Wedding Update

More on wedding.

My last 2 wedding posts were pretty bipolar. One stating relief as having so much time, the next lamenting the time I have. Such is the emotional journey of planning a wedding. Emotional spells aside, it has been a great process so far. Mainly due the the AMAZING and talented people that are in my life!

So far my talented friends that have offered their services include:
Catering
Cake baking
Graphic Design

Calligraphy

Event Coordination
Videography
Engagement Photography
Live Music
And these people are not ametures! Most of them do these things for a living!
I am going to have some major thanks to express whan this is all done.

Most recently, I made my selections for the artisan cheese plates we will be serving. I found a great asset in igourmet.com. This article from Real Simple on The Perfect Cheese Platter helped me a lot as well with deciding how much cheese I'll need to get based on the number of guests and what else is being served.

My cheesy selections include:

Garlic Beemster (a favorite of mine & Stevens for going on picnics):

Cow. Holland. Similar to Gouda - mild, semi soft

Chèvre (one of my favorites):

Goat. France. Creamy, mild, and spreadable

Borgonzola (A blue for Steven):

Cow. Canada by way of Italy. Blue cheese. Rind is soft and creamy (similar to Brie) with Italian Gorgonzola mold veins

Manchego (I met Manchego while working in fine dining)

Sheep. Spain. Zesty and hard but not dry

Irish Cheddar (Irish cheddar is the best cheddar if you ask me)

Cow. Ireland. Strong, biting cheddar, smooth consistency

Wisconsin Colby (represent America!)

Cow. USA. Mild, similar to a young cheddar but more elastic 

Wedding idea of the day:

Write your own vows

Source: oncewed.com via Caitlin on Pinterest

The last 2 days of wear

I've been having fun with the frametastic app on my NEW IPHONE 4S (Pardon me as I do a victory dance for finally joining the world of iPhone users) taking outfit shots.
Here are the last couple days:

Violets are blue and peacocks too!



Could it really be fall??



Wanderlust

I've got an itch! I want to travel somewhere. Pack up and go. Europe? Australia? South America? The Mediterranean? Who cares! Let's go!

Fly me away to where I haven't been.


Hiking and Äscher cliff restaurant
Wasserauen

Wedding Planning Blues

There's something to be said for having a short amount of time to plan your wedding. You don't have time to second guess yourself! I feel like I have second and third guessed myself into a state of confusion.
What am I doing and why!?
I see the draw of elopement and courthouse and destination weddings.
There's so much politics and decisions! I need to simplify.

Wedding Update

I must say, I am glad that I have another 8 months to plan my wedding! These last couple of months have afforded me very little time to plan.
In the midst of packing & moving me and my mom, wardrobing a cast of about 75 for a huge production at work, attempting to maintain my regular office workload, staying involved with family that lives halfway across the nation (not to mention the family that lives locally!), trying to stay connected with friends, and cultivating my (relatively) new relationship with my fiance, we have at least managed to nail down our venue (hooray!), get close to finalizing our guest list, interview a photographer,  contacted Mr. & Mrs. Smith to put down a deposit for our honeymoon, dialogue with my dad about budget, select a design for our save-the-dates, and create a wedding planning website.

We had talked about the perfect wedding location. Steven contacted the owner and we got permission to use it free of charge! Our wedding will be in an airplane hanger in a private airport. It's large anough to have our ceremony and reception set up at the same time. The only transition needed will be to move the chairs from the ceremony area to the tables in the reception area. And it is absolutely what I wanted. A blank slate that we can do what we want with. To add to it, my finace and I get to fly away after the reception!

I AM IN LOVE (of course with the man I am marrying :) but also) with the photographer that I talked to. Their pictures are perfect. I swoon at the sight of them. (check them out here)
Unfortunately they are out of our budget range so the search continues. I am trusting God that we will get connected with just the right photographer. That it will be a win/win for both of us.

I created a website through Google Sites to stay connected with the wonderful people that are involved with planning my wedding. As busy as I have been I wanted a place to have all of my concept photos and information for them to refer to. Especially my sisters who currently reside in Boston.
I used the project wiki template and altered the pages to fit with my needs.
Here is a screen shot of my homepage:

Click to enlarge

I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out. :)


Wedding Idea of the Day:

Wedding Snap App so all guest's iphone/android pics will go to an online wedding album

  

Source: bellethemagazine.com via Caitlin on Pinterest

High Tea Blueberry Mini Muffins (Gluten Free)

I have had several of my girlfriends offer to help with wedding plans so I had them over for high tea on Sunday to fill them in on my plans and let them know the upcoming opportunities to help.
Most of us were too hot to have any tea since we're up to 100 degree weather here in TX so we sipped ginger ale and iced cucumber water and snacked on cucumber sandwiches and mini muffins.
The muffins were quite a hit! I altered this recipe from The Chic Brûlée to make it Gluten free and they turned out wonderful!

Here's what I did:

High Tea Blueberry Mini Muffins
Gluten Free

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, softened
¾ cup sugar plus 1 Tbls. (I used Sugar In The Raw)
2 eggs
½ cup milk (I used goat milk with a dollup of heavy cream)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups GF flour*
      1 cup brown rice flour
      2/3 cup millet flour
      1/3 cup tapioca starch
      1 ½ tsp Xanthan Gum
1 Tbls. baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen

*Note: I ground the millet flour myself in the coffee grinder. 1/2 cup of millet grains will make approx 2/3 cup flour. I ground it & put it in a 1 cup measure and filled the cup the rest of the way with the tapioca starch for the 2nd cup of flour.

Directions:
• Cream the butter and  3/4 cup sugar
• Add the eggs, one at a time
• Add the dry ingredients, alternating with the ½ cup milk
• Fold in the blueberries
• Fill greased mini muffin tins (I greased mine with a silicone basting brush dipped in coconut oil)
• Sprinkle tops with remaining 1Tbls. sugar before baking (or more if you like sugary tops)
*Bake at 350 degrees F for about 15 min, or until golden brown, and when tops spring back when lightly tapped (I checked & rotated every 5 min because I wasn't sure how long they would take since the original recipe was for full sized muffins)

If you don't need to make these Gluten Free, I suggest you try the original recipe on The Chic Brûlée. They look great!


Wedding Idea of the Day:
Airplane garland from old books

Source: stylemepretty.com via Caitlin on Pinterest

The Adventurer....

In setting a wedding budget, it is paramount to first decide priorities. What are we willing to splurge on? What is non-negotiable? What can we cut costs on?

Until the last couple of weeks, my ideas were just a disconnected jumble. My whole thrust was saving money in every way possible (which really isn't all that fun if you ask me). Where's an inexpensive venue? Where can we go for a honeymoon that will be nice and low-cost?
Ah the Honeymoon. This was quite the pickle. We talked about staying in the US to keep airfair costs down. Staying in a boutique hotel somewhere like Seattle that is beautiful but low-key. Nothing really seemed to fit. We had some fair ideas but nothing that got us excited.
The whole time I had been feasting my eyes on images of resorts in the Maldives, South America, Greece, etc. just thinking 'if only...'
When I came upon a certain boutique villa hotel on the island of Santorini, I was stuck. I couldn't think anymore of our cost cutting honeymoon alternatives.
Beautiful Aenaon Villas: a series of sugar cubes descending contrastingly down the mountain between Imerovigli and Oia with stunning views of the Aegean Sea, caldera, volcano, and sunsets galore. Only seven villas, each with a white cloud of a bed and private veranda.
My darling was similarly smitten with the place, leaving us with a decision.

The decision was made: Our #1 priority for our wedding will be the honeymoon.

I've rolled up my sleeves with renewed enthusiasm and vision to plan the ultimate, low cost, DIY, upcycled/recycled wedding that will leave the majority of our wedding monies for our Greek boutique honeymoon.

Life of adventure, here we come!

Behind the title:

My mother and I were discussing the men that me and my sisters are involved with, each of them fitting perfectly with the kind of lifestyle that my mom and I picture working best for each of us. They really do fit who we are: My older sister with The Entrepreneur, my younger with The Prince. It was easy for me to fit my sister's men to their roles/titles but I was stumped when it came to me and my darling. I left the conversation to climb into bed for the night still wondering when my mom texted me: "I like it. The Entrepreneur, The Adventurer, and The Prince." And that is exactly so.

Wedding Idea of the Day:

Send paper airplanes made of old charts and maps sailing as the Bride and Groom make their exit (instead of rice or seeds)

Source: occasionsbylisa.blogspot.com via Caitlin on Pinterest