Cupcake Kits

This is very cute for those that want to do cupcakes instead of a wedding cake. I'd think this would be very cute as mini cupcakes too. $12.00 for 24 cupcake cases.

By Meri Meri

Cake Toppers

I love cake toppers that mean something to a couple. I especially love double duty wedding items. Basically things you can reuse after the wedding. Check out these salt and pepper shakers that can be cake toppers.Very cute. More salt & pepper suggestions...

Crafting with Jullie

I found this lady, Jullie, who's pretty talented in knitting. She makes knitted mini people. If I had found her earlier enough, I may have brought it up to Ira to consider as a cake topper. Doing further investigation on her, it looks like she needs at least 2 months notification to be able to be completed in time. Now that the wedding is over, I still may consider her talents for future gifts. Here are some of my favorites from her.

Wedding Decor

I love all our wedding pieces. Just love them!Ceremony ProgramCeremony Aisle FlowersIra's "Big Daddy" Pimp cup. Courtesy of his big brother. Sand Pouring

Hoppa FlowersCenterpieces.Cake. Best cake every! (Top to bottom: Coffee, Mocha, Strawberry). No fondant! All buttercream icing and goodness! This cake was so moist and yummy. My aunt did a great job!

Introducing: Mr. & Mrs. Gummy Bear!

Centerpieces are Complete

Okay, they have been for a long while. I've just been M.I.A. because I've been so busy. I'm very excited for the centerpieces.

This was all created by my cousin, her husband, my dad (who assembled the whole thing), and my aunt. The wine bottle will actually have a branded label that has the table name on it. We decided on Rock Band song titles. =) I love Immigrant Song. hehe.

Pieces of the centerpiece:

• Staves of a wine barrel (Courtesy of my cousin)
  
• Dried Grapevines (Courtesy of my cousin and uncle)
  
• Sticks
• Grapes
• Ribbon
• Empty wine bottle (Courtesy of my cousin)

Centerpieces

To go with our winery location, we're going to tie in the centerpieces to it. My cousins husband makes his own wine, so he's got quite a bit of wine barrels laying around the shed. He's going to cut it up into pieces for us. We're going to use that as the base for our centerpiece, add some dried grape vines, tie them together with ribbon and add fruit on top. Add some fruit leaves to it, add candles, maybe a few flowers, and poof! We've got ourselves our centerpieces. Very simple. Plus, our guests have extra things to take home and eat. Our sample doesn't look as nice as what we envision it will look like, but it still works. Simple, less work, and it matches the winery. Well, maybe we'll make the wine barrel pieces a little thicker. Either way, I think it's cute.

Bijan Bakery

After our E-Session with Augie, we went to our first cake testing session at Bijan Bakery. They have beautiful cakes. They also had great cakes. Our top 3: Mocha, Hazelnut & Mango. We were pleasantly surprised that they make their fondant quite different than anywhere else we've tasted. Their fondant is actually edible! It's also pretty thin, so the downside (or upside...) is that they put a layer of buttercream first, and then the fondant. So you basically end up with 2 coatings. We really liked this tilted cake that they had on display. I should have taken a picture, but I found some pictures online that look somewhat similar. It was an offwhite/peachy color, 3 tiered cake. Since our guest list is about 800, we could've gone with either a 4 tiered cake or a 3 tiered cake with a sheet cake on the side. Unfortunately, their pricing is a little out of our range. It was almost $1,000 for a 3 tiered cake and a sheet cake on the side. To be honest, we didn't want to spend that much on a cake. That's okay. We did learn a lot. We learned that we may have to go with a fondant cake even though we don't want to because it will hold up better in the heat. Either way, this just means that there's more taste testing ahead.

Cute tilting cake that we really like.

Menu: Entrees

The entrees have been decided. We haven't decided on the appetizers cause they were all pretty good. But that can wait.

Salad: Caesar Salad or Greek Salad

Prime Rib au Jus: Slow roasted, rosemary & garlic encrusted with redskin mashers

Mesquite Chicken: Marinated double breast with wild rice pilaf & dark reduction sauce.

Pasta Pomodoro: Penne Rigate with rice tomato sauce & parmesan

I didn't really like the salmon and Ira was just, "eh" about it, so we decided to just take it out and have the third option be the vegetarian plate. Typical wedding food. I would originally want to make the food really really good, but that tends to cost more. Oh well. The cake will be really yummy. =)