Stringing Our Guests Along

I’m a big fan of bold table numbers that add to the tablescape rather than blend into the décor. Table numbers like these really inspired me to create numbers that would not only guide our guest to their assigned tables but also add to the overall design of our reception.

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I took inspiration from the last 2 images above and Todd Oldham's string art project in Handmade Modern and mocked up these.

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Although the design is more 70’s inspired, I’m really happy with the overall look of them and think they would fit in nicely on our tables. My only concern is the overall height of the numbers. When placed on the easel the numbers are taller or equal in height with our vases. If I want to remove the easel I need to come up with a way for them to stand up on their own since frame stand is covered by fabric.

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Hive I need your help! Should I keep them on the easel or get rid of it and have them stand alone. Any idea how I can get them to stand up without the easel?

Holiday, O, A Holiday!

The Cotton Candies have officially booked our honeymoon! When we first started discussing possible honeymoon destinations we both agreed that long waits in airports and cramped flights was not what we wanted to experience on our first time away as newlyweds.

We both agreed that ideally we wanted to road trip someplace that we’ve been to in the past and loved, a luxurious room and plenty of amenities at our hotel in case we never wanted to leave our room. Unfortunately luxuries and amenities don’t come cheap and we wanted to keep our hotel costs down in order to have a larger chunk of money for excursions and nights out. After knocking around a couple of local destinations we finally landed on Palm Springs.

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Since June is technically considered Palm Springs off season we were able to score a super deal at the Parker Palms Springs.

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For about half the usual nightly rate we booked one of the Parker’s Estate rooms and will be able to partake in all the amenities the Parker has to offer.

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If you’re interested in heading out to Palm Springs for your Honeymoon or even a Bachelorette party the Parker summer rate special runs from June 1^st till the end of August.

Are any of you planning to stay local for your honeymoon? What’s your destination of choice?

Yummy Yummy In My Tummy!

Finding a caterer has by far been the most difficult wedding task we’ve encountered. We knew we wanted simple comfort food preferably of the Mexican variety. Easy peasy right? Yea, not so much. Many of the catering companies we reached out to either declined to work with a small party like our or required a minimum order that we were unable to reach. I quickly became discouraged and handed the task to my mom and proceeded to ignore it for next month.

Lucky for me I have a resourceful mother. She managed to get me a referral for a local restaurant that specialized in food from the Yucatan region in Mexico which just so happens to be the region that my mother’s from and they offered special events catering! Now before I go on allow me to share with you the tastiness that is Yucatan food. The food is a delicious mix of Mexican, Lebanese and Myan cuisines it is unlike any other Mexican food and it’s the cuisine that I grew up enjoying. Needless to say we were all excited at the prospect of finding a caterer that could provide food authentic Yucatan food for our wedding.

Since the restaurant was local we decided to head over for a Sunday lunch with the family to see if the food was authentic and get the seal of approval from mom. The food was amazing we feasted on Cochinita, Pibil, Kibis and Panuchos and everything was perfect.

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I called up the catering manager the next day and had a pleasant conversation with her regarding our event and possible menu options. She seemed more than willing to work with our small guest count and budget and was genuinely excited about our event. The catering weight had been lifted off my shoulders and I was doing a happy dance! I ended my conversation with the caterers with the understanding that I would follow up with her the following week to nail down menu details and sign a contract all was good in the Cotton Candy household we had a caterer!

I never talked to the restaurant again. Call after call on my part went unanswered and none of my messages were ever returned. Sad doesn’t even begin to describe how I felt after being dissed by yet another caterer. They weren’t just another caterer they were the perfect caterer for us and they dissed us they dissed us hard.

I’m not going to lie to you friend’s ugly tears were shed over our lost caterer and I was less than enthusiastic to begin my search again but I did and we eventually found another caterer that we both love. Hive say hello to Soho Tacos!

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Soho Taco isn’t what you would typically consider wedding food which is ok in our book. They are a gourmet taco catering company that specializes in Mexican tacos catering with a gourmet twist. For our wedding we’ll be going with their premium package which includes our choice of 2 meats and 2 seafood’s, grilled vegies, beans, rice, assorted salsa and guacamole. We’ve also added mine burritos and chile rellenos for our cocktail hour, an assortment of aqua frescas and Mexican sodas, and bartending service.

I’m really happy with our final catering decision, the caterers will be serving tacos for a total of 3 hours which we hope will contribute to the party atmosphere to our wedding and the cost per person is just right for our budget!

Tell me Hive did you get burned by a vendor only to end up with a better deal?

Our Save the Dates Leave the Nest!

After countless of hours designing, screen printing, cutting, gluing and addressing our save the dates are finally ready to head out the door to their new homes!

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When our guests first receive our save the dates they’ll be greeted by a gravel colored A6 enveloped topped off with a wraparound label and lined with a gray chevron printed craft paper.

When designing our save the dates I made a conscious effort to keep them color neutral and let the color and grain of the wood really stand out. The card were designed by me in Photoshop elements and printed by Cards of Wood on walnut veneer. I was a little concerned that the black ink wouldn’t print well on the dark veneer but I’m really pleased with the quality of the print and I love the way the gravel envelope compliments the walnut.

For the magnet I embroidered our design on an 8x10 piece of natural linen and scanned the finish piece into Photoshop. Once re-sized I printed them out on matte photo paper trimmed them and slapped them on to business card sized magnets.

I love our save the dates but I am so happy to see them leave our home. We’re about 2 months behind on sending these out so having them go out the door is a huge weight off my shoulders.

We’re you behind on sending out your save the dates?

Losing my Whoopie Cherry!

Now that we’ve decided to DIY a portion of our dessert buffet I’ve made it my mission to find simple and tasty recipes that even a non-baker like me could whip up. My first attempt came in the form of these tasty morsels-

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Now I know whoopie pies aren’t new on the wedding scene but after whipping up a batch of my own I can honestly say that I understand the hype! These damn things are tasty and super simple to whip up even for a kitchen klutz like me!

My foray into the world of whoopee pies began with the book Whoopie Pies by Sara Billingsley and Amy Treadwell and these so adorable it hurts heart shaped whoopie pie pan from Wilton’s.

After looking over all the recipes in the book I decided to keep it old school and go with the classic chocolate cake with a butter cream filling. I was really pleased with how quickly the recipe came together and even more pleased with the tasty results.

According to the book the whoopie’s can be made up to a month in advance if frozen properly. Since we’ll be incorporating several small bite desserts into our buffet I’m estimating we’ll only need about 3 batches or a total of 48 pies, which shouldn’t be too hard to whip up the week before the wedding.

If you’re interested in baking up some pies of your own there’s a couple handy tips I picked up during my experimentation-

• The book specifically refers to mixing your ingredients with a standing mixer with a paddle attachment but if you’re like me with little to no fancy kitchen equipment a basic hand mixer with standard attachments will do.
• I definitely recommend investing in a pastry bag and tips if you’re looking to get perfectly stacked pies with a plump cushion of filling. The pastry bag is super simple to use and the results are top notch.
• When the book says 10 minute cook time it means 10 minutes! I accidentally left a batch in for 11 minutes and my cakes came out super dry on the other hand when I tried to take them out a minute early the cakes ended crumbly and refused to hold their shape.
• You don’t need a special whoopee pie pan to make whoopies but if you choose to invest in one I recommend spraying your pan with cooking spray before loading it up with mix and using a tooth pick to remove your cooled cakes after baking.

So tell me friends do you plan to bake/cook anything up for your wedding or do you think I’m crazy for planning to DIY part of our dessert buffet?

In Memory of...

This past Valentine's Day in typical Cotton Candy fashion we spent our v-day out shopping at our local Costco and feasting on Costco chicken bakes and hot dogs. Now before you start feeling sorry for us thinking that our relationship is devoid of all things romance you should know that Valentine’s Day has never held much importance to us. See, about 15 years on Valentines Day (6 years before me and J ever meet) Mister Cotton Candy father lost his battle with liver disease and passed away. Needless to say February 14^th is no day for celebration in his family and our relationship.

This was a huge sore spot for me in the first couple years in our relationship. What can I say I was young, dumb and selfish and didn’t understand how the death of his father meant I didn’t get flowers on v-day. Yea, I know I suck and I looking back feel like a total jerk for ever making a day that holds so much sadness for him all about me. Hopefully I’ll be able to right some of these wrongs and honor his dad on a day that his absence will greatly be felt, our wedding day.

One of Mister Cotton Candy's few possessions from his father is his father’s wedding band.

We’ll be handing this precious over to our florist this week before our wedding for her to incorporate into his boutonniere. It’ll be a small but important visual reminder of his father on our wedding day.

How do you plan to honor your departed love ones on your day?

Im with the Band

I knew from about day one of our engagement that I would get a non-traditional wedding band. I wanted something bold and colorful that could be worn without my engagement ring. Something kind of like this-

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With the extra money we saved on Mister Cotton Candy's wedding band we had a pretty healthy sum in our budget to be able to afford almost any band of my choosing. That all change though the day the Misters shared with me his stress over our ever grown budget. In the past couple of months we’ve found ourselves going over budget on big ticket items like photography and rentals and as much as it sucked my wedding band was one place we both saw we could save some money to help cover our overages. It’s not the most ideal situation but since I wasn’t 100% attached to any one ring and considering mister cotton candy's own inexpensive ring purchased I figured it was only fair to limit my own budget.

Since I knew our new ring budget wouldn’t stretch far enough to include gemstones or expensive metals I focused my search on sterling silver bands similar to the one we purchased for the misters several months back. Me being me though I still wanted it to have something special to set it apart from other silver bands and I found it in Tiffany’s sterling silver I Love You ring.

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The ring is a perfect complement to J’s sterling silver band and its petite size means it fits nicely against my engagement ring. I’m really happy with our choice in wedding bands and I’m even happier with their small impact to our budget.

Now the only thing left to do is figure out what in the hell we’re going to have engraved inside them I’m thinking something thing classic like our wedding date or should we go for something quirky?