Sniff, Cough Cough, Sneeze

I'm sick. It's horrible, why did I get the flu shot if this was going to happen? Grrrr, I do not heart the medical community right now.

Whats worse, is this head and chest cold seems to be making me a wee bit loopy and unable to concentrate. Well, it's that or the meds I'm taking.

Here's an example of loopy - I'm in a panic about napkins. NAPKINS! I'm looking everywhere for personalized cocktail napkins for the wedding, in a very specific design (because I just can't make anything easy) and for some reason I'm utterly obsessed with this even though there is 6.5 months to the wedding.

Freak much? I know, right?!

I've looked everywhere for the things, and I know I saw them at one point when I didn't need them. Isn't that always the case? Now I can only find them in sets of 100 for an obscene amount for an item that will wipe and be be tossed. So now the penny pincher in me kicks in and digs deeper and deeper into the Web searching for that one perfect site with my design for that amazing price.

I should just give up and take a nap. Maybe come back when the computer screen isn't a total blur and I can go 5 minutes with out sneezing and running the risk of sprinkling germs all over my sacred computer area.

Okay I'm off - bed time for me!

Creative and Strange Wedding Cakes

These are some very strange and very creative wedding cakes! I couldn't believe some of them - check out the first one, made from all Hostess products! Not a half bad idea for a kids birthday party either.

This one I'm really hoping was the Grooms Cake, but more power to them if it wasn't....
And this last one is my favorite, a few things come to mind when I look at it - the first is that it gives new meaning to the term "eat me"....and the second makes me wonder if they will save her head in the freezer for their 1 year anniversary.

Time to Boogie - and I need YOUR help! (Poll)

My next project is to come up with the play list for the wedding. I know, most people would hire the DJ and say "Have at it", but I have these aunts who still think it's 1980 sometimes and they would swill back too many Bacardi Cokes and harass the DJ all night with requests. I love Cyndi Lauper as much as the next gal, but I want to keep the mix of music even over all decades. So to save him some trouble and myself....I'm going the play list route.

Now, I'm not planning to cover the whole evening, just most of it. I want to leave some room for requests and I do have a lot of faith in Alpha Beat, my DJ service. So I'm asking all of you out there, yes even you lurkers out there - to come out of your shells and lend me a hand with it. Help me make my reception one heck of a night....

**Here's what I need**

Pop me a comment to this post with your TOP 5 FAVORITE SONGS. Any type, any era, dance, slow, country - ANYTHING. Please just make sure you accompany the song title with and artist.

Thanks everyone! You're help is ever so appreciated!

I Heart Photography

You know when you look through magazines and see a photo and go, Oh, wow!" and just gasp!?

That's the kind of photography I wanted for my wedding and engagement.

On top of this requirement, both Mr Sweeney and I had incredibly high standards for photographers as we've both worked in the field in one way or another during our life time. Our perfect photographer was right under our nose the entire time and it didn't take a second thought for us to book Kari Layland Photography .

Kari and I had worked together at a local photo studio some years back and happened across each other by chance on myspace one day, which is very fitting as thats where me and Mr Sweeney met as well! After taking some fun shots of us at a waterfall back in 2005 we knew from here on out, no one else would in charge of capturing the greatest moments in our families life!

Our engagement shoot was done in Minneapolis Minnesota - basically wandering around the city and taking advantage of any landscape that presented itself. Kari caught my favorite photo of Mr S and I dancing in an ally with a trumpeter playing in front of us by seeing the opportunity and taking it! We were actually done with our shoot and on our way back to the car when we passed this man playing his heart out. She suggested we go dance behind him, and we have the most amazing photo now because of it! The trumpeter never stopped playing, he was right in the moment as well I guess! We left him a nice big tip in his suitcase and ended the session with perfection!

She took so many wonderful photos, choosing from the dozens of shots was tough, but in order to not over run this blog with tons of photos!!!! And for fun towards the end I will add in some of the fun shots taken back in 2005 at the waterfall ;-)






And here are some of our photos from the year before at Willow River State Park in Hudson Wisconsin - yeah amazing, we were in Wisconsin and not a cow or block of cheese to be found!



If you're still looking for a wedding photographer - check her out, she will travel! She's worth it! I couldn't ask for a better, more detailed oriented person to be taking care of capturing the biggest day of my life!

If you get a chance check out her web site, and see all the amazing photos she's taken! Kari Layland Photography Pass her name on to anyone in Minnesota or Wisconsin, her talent is unbeatable!

Finding my Center.... (Piece)

I took a little inspiration from Mrs Lemon on Wedding Bee, the magical appearance of great clearance items at Target and my highly creative future mother in law, and made my self the most perfect table centerpieces for the reception!

Here's a step by run down of what I did, where I got it and what it looks like....on my pool table anyway....since the wedding isn't until August.

Mrs Lemon gave me the idea of hitting up Ikea, but not limiting myself to the the candle holders only in their Home Decor area, but to venture out in to the wilderness of the Kitchen department as well. And I have to say - she was right, I made some pretty good finds!


The first one is my main piece, the center of the center piece if you will...

MJOD designed to be a 22 oz Beer glass, which I found in the Kitcehn area of course. It comes 6 to a pack for $6.99, I bought up 4 packs for a grand total of $27.96


Next tallest is also a glass designed for drinking from called SVALKA
They are 4 inches tall and come 6 to pack like the larger ones. They are bit cheaper, coming in at $4.99 a box.
(They kind of appear square in this photo from some reason but they are in fact round.)
I bought up 12 boxes as I intended to have 2-3 per center piece, for a grand total of $59.88

The last glass item I bought from Ieak that day was GLIMMA an actual item created for candles. They are 1 inch tall tea light holders, I should note these are for the 10 hour tea lights, which are a great deal larger then the regular ones you buy in a bag at Target.
The also came 6 to a pack, in a plastic round tube packaging, found in the Home Decor section. I bought up 12 backs of these at $1.29 each tea light holder for a Grand Total of $99.00

Matching GLIMMA CANDLES are sold in packs of 24 for $4.99, these are the 10 hour brun time candles. I got 4 packs for a Grand total of $19.96

The candles I used for the largest holder is called FLORERA they are 25 hour burning candles, 4 inches in height. The site says $1.49 each but I know I only paid .99 each and I needed 24 of them for a Grand Total of $23.76.


The one thing I had a hard time finding at Ikea was simple and plain votive holders and votive candles of standard size. I needed them to complete the look, so I popped over to www.candles4less.com and bought up a box of 144 votives with candles in them for a total of $80, I also bought a box of votives for the medium holders but got the wrong size and have to reorder some more and I'm thinking I will get these I just have to double check the size and make sure they will fit.

Here's the pictures of the set up on the black sparkley chargers I picked up at Target on clearnace for $1.27 a box of 4. I'm going to be 2 short because I only bought enough for 22 tables, and now I need 24 or 25. I'll make due I think that the extras just won't go on chargers. Grand Total for those is $12.00.

You have to imagine the frosted ones are replaced with the clear ones though. I didn't gt a chance to shoot off some new pics of them in the set up yet.

You can see the sparkle in the plate - it looks like white specs, but it's glitter. Don't mind the pics, I shot these on the pool table

So all in all I spent a grand total of: $239.00 and divide that by 24 tables and it's $9.96 per center piece, with left over candle holders for the cake table and head table! Not bad!!!!! And the nice thing, everything is ok to sell afterwards in most cases and I can use these things around the house if not so I'm not throwing anything away!

I move to strike Bride-zilla and enter for vote: "Guest-zillias"

I always head the term "Bride-zilla" before I myself got engaged. I watched tv shows about them, and heard what seemed to be legitimate horror stories about them even. It wasn't until I began planning my own wedding, and talking with other to-be-brides that I began to realize, Bride-zilla's do not start out as such, they are created!

Example:
It started simply, a planning decision between Mr S and I, no kids at the reception other then the ones in the wedding party. The reasoning was we couldn't afford $1000 extra dollars for chicken fingers and inviting the children would mean bumping off adults to keep within the amount of people allowed at our venue. This seemed ridiculous to us, sacrifice having our good friend there so that a cousin could bring her 7 children for a free meal?

More then that, we are having our wedding at a private country club, where we are not allowed to be wandering about the club house or the golf course. And I, being the type of person I am will spend the majority of my wedding day tracking down missing 6 year olds because I do not want to have to pay the fine or deal with being lectured by management.

Could I have chosen a more kid friendly place? Sure. Would I if I went back and started over. No way. I'm not having a children's birthday party, I'm getting married. That day in my life I've been dreaming about for decades! There will be no balloons, crayons or ponies. This is an adult celebration, and it should be treated as such.

Tiny bits of Bride-zilla begin to creep in about this time. As I'm actually faced with accommodating other people for MY day. When you write it out like that and reread it....it not only looks stupid it sounds that way too. I'm not having this party for the benefit of anyone but my husband and myself and now I'm being considered a "Bride-zilla" because I don't want to go broke feeding children?

Example #2:
I have a a good friend who has a boyfriend. Lot's of them do - and in most cases, so and so would be invited as "Miss Blah Blah and Guest". This case is a bit different, I've invited her and her parents who are good friends of mine as well. The invite is to be addressed to her parents and her, specifically. Now, etiquette states that NO ONE other then those listed directly on the envelope or inner envelope should the invite have one, is invited. This means if you get invited to a wedding and the invite does not say "And family" LEAVE YOUR KIDS AT HOME!

Well, this friend has stated that she will be bringing her boyfriend, regardless of the lack of invitation. So I should bite my tounge, set an extra place setting and deal...right?
Well no.
This boyfriend of hers is not exactly..... whats the word I am looking for..... - normal? Okay, I don't really punish people for lack of normality - if I did I'd be punishing myself frequently. When I say "not normal" I mean, in no way will he get along with anyone a the reception, and he fails to grasp any normal out look on society or life. He's anti-black, and I'm not talking the crayon....I'm talking people. My little sister is black. I have other family that is as well, those are not conversations that will be happening at my wedding - or ever if I can help it. He believes white is the superior race, Hi Ho Hitler and all that.

I'm proud of freedom of speech, I believe you have your right to have any belief system you want. With that comes my freedom to tell you to take a flipping leap off a building if you support something as terrible as white supremacy. I've stood at Auschwitz, and I'm sorry - I'm having a celebration of love - and that my friend will not include the spawn of Hitler!

This too has me being called a "Bride-zilla" WTF!?

Do you see how stupid this is? How can I honestly be called this when all I'm doing is protecting my day and creating something that me and Mr S want? I don't even know the guy in the last story there, never met him in my whole life. And I have had sleepless nights about how he's going to show up anyway and destroy my day, wondering should I even still invite these people....

Shouldn't there be "Guest-zillas"?! Honestly, they are the ones who through fits, call names when things don't go as they want. Why do Brides get bad reps when all they are doing is planning their wedding? I have seen people who's bridesmaids have changed their dress color with out even asking them, and then getting irked at the bride for being called out on it....HELLO! How many weddings have you seen and been in? The bride kinda picks out that thing, and if you look like a cow in it....deal - it's not your day and no one's looking at you anyway!

I apologize for the rant and rave about this, but we do get a bad rep - and often change our dreams and hopes to suit people we really don't know. And that's unfair! We only get the chance to be a Princes Bride once (in most cases...lol) we should get to do it that way we want to!

What do you mean Charm City Cakes doens't deliver to Minnesota?!

If anyone has seen Ace of Cakes on the Food Network, you'll know that Charm City Cakes owned and operated by Duff Goldmen in Baltimore MD, is quite possibly to coolest place on the planet to have a wedding, birthday or any cake for that matter made. You want a big pink roller skate...you can have it. A life size replica of an acoustic guitar, you got it! A gigantic , edible Cannon Camera for the photographer in the family, they say "Hey, no problem!". What about a realistic bucket of paint for that hard working man of yours? They say "Bring it on!"

With all the possibilities, the dedication and talent of the people employed by CCC it's not too hard to see why, when we started looking at wedding cakes I fist went to their web site to see if they delivered to Minnesota. I knew I was setting my self up for utter disappointment - what are the chances that they would deliver half way across the country? And I was right, unless I wanted to drive out there to get it myself, which they very highly suggest against for cakes do not travel well, I was not going to have a Duff Goldmen creation at my wedding.

I was not deterred yet however, I mean where there is one genius of fondant there had to be more, right? I began to scour the Twin Cities for a mid - western version of Duff and his crew. I called very place in the phone book, checked the internet, and nothing. I mean nothing.

Sure, I could find a million places that would fill my every desire of an over the top wedding cake, but if I wanted some kind of personalized grooms cake, there was no way. No one would step outside the cake pan.

After writing the grooms cake option out of the budget and setting out to find something else to surprise my future husband with the day of the wedding, I stumbled across a web site that suddenly filled all my cake dreams and desires. Miss Sara's Cakery located in Hastings Minnesota. And they will deliver! I looked over the web site, all the while wondering how this slipped past me before, saddened that I no longer required a grooms cake. Yet I still decided needed more cake, and proceeded to discuss the possibility of placing an order with her.

I won't disclose why or for what occasion Miss Sara will be baking me up some cakey goodness so as not to ruin the surprise for who it may be for. I am planning several parties for family members and wedding related items before Augugst next year...it could be for anyone. I will be sure to tell you how it turns out when I get it. What I can tell you right now is that based on the web site shots and the several e-mails I've exchanged with her, should the cake be anywhere near as great as her personality and her samples....I have nothing to worry about and the recipient will be tickled pink!

top right photo from www.charmcitycakes.com. Bottom left photo from of www.misssarascakery.com