Favors

Okay, now here's a pic of my awesome favors!

Photo taken by Ryan Brenizer.


More pics coming soon, but here's what you're looking at: a pint sized mason jar filled with coffee beans from our favorite coffee company called Alpen Sierra Coffee, direct from Lake Tahoe, California. I first discovered the coffee when Joe took me for a trip there. Having lived there for 6 months, he knew the coffee well because he and his buddies used to stop at a place called Syd's every morning for a cup. I couldn't believe how good the coffee tasted, and I'm a total coffee snob (as is Joe, mind you). :-) So, we thought it would be a perfect favor for our guests and truly personal.

Calculating how many pounds of coffee I needed to buy was a bit of a math problem, and math wasn't my best subject! It took myself, my mom, 2 very friendly Starbucks employees and some good ol' internet searching to figure it out. In the end, it took 18 pounds of coffee to fill 60 pint sized jars.

I made the mistake of purchasing quart sized jars from overstock.com. I was seduced by the sale price but when 4 huge boxes showed up at my office, I couldn't believe how big they were! When I inquired about returning them or exchanging them, overstock slapped me with a $60 return fee for shipping! I tried selling them online but that didn't work too well so I eventually threw in the towel and paid the hefty shipping fee. Luckly, the pint sized jars (which ironically were not in stock at overstock.com) were cheaper and so I really only ended up losing about $20 for that stupid return shipping.

I used Ball jars and a few broke from my slippery grip, so I definitely recommending getting more than you actually need just in case of accidents. Joe helped me fill each jar with beans. The apartment smelled so wonderful while we were doing this project!

I purchased 3 different types of fabric with colorful designs using our wedding colors from City Quilters, a great shop down the street from my office. The women there are really helpful, but since I'm such a mathematics moron- I relied on their help too much and bought way too much fabric than I needed. Go figure. I'm sure I'll find some other projects to use it for though...

Anyway, next I had to cut that fabric into circles and let me tell you- that's a lot harder than it sounds! It was easier to first cut squares and then fold the square...and cut from one corner to another in a curve pattern. Unfold that and voila- you've got a perfect circle! We had to test sizes a few times to see what would look best on the jars but we eventually got it down. Joe used a razor blade to cut several layers of fabric at once. I kept handing him my rotary cutter, but he insisted on using the razor blade.

After the circles were done, I placed them over the jar and twisted the rims to secure them in place. I cut green ribbon and tied bows around the jars. I also made tags for the favors...but me thinks that's another post.

More pics to come soon!

My Escort Cards Now Available on Etsy!

so...yeah, i have an etsy store. have i mentioned that before? i forget.

anyway, i'm really excited to announce that i've just added my custom escort cards to the shop! i'm still waiting on more pics from the photographer, so i'll be updating everything soon but here's a pic of how awesome they turned out!



and now you can have them for yourself! check out my etsy store!

:-)

more soon!

More about our awesome cake!

I'm super proud of how incredibly awesome our cake came out.

First, here's a photograph of the cake that I fell in love with online. (Photographer: Unknown) Apparently, this cake is by Jacques Fine European Pastries in New Hampshire.



I brought that pic to our bakery, Le Bonne Boulangerie, and this is what they created:


Photographer: Ryan Brenizer Photography

To save money, we used white chocolate ganache instead of fondant which still has that smooth finish. Pretty close to the original, eh?

Joe (my HUSBAND- yay!) wanted it to be as chocolatey as possible, so we filled it with chocolate mousse and chocolate ganache. Needless to say, it was extremely chocolatey.

Here's another pic of the awesome cake topper from Lollipopworkshop! ...and again, this photo was taken by Ryan Brenizer.


Gosh, we love that thing!

More to come!

MARRIED!

yes, i'm a married woman.

i was working on my little projects until the wee hours of the night before the big day, ugh. i don't recommend that, btw. anyhoo, as soon as i get photos of everything, i'll post them. in the meantime, here are a little quick highlights:

our cake topper was a HUGE hit at the wedding. it was customized by jenny from lollipopworkshop on etsy.com. here were the preview pics she sent us:


it's so cute, isn't it?

i ended up with a beautiful purse, also from etsy! it's from yensew. and i loved the fact that it was handmade by a fellow seller like myself! i got tons of compliments on it, and i loved the interior too!


so much more to post about but first i must get my camera back from my mom who accidentally went back to florida with it, ugh. i need to take pics of tons of stuff! as more photos come in, i'll be sure to post them up here!

11 days left!

agh! so much still to do. and why can't i update this blog every day? craziness!

here's the latest:

i've received a bunch of registry gifts! yay! oh how we love presents, lol. we registered at crate and barrel and target, against my wedding planner's advice who told us to just register at bed, bath and beyond because you can return things there for cash.

we got our engagement photos- yay! i ordered prints and i don't have digital images of them yet, so i guess i can't post them on here until later. sorry about that. the photos with our dog came out especially awesome! speaking of our dog...she's injured her leg and is limping/crying around the apartment. she's gone through this before so i'm going to wait to see if it heals on its own...otherwise, another trip to the vet!

we heard back from everyone but 1 couple. so far- the count is at 57 which i think is a great intimate number!

this past saturday, my friend (and lovely dog walker, dena) and i drove out east to port jefferson to do a cake tasting. the bakery that our venue uses is called le bonne boulangerie. i was seriously disappointed that they had NOTHING for us to taste, especially since i thought that was the whole point of the appointment and i had spoken with the owner as well as the girls behind the counter numerous times about the fact that i was driving all the way out from the city. eventually, we were allowed to taste a pastry with chocolate mousse inside (one of our filling choices) and it was divine. we decided to go with a beautiful design covered in white ganache (to save money by avoiding fondant but still get that smooth finish) and filled with chocolate mousse and chocolate ganache. joe gave me strict instructions because he couldn't make the appointment. he said chocolate, chocolate and oh, i want more chocolate. :-) yes, he's a total chocoholic, but so am i so i went along with it.

while we were out east, i picked up some local wine to put in the guest baskets/gift bags. can't wait to put those together!

i had my last fitting with a brand new bra! yay! everything looked great and i pick the dress up this friday! i need to drive into the city with my car to pick it up. speaking of the car...joe promises that he'll drive into the city this wednesday to pick up the boxes of mason jars that have been sitting next to my desk at work for the past month. they are for our favors and i can't create the favors until i get those jars home! ugh.

i still have SO much left to do. i'm having trouble focusing at work because i can't stop thinking about all the stuff that needs to get done. this morning, i suddenly remembered that joe needs to get his pants hemmed on his suit and we need to get a marriage license!

more manana!

falling behind schedule

agh! so much left to do! i'm kind of freaking out about everything. plus, work has seriously picked up and i'm going insane there too. agh! i'm actually starting to have panic attacks too! not good!

here's what's been going on:

i went for my 2nd bridal fitting. that went okay, but it was the first time wearing my new shoes and i was standing under hot lights and my feet swelled up! here's the thing- although i won't be under hot lights for the wedding- i'm pretty sure that i'm going to be super anxious and my feet will swell up then too! so i realized pretty fast that i need to have a back up pair of flip flops to wear before and after the ceremony 'cause those nice shoes are only stayin' on my feet for 30 minutes tops. also at the fitting- asked them to make a shawl for me out of the remaining material. my next fitting is on oct 9th, so i'm excited to see how that turns out! i'm also having corset issues, but i'll tell that story another time. haha.

favors! all of the elements i've ordered for it have arrived and i just have to bring those boxes home (they're next to my desk at the office) and start putting everything together. SO excited about those.

a few of my friends/family have told me they never got their invitations. and after all my hard work, that's so annoying! errrrr! not sure why that's happening but i'm fuming about it.

joe and i went to our venue for one last final meeting. we picked out our menu (yay!) and the table linen colors! we decided to go with ivory table cloths with chocolate brown napkins. the pink tablecloths were just way too pink- it seemed like a baby shower color...and they had no apple green...and we didn't want to go with all chocolate brown because it would dark the room quite a bit.

this sunday, we meet with the rabbi. he has to approve the ketubah writing. oh and i have i mentioned that we still don't have our wedding rings yet? and we still haven't received all of our engagement pictures! agh!

okay...more later!

memory board

ok, so i read about how to make a memory board myself and i got to it! i bought a cheap canvas at michaels along with some fabric, batting and ribbon in our wedding colors. i used a staple gun to attach everything to the wood frame on the back, then trimmed all the left over fabric and ribbon. it's important that the ribbon be kept taught because that's how the photos will stay attached.

so...i'll be glueing some buttons where the ribbons cross, but here's a pic of what it looks like so far:
and ok, here's another engagement pic...i was chopping joe's back. :-)


more soon!