reception

It’ll Be 5:30 Somewhere!

Third Time Wife, Wedding Planning

Under any other circumstances, mid-morning might be a smidgen early to start serving alcohol, but since it is a wedding and it does fall in the acceptable brunch imbibing zone, I don’t think too many folks will bat an eye at it. Though some will undoubtedly try to ease the social stigma of morning drinking by joking about it being “5 o’clock somewhere.”

(For kicks and giggles I looked it up: it’ll be 5:30 in Greece when our cocktail hour starts.)

Whatever.

For those not quite ready to partake of our signature cocktail (more on that in a minute), we will have other bevvies available, of course!

Honey Lake didn’t really have a brunch-level event package when we booked with them, so that meant we could pretty much cobble together what sounded good to us from their standard event menus. Since they do business retreats and the like, they did have options for breakfasts, so what we did was request the “Free Range Continental”

Assorted Breakfast Pastries and Muffins, Bagels with Cream Cheese, Fresh Whole Fruit, Fresh Squeezed Orange Juice, Freshly-Brewed Regular and Decaf Coffee, Assorted Herbal Teas and Water

but asked to take out the bagels & schmear (a little involved for mingling—breaks the 2-bite rule) and sub for it one of their Display Options: the “Imported and Domestic Artisanal Cheese Board”

Assortment of hard & soft cheeses from around the world, organic fruit, marcona almonds, crafted breads, quince jam, tupelo honey.

for a slight upcharge for the usual continental price.

We’ll have the usual high-top tables scattered around the bend of the fountain circle for people to cluster about (haven’t discussed whether or not there will be chairs set out—I vote no to encourage mingling, but we’ll see), the guest “book” set up on a table in front of the fountain, and an antique desk holding our programs (that will get its own post soon). Both Mr. Road Trip and I will be there greeting our guests and taking some semi-candid photos during that time (having gotten the family formals out of the way just before).

But, of course, it wouldn’t be cocktail hour without a cocktail!

I’m in 100% agreement with the practice of having a signature cocktail to both cut down on bar costs and to personalize the event that much more. And creating cocktails is something I really enjoy doing, so it was a no-brainer that we’d be coming up with something very us for the wedding.

Brunch cocktails usually fall into the Mimosa or Bloody Mary camp, and since our wedding is wine-themed, it makes sense to go with the former and use a sparkling wine as the base for our cocktail. I actually have my own signature drink, The Snarky Tart, that I created years ago and I wanted to include a nod to that, and other flavors that we both enjoy.

This is what our tasting session looked like, trying to figure out which bubbly to use…

Which bubbly will it be? | personal photo

Which bubbly will it be? | personal photo

Oh, the rigors of wedding planning 😉

What did we decide on? Stay tuned…

Sweetheart Table: Oasis or Exile?

Third Time Wife, Wedding Planning

So. Sweetheart tables are a definite thing in weddings these days.

It's sweet and all, but doesn't it look a little lonely, too? | Image via Style Me Pretty | Photo by Anna Kuperberg

It’s sweet and all, but doesn’t it look a little lonely, too? | Image via Style Me Pretty | Photo by Anna Kuperberg

I’m not sure how I feel about this trend.

On the one hand…

If it’s been all day and you’ve just barely seen your beloved during the ceremony and pictures, having a little space of your own probably sounds like a good idea. A time to catch your breath together.

On the other hand…

How much time are you going to spend at that table, anyway, if the whole point of having a reception is to share your day with your guests? And while I love spending 1-on-1 time with Mr. Road Trip, I’m afraid I’d be distracted by the other tables around us anyway, not to mention wondering what they were talking about!

Sure, it takes care of the who-do-we-sit-with dilemma: parents? bridal party? people we haven’t seen for years who flew across country to spend a couple hours with us? But I’m not sure it’s the best solution. More like, if I can’t sit with everyone, I’ll sit with no one, and that sounds almost more spiteful than practical. (But, really, I can see where it’s the only sane option if tensions are running high.)

At the same time, if you’re constantly up visiting other tables and trying to say hellos and cutting cake and tossing garters and bouquets and catching various photo ops, that sweetheart table is just another still-life photo op in the waiting. A cute one, but you could stage any 2 chairs with signs for Mr & Mrs and have done with it.

Image via Style Me Pretty | Photo by Miki & Sonia Photography

Wouldn’t this just be amazing?! | Image via Style Me Pretty | Photo by Miki & Sonia Photography

Personally, I love the one long table option but that’s not really practical for all groups or all spaces. And Mr. Road Trip wasn’t really a fan of it, either, when I brought it up one night at dinner. But, then, as is usually the case, Mr. Trips had a brilliant idea that we–due to having changed our original plans for our reception vision–now cannot really use. But I’d like to offer it up to you as a possible solution:

Table. Hopping.

Now, not just going from table to table while everyone else is eating, but actually having 2 seats at every table reserved for the newlyweds so you can go from table to table, sit down, eat a little something, and converse a bit with your guests.

Granted, this works best with a tapas-style or tasting menu where there are as many courses as tables, but tasting menus are actually gaining ground in the catering world, so it’s not incredibly far-fetched. (Sure, they’re gaining ground now–2 years ago when I was approaching caterers with request idea everyone and their cousin was pushing stations, stations and only stations. Sigh…) It’s a little like speed dating at your wedding, but I still love this idea and think that guests would really adore it, too.

So, hive,  let this be a lesson: just because your groom-to-be isn’t all up on the latest wedding tricks and trends, doesn’t mean he might not have a brilliant, left-field suggestion ready to pop out as the perfect solution. And if you’ve done this or plan to do this, I totally want to hear how it went/goes!

Achievement Unlocked: Guest “Book”

Third Time Wife, Wedding Planning

With so many options out there for creative guest books, it’s easy to fall into option overload and not be able to decide. This is where having a theme or over-riding idea can really help narrow the options to the ones that really drive that home.

In our case, I was looking for something easy to sign and collect that suited our vineyard theme. It’s not exactly a big leap to corks, now is it?

Recycled Corks, image via Amazon.com

Recycled Corks, image via Amazon.com

Depending on the size of your wedding, your drinking habits (and those of your friends and family), and how much time you’ve got it’s not unreasonable to collect all the corks yourself. Of course, as the wine industry goes to synthetic corks and screw-top bottles for various reasons, that might get a little tougher, so lucky for us that plenty of places sell both used and unused corks.

Now, having crafted with corks before, it might be easier for folks to sign fresh corks as opposed to used ones that might be brittle or uneven in shape. We’ve got quite a collection already going but there’s also a homebrew shop just down the road that sells fresh corks by the bag-full for not very much cash. That’s good no matter how you slice it.

Corks on their own will roll around if not corralled, so the next decision was how to hold them–both before and after signing.

For before a bowl or vase with a large opening works best, allowing for people to easily reach in and grab one without too much fuss. Several years ago I was gifted a lovely Block Tulip Garden crystal vase that I think will fit the bill nicely.

image via Winestuff.com

image via Winestuff.com

Once signed, the corks will go into this wire cork cage shaped like a wine bottle. Mr. Road Trip actually gifted me (us) this for our first engaged Christmas so it’s been sitting patiently in its box for over a year, now, waiting for it’s day in the spotlight.  Add a couple of fine-point permanent markers (possibly painted or beribboned to dress it up a bit) and a sign and you’ve got our guest book.

We could just leave the corks in their cage and set the whole kit and kaboodle on the mantle or some place and let it collect dust. Or we could use the signed corks to build a frame around one of our wedding photos in a shadowbox. In other words, I’ll have my wine-themed, semi-unique guest book and my displayable photo mat all at one go!

How did you solve your guest book dilemma?

Searching for Inspiration: the Guest Book

Third Time Wife, Wedding Planning

The guest book is one of those bits of wedding decor that actually has an honest-to-goodness purpose–it even gets int’s own table, putting it right up there with the cake in level of importance.

Darice Guest Book set, image via Amazon.com

Darice Guest Book set, image via Amazon.com

And, yet, after the wedding the guest book generally gets shoved into a box or onto a shelf, seldom to be looked at again.

Hardly seems fair, right?

Which is why I always thought, even when I wasn’t considering another marriage as a possibility, that having guests sign a photo mat that could then be hung in the home with a picture from the day made much more sense in the grand scheme of things.

Darice Signature Mat, image via Amazon.com

Darice Signature Mat, image via Amazon.com

And those crafty wedding vendors have even come up with a silver version with an engraving pens, just so you don’t have to worry about the mat clashing with whatever decor you have in your home.

 

Engraved Photo Mat by Cathy's Concepts

Engraved Photo Mat by Cathy’s Concepts (image via Amazon)

Then again. I’m not sure the signatures would be easily seen once hung on the wall, they might look more like scratches.

At any rate, I figured a signature mat was the way we’d go and considered the matter closed.

Until I found wedding blogs and saw all of the creative ways brides and grooms were collecting these mementos of their guests!

Thumbprint Wedding Tree, image via Thumbprint Guest Books

Thumbprint Wedding Tree, image via Thumbprint Guest Books

The thumbprint posters are absolutely adorable and I could have easily drawn one suited to us (a bunch of grapes, perhaps?) but I have a hunch that many of our friends would balk at the idea of leaving their thumbprint anywhere not legally mandated. We have some suspicious friends.

Envelope-filled guest album via Style Me Pretty Photography: Charlotte Jenks Lewis Photography

Envelope-filled guest album via Style Me Pretty
Photography: Charlotte Jenks Lewis Photography

Going back to the more traditional guest book, this book of envelopes is very nice–like storybooks with little extras, those envelopes just beg to be opened and the nice and funny notes inside read.

Wedding Guestbook pages from The Guestbook Store

Wedding Guestbook pages from The Guestbook Store

As a scrapbooker, of course I liked this idea of the the fill-in-the-blanks guest book with places for pictures, etc. Of course, these sorts of pages expect guests to spend a certain amount of time filling them out, and I’d rather folks have time to mingle than have their heads down over a page. Those that would even bother, that is.

"where is my birthday" Guest Book Calendar

From Flickr user vjoyking, a “where is my birthday” guest book calendar

And this guest book calendar is inspired! Having each guest sign on their birthday is not only unique but useful, too! You’ll never have an excuse for forgetting Aunt Martha’s birthday again. Of course, a perpetual calendar would also work well for this, it doesn’t have to be tied to a single year.

Guest Bench by Knocked Off Photo by Scott V.

Guest Bench by Knocked Off
Photo by Scott V.

Revisiting the more out-of-the box solutions, this guest bench is a lovely keepsake for a home, which brings up the idea that pretty much anything a person can sign is fair game for a guest “book” stand-in.

So what would we, wine lovers having a vineyard-themed wedding, choose to use as our signature item of choice?

All in good time… (meaning next update, of course!)

About the Cake…

Third Time Wife, Wedding Planning
(personal photos)

(personal photos)

Pretty, huh? All of the above are personal pictures of cakes I’ve made for other brides and grooms. Not only did I used to spend my spare time decorating cakes (for fun and, occasionally, profit), I also used to be a Wilton Method Instructor and taught other folks how to do it.

Which is why this next bit might be a touch surprising:

I don’t want a wedding cake.

I know! I know. It may not make sense, at first, but hear me out. I have a few reasons for this:

  1. Wedding cakes are expensive (for a reason!)–even the basic models start around $2 a slice and I wouldn’t want a basic, blah, boring cake.
  2. Our wedding will be a small group and, really, a cake to feed 50 will look so very tiny unless we do a bunch of fake layers underneath to give it some presence (I know, I’ve done it both ways).
  3. There’s no way I’d be willing to do it myself. Even when I loved doing them, it was more a love-hate thing going on.
  4. No one else would be able to please me. I’m a perfectionist and a control freak and having spent years nose-deep in icing I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from critiquing whomever we ordered from and, truly, it would never satisfy me.

Luckily, having alternatives to a traditional wedding cake is nothing new to today’s brides (though the guests might still be a smidgen puzzled over it) and options abound:

  • Tower of cupcakes–offers variety and easy serving sizes and I do have to admit, the cupcake stands are neat to look at.
  • Tower of cream puffs–go French with a croquembouche; if your area is cool enough and lacking in humidity, a spun-sugar “cage” is a very nice touch.
  • Cake buffet–instead of one big cake, why not lots of normal-sized cakes of different flavor combinations to choose from?
  • Dessert buffet–who says it has to be cake? Pies, tartlets, cookies and whatever else your sweet tooth desire can be arranged on a variety of pretty plates and stands.
  • Ice cream sundae bar with various flavors, toppings and bases (brownies and pound cake, anyone?).

When I first confessed my disinterest in having a traditional wedding cake to Mr. Road Trip, he laughed but understood (he was there, incidentally, when I made my brother’s cake the year before and learned just how and why I feel the way I do about them). We joked that if it was truly a reflection of us and our favorite sweet, then the “cake” would need to be Oreos, as the double-stuffed fudge ones are one of the few indulgences we keep around the house.

Of course, since the initial decision to forgo the big spectacle cake was reached, some health issues have come up for me which mean staying away from wheat (among other things–I’ll go into that when we get closer to our tasting). This means I will definitely be making at least some of the items for our dessert buffet, both to make sure that there are safe sweets for me to eat as well as them being up to my admittedly high standards. But we’ll also be contacting the few bakeries in town that have wheat-free options available so that I don’t have to do it all.