Dessert + Buffet = Love

I love dessert. Given the choice between a gourmet dinner and desert my choice would be dessert every time. That being said it may surprise you to know that our wedding cake ranks pretty low on our list of wedding priorities. Don’t get me wrong I adore a beautiful wedding but unfortunately is stretched to its max and there is no room for us to go over budget on our cake.

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Sucks I know. What’s even suckier is that I’ve recently fallen in love with the idea of a dessert buffet. With pictures like this can you blame me?

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Sigh, a dessert buffet like the ones above by the ever so talented Sweet and Saucy Bake Shop are for sure unobtainable with our meager budget but J and I have been kicking around some ideas that could bring my dessert buffet vision to life.

For starters to display all our goodies we’ll be using cake stands and trays that we currently own. If we find that we need more we’ll hit up our local thrift store and swap meet. This will keep our display cost to a minimum and leave the bulk of our budget for actual deserts.

As for the actual cakes and desserts we’ll be taking a semi-DIY approach. We’ll be purchasing the actual wedding cake from a local bakery but to cut cost we’ll purchase a smaller cake that feeds about half our guest list. The rest of the buffet will be a mix of yummy Mexican pastries that can be purchased inexpensively at our local panaderia and homemade goodies that hopefully we’ll be able to make in advance and freeze.

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We’re still working out all the details and crunching the numbers to see if this will be a possibility for us but I’m crossing my figures that our dessert vision will become reality.

DIY Photoshot on the Coast

A couple of weeks ago the misters and I decided to getaway for the weekend to Santa Barbara to see one of our favorite bands and to get away from all thing wedding.

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But even the dreamy sounds of my man Paul Banks couldnt keep my mind 100% off wedding. The beautiful beaches of Santa Barbara screamed take a picture of me and we decided to take advantage and stage a DIY photo shot in hopes of getting some quality images for our wedding website.

Armed with a tripod our Cannon 30D and couple of inspiration pics we headed off to find the perfect location. Our first stop was a park off of Cabrillo Blvd were we tried to recreate this picture.

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Yea that was a total fail.

We quickly decided to leave this shot to the professionals and moved on to the vintage carousel.

Much better, We originally wanted to get shots of us riding the carousel but unfortunately there was a 2 dollar charge per person to ride and we only had 2 bucks cash on us. At this point we noticed our camera battery was running out of juice and we decided to head down the coast to get some shots by the beach and possibly some Pictures like this with the our little roundie.

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We were lucky and found a deserted scenic turn off right off the 101 freeway with spectacular views of the ocean and the beach. It was here that we got some of my favorite pictures of the day.

I’m so happy with the images we were able to capture in the short amount of time we were shooting. They are by no means professional photos but compared to our previous eyeball only pics they are a 100% improvement.

If you’re interested in staging your own DIY photo shot there’s a couple of things to keep in mind before you head out

· Clear off a couple of hours on your calendar to dedicate to your shoot. Setting up each shot with the tripod can suck up a lot of your time so you want to make sure you have enough time dedicated to your shoot.

· Do your homework. Scout out possible locations prior to heading out for your shoot and research potential possess. Heading into your photo shot with a good game plan will help you maximize your time while you’re out on location.

· Don’t get to ambitions. Focus on perfecting a few shots rather than getting a lot of mediocre shots. We focused on nailing a few image and ended up with about 7 workable images out of the over 30 pictures we took.

· Your equipment doesn’t need to be high tech all you need is a simple point and shoot with a delayed timer; a tripod and a good working knowledge of your camera and you will be able to get a quality image.

And above everything else have fun! If you’re having fun it’ll show in your images and no amount of posing or expensive equipment can duplicate that.

Our Lips are Sealed

Am I the only one that though they said long as I see you? Yea I didn’t think so but I digress this post isn’t about my annoying habit of mishearing song lyrics. No ma’am today we’ll be discussing my annoying habit of under sharing.

Back in my very first post I mentioned that no one in my office knew that we were planning a wedding which probably left a lot you scratching your head! The reason for that friends is because I'm a notorious under sharer. You've heard of an over sharer well I'm the opposite.

The intimate details of my personal life are on a need to know basis and I very rarely offer up information about myself and my life to people I’ve barley meet. I’m the type of person that will sit with a coworker at lunch and listen to them share details of their weekend but when questioned about my weekend my response is usually a brief fine thank you. It’s a personality quirk that has often gotten me labeled as cold and unfriendly but those who know me best accept this quirk and understand that when I do confide in them and share details of my life it means I have 100% trust in them.

Now you’re probably thinking Cotton Candy you do realize this blog is public for anyone to read and what the shiz does this have to do with weddings? My answer to that is blogging provides a veil of anonymity that real life doesn’t, 100 people can read this blog and I never have to meet them or hear their opinion about our wedding, Our wedding day on the other hand will put a big ol’ spotlight on me and J and our (very) personal life.

Wedding by nature and especially DIY wedding like ours are meant to be a personal reflection of the couple and the best ceremonies are crafted to reflect the couple and provide guest an intimate glimpse into their lives together. See the problem? I’m a little anxious about not only being the center of attention on our wedding day but also putting Mister Cotton Candy and I relationship and private life out there for all to see. Lucky for me we've come up with some wedding day strategies to help ease my anxiety and make our day feel more personal us and our guests.

· Keep our guest list small. Every single person on our list is near and dear to us and have watched us grow together as a couple. Our guest list is currently hovering at about 65 and I couldn’t be happier with it.

· Have a first look. The first time J and I see each other on our wedding day will be just the 2 of us and our very stealth photographer. This moment will be just for us and it’s the part of the day that I’m looking forward to the most.

· Have a close friend officiate our wedding. My sister/MOH boyfriend of over 4 years has stepped up to the task of officiating our wedding so there won’t be any need for us to share details of our relationship with a stranger for our ceremony.

So tell me are you an information hoarder like myself, do you have an personality quirks reeling their ugly heads as you plan your wedding?

Vintage Haul

Recently the misters and I spent an afternoon shopping in Old Town Pomona Antique Row in search of Vintage cake plates for our desert buffet (more on that to come soon!). We struck out on the cake plates but I was able to pick up these pretties to add to my wedding day look.

I was practically giddy when I came across the beaded clutch. I’ve been searching for a vintage embellished clutch for some time now and this one fit the bill perfectly. Based on the condition of the beading and the lining I’m guessing it’s at the earliest from the 70’s.

I’m not 100% decided on the earrings but at 5 bucks they were too good of a deal to pass up. My one grip about them is the left earring is missing one of its bottom tear drops. I’ve shown my mom and a couple of my bridesmaids to see if they notice the difference and they all agree that with my hair down the difference won’t be noticeable.

What do you think is the missing crystal negligible or should I keep looking for the perfect pair of earrings?

Flowers- The Details

Previously I shared with you these flower inspiration pics-

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After some discussion with our coordinator and florist we’ve narrowed down our flower to the following-

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Our reception flowers will be a mix of tall short and bud vases staggered across the long table similar to the picture above. The tall arrangements will have a single stem of Phalaenopsis orchids in these vases I picked up at Target a couple months back.

I absolutely adored these vases at first sight. Unfortunately for me the store we were in only had 2 in stock so we had to spend several weeks visiting 4 different targets to collect enough for our wedding.

For our small arrangements we’ve been collecting milk glass bud vases from our local thrift stores and swap meet and they will have a mix of Fiji mums, tulips and ranunculus’s.

Since I trust my florist 100% I didn’t bring any bouquet or boutonniere inspiration photos with me to our meeting. The only idea I came to the table with was wrist corsages for my girls and hints of sparkle in the form of hand wired brooches for both their flower and mine similar to this picture-

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Other than that our personal flowers are a mystery and I’m actually excited about it. Bridesmaid S and her mom are super talented and creative and know our wedding and personal style so well that I know on our day we won’t be disappointed.

Dresses and BBQ

This past weekend my mom hosted a BBQ at our family home for the sole purpose of sitting down and speaking with my seamstress. While some may think it’s odd to discuss the details of a wedding dress over a plate of yummy yummy chicken and pasta salad to my ultra-traditional Mexican mom this is just the way things are done and I wasn’t complaining. we had an excuse to gather up our wedding party, pig out on tasty food and talk dress sounds like a good time all around.

After helping ourselves to some yummy food we sat down to discuss budget and what would look best on my body we came to the decision that the dress would be have a cap sleeve Illusion top sweet heart bodice with an A-line skirt with a high low heam line. Need a visual? Yea me too!

The bodice will be very similar to this one and will also include the crumb catcher waist detail-

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The only exception will be the neckline which will be shaped similar to this one-

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The skirt of the dress will be an A-line with my beloved high low hemline. I was a little worried that I would get some resistance when I shared my inspiration for the skirt but everyone including my mom were excited when I showed them the pic.

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Next step will be to start sourcing fabric, I’m 90% sure well be going with a Silk Dupioni for the skirt but as of today I’m undecided on the type of lace for the bodice. I’m leaning towards an Alencon lace but budget will determine our final decision.

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Construction on the dress won’t begin until about the 1^st week in April which sounded kind of late for me but she reassured me that the construction and fittings shouldn’t take more than a month so all should be good to go for our June wedding date.

So what do you think? Am I crazy to wait until 2 months out from our date to begin construction on my dress?