me and Brown tuxes with brown ties and vests for the groomsmen. Here are some quick pics trying it out:



We are also going with pocket squares instead of boutonnieres. I think they pretty darned good.

The brown also fits the woodsy theme we've been running with. Overall we'll be a pretty darned looking group. No?

Flower Girl Basket: COMPLETED!

To fit our wedding's woodsy theme, I created Braeden's flower girl basket to look like a bird's nest.  (Obviously, the pedals will go in the center of the basket.) First, I took an old basket that was pretty rustic looking. Then added cotton batting and covered that with a piece of brown satin. I finished it off by hot gluing reindeer moss around the edges. Voila! 

Tasty!

Our Menu

Cocktail Hour

Open Bar Service

Displays:

*Fresh Vegetable Crudites Served with dipping sauce

*Regional American Artisan Cheeses and Fruit Served with French baguette and assorted crackers

Butler-Passed Hors d'oeuvres:

*Stuffed Chicken with Avocado Salad Tartlet

*Prosciutto and Melon Canapes

*Tomato Basil Bruschetta

*Spinach Brie Tart

*Vegetable Spring Rolls

*Scallops Wrapped in Bacon

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Dinner

Salad:

*Capriccio Salad: Romaine, Diced Tomatoes, Red Onions, Fetta Cheese, and Baby Bella Mushrooms served with a Fresh Basil Vinaigrette Dressing

Entrees:

*Fresh Herb Roasted Half Chicken with Roasted Garlic and Tomato Demi-glace

*Roast Prime Rib with Caramelized Onion and Au Jus

*Pan Roasted Salmon Fillet with Balsamic Reduction 

**Chicken Fingers or Pasta for the kiddies

***Pasta Primavera for vegetarians (if you are out there...)

Our Cake

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We made our final decisions on our dinner menu for our reception. A fear that the food would be disgusting has been set aside. The food was delicious!

Capriccio Salad

Chris even liked it!

Then they brought us our an enormous plate that had three entrees for us to try:

*Crispy Sauteed Chicken Breast with Creamy Mustard Sauce (although... I am pretty sure that wasn't the sauce that was on it)

*Fresh Herb Roasted Half Chicken with Roasted Garlic and Tomato Demi-glace

*Grilled Mahi-Mahi Fillet with Tropical Mango Salsa

Each entree will come with yummy potatoes, string beans, and carrots. (They are cooked, Katherine H. ... but you could scrape them off or request extra beans.)

We weren't crazy about the Mahi-Mahi. I had originally picked this as our fish choice. We didn't like the salsa that was on it. That made up our minds. We are going with the salmon. I figure that is a pretty standard meal.

We had already chosen the prime rib, so we asked to taste the two chicken dishes. We were glad we did. The half chicken was heads and shoulders better than the chicken breast. The chicken breast was a little dry and just "blah". The half chicken was moist and just an overall better dish. 

We snuck in to check out our venue. Here are some pictures of the room. It is set up for a conference banquet. 

the ceiling

our sweetheart table will be set up in front of this fireplace

Local WTNH Channel 8 put together a full news clip on.

Good times!!!

Cake baker, cake baker, bake us a cake......

It's a well known fact that my family is talented musically and artistically. My mom is a professional singer. Multiple members of my family have showed their creativity through gorgeous paintings. My cousins in CA have a really amazing eyes for photography. Grammy could out craft, out knit, and bake the pants off the likes of Martha Stewart. What I didn't know was when my Uncle Jamie married my new aunt, Connie, he would be adding culinary genius to the mix. She has graciously accepted our plea to make our wedding cake.

Connie is an executive for Harley Davidson and started baking cakes as a hobby for the past few years now. Take a look at some of the cakes she has made for friends and clients:

Perhaps this is the most fitting cake?!

This cake was her latest wedding cake.

Aren't her cakes incredible?! I think she deserves to be on a reality show like Ace of Cakes or something. Her talents are totally not being tapped at Harley! However, it was at Harley Davidson that she got her start. She has made a tradition of baking a Harley fuel tank cake for all of her co-workers that retire.



So, I sent Connie pictures of cakes that we liked. We are looking for something green (are you really surprised?!) with vines/tree branches on it. Here are some pictures that I had in mind.

I really love this one... but make it round!

We are very sure she will do a tremendous job with the cake. We are so blessed to have such a talented, generous person in our lives.

Or... maybe I should have this cake.

Thanks to Alchemy...

Late in May, my parents are throwing us a bridal shower. Because our friends and spouses are invited, the guest list is pretty substantial. I offered to help my mom find an affordable invitation. Chris and I first thought we would design and print them ourselves. The more we tinkered and worked on the invites, the more we realized that the cost was going to add up. So, we took the image we had pirated (Oh, did I say that!?) and went to Etsy.com.

On Etsy.com, there is a place called Alchemy where you could post work orders for artists to bid on. We wrote that we were looking to spend no more than $30 on the invitations with the envelopes. We also included our colors and inspiration image (above) that had a couple with a bike. Personally, I thought the request was a little far fetched, but it was worth a shot.

Much to our amazement and utter disbelief, the emails and bids on the job came flooding in. If this wasn't a testament to the bad economy, I don't know what is. Most of the artists submitted examples of what they intended to do or examples of their previous creations. There were several artists that were contenders. This included Kandy Ann's Kreations who created the image shown here. She made a die cut from our image and paired it up with some paper with various textures. We were floored! Unfortunately we decided to stay close to our original idea and pick a graphic artist who would print the cards. You really should check out Kandy Ann's Creations for more crafty options! Her work is beyond impressive AND is really cute.


Lindsey Ryan Design offered the look that we were looking for and lacked the know-how to create on our own. Her shop was filled with stationary that was just fantastic. She sent us a link to her online portfolio. We loved her work! We even had thoughts of possibly asking her to design our invitations. (We just love those Cat Seto's Willow invitations!) But, what really sold us was her rough sketch of what she planned on doing for us. We loved it! Well, not the bike, but the rest of it we loved. She quickly set off on a hunt for a more realistic road bike and we settled on this one. Then, Chris was happy. Lindsey has been a true professional. She has showed us draft after draft. I believe we have come to an agreement and the invitation is as follows:


What do you think!? Here is a picture of my love at Easterns last year. You should see how skinny he is right now!