US meets UK

So Nick and I have begun to look at invitations. By Nick and I, I really mean I’ve been google-ing DIY invitations all over the stupid internet.

Nick and I have two styles we like, but could use your help in deciding which is best. The two styles are:

• Acordian
• Pocketfold

I’m having a difficult time finding either pre-made recycled pocket folds or recycled poster board. I was originally thinking chocolate colored envelopes would be nice, but then how can you see the postmark on them? Plus, we’d have to use a silver or gold pen to address them, and I think that can often look tacky.

So my searches could all be in vain, since I think *this* idea is awesome, and we could mail them from Rigby, ID! So perhaps ivory envelopes, with ivory inserts on chocolate backing? Nick is going to play around with the scrolly tree at the top of page and create beatuiful invites. But I’m not sure about the style so if you could post your ideas etc in the comments I’d appreciate it!

Team Bride, this is important for you since we’ll spend a day or two cutting a crap load of cardstock before I go to england…probably with mimosas, yes?

<3

DJ meeting went great! Evan (DJ) was fantastic and addressed every question we had. Not only that he uses recycled paper, soy based ink and a Carbonfund.org partner for printing!!!!

His prices are way more reasonable than Absolute Entertainment and I think he’ll do an amazing job. Evan was even able to recommend a local green printer in Silver Spring so we can save green in all its forms!

I feel like everyday I hear about companies that are greenwashing their marketing. Since there is no standard for “eco friendly” or whatever it means different things at different places. Which is why its so great to meet a company that not only offsets, but takes their environmental commitment seriously. Way to go Mydeejay.com!!!!

If you want check out their reviews on wedding wire, heres the link!

Nick and I are hoping to travel a fair amount during our time back in the UK. We originally had a huge list, but that has since been scaled down due to the falling exchange rate and general crappy economy.

The short list of countries are: France, Poland, Italy, Switzerland and maybe the Netherlands or Spain/Portugal. Trust me, its really hard to shave this list down!!!!

In terms of cities, Paris definitely made the cut, but we don’t know where to begin in Italy! As for the other cities/countries we chose Krackow in Poland and Switzerland because I’d really like to see a glacier before they’re all gone.

Any ideas on Italy? If you’ve ever been or have any advice for where we should go it would be greatly appreciated. We’re looking into Rome, Tuscany, Venice or Florence, so if you’d like to suggest a city over another, or offer a fresh choice I’d be grateful!

ps. Just remember we’re going in the winter!!!!

Today, Emily at work told me a few of her theories on engagements, weddings, etc.

Theory:

The second a single woman goes from single to engaged, she goes slightly crazy. There is an unproven reaction that occurs between a ring on the left finger and a single woman. She soon becomes an unrecognizable dieting, working out obsessor over ribbons and peonies…. This cycle is only broken when a second ring is on the same left finger. Crazyness soon subsides

Well, I think (hope) that I’ve had a minimized crazyness reaction. Plus I’m so lucky to have Nick who is also into details like all the graphic design, and DIY centerpieces, DIY invites, DIY anything. Long story short, I flipping love Nick. <3

On Evan our photographer’s recommendation we had a meeting with Ken Rochon of Absolute Entertainment.  He was AMAZING!  He did a demo in their studio and Nick, my mother and I all had an awesome time.  He mixed tracks and just did really crazy greatness.

One very large problem though is that he also very very expensive. Which we probably could have squeezed into the budget if we shifted other things around – our DIY centerpieces should help a bit.

THEN, Evan had to raise his prices.  He is moving to San Diego and I’m sure that has impacted his work in Baltimore esp with the economy and everything.  But its still a bit frustrating to receive a quote on packages from a vendor, then ask for the contract and get another package with different prices in it.  But I really really want him to do our photos, heck I even want to buy one of his landscape shots for our future non existent house. So I’m not that bothered.

Therefore, the hunt for other DJ options continued.   Wedding Wire is FANTASTIC for user vendor reviews, plus they have several snazzy tools on their site, so with those recommendations in tow I checked out Mydeejay.com since they have some pretty great reviews. PLUS they offset (but not with carbonfund.org).  So now we have a meeting with them next Tuesday.  Lets hope that goes well!

Tonight Nick, my parents and I all went to Putting on the Ritzs’ headquarters to taste a possible catering menu.  This was the mother of all overwhelmings!  It was almost 2 dinners worth of food! Well, in fact, probably 5 dinners worth!  All in all we tried:

• Sirloin
• Chicken with Lemon and thyme
• Athens’s Chicken (Artichokes, kalamata olives, veggies etc)
• Pan seared Salmon with Saffron sauce
• Parchment paper salmon with tomatoes
• Artichoke Dip
• Wood grilled vegetables
• Garlic Mashed Potatoes
• Rosemary Red potatoes

Holy Moly!  Obviously, I didn’t try the beef or chicken things, but the pan seared salmon was fantastic. We all decided that we do the sirloin if we could afford it, the lemon thyme chicken if not, and the pan seared salmon.  The vegetables were good and we sided with the red rosemary potatoes over the mashed. I loved the artichoke dip, but as it was both cheesy and creamy — Nick was not a fan…

The only thing with Putting on the Ritz is that they use SYSCO, as does everyone on the planet.  I just really hate the idea of global-factory-farm-agro-big-business.  In an ideal world we’d be able to afford to go with a caterer that could use locally grown food.

Damn you Monsanto.

I know you can’t taste them, but from the descriptions, which would you choose?

Before we left (and before we began dreaming about cream puffs) we went cake tasting. Its one of those things that really needs to be tangible and is extra difficult to do from across the ocean. We went to two different bakers who were both delicious though different from each other. Sadly now we’re heading towards the cream puff route, but only time will tell which way we really go!

Cake tasting round 1:

Touchet Touchet down the street from my parent’s home. It was a bit intense as there were 6 fillings and 3 squares of cake in chocolate, yellow and carrot! Shocking outcome of the day — Mr. D’orsay and I both preferred the yellow cake! Well, not shocking for Mr. D’orsay (because that’s his favourite), but surprising for me since I’m a chocolate cake fan. The fillings were, lemon, lime, strawberry pastry cream, raspberry, apricot, hazelnut mouse. Only try lemon or lime with chocolate if you never want to look at cake in the same delicious light — it’s not the best combination…

Winner of cake tasting round 1:

• Top tier – White cake and apricot filling
• Mid tier – White cake and raspberry filling
• Bottom tier – Chocolate cake and hazelnut filling

Cake tasting round 2:

Puffs and Pastries on the avenue in Hampden. Anisha is amazing! We arrived and had 7 or 8 cup cakes as well as two tarts/tortes (fruit/pastry cream and flour less chocolate and pecans) waiting for us. Although we won’t be having it as our wedding cake I highly recommend stopping by and trying out the carrot cake and cream cheese frosting — it was incredible!

Anisha also had multiple buttercreams to try out and we loved the almond one. However, Mr. D’orsay vetoed the almond buttercream since there are probably people out there who don’t like almonds — lame. So we’ll probably have regular vanilla buttercream, it’s alright though, since the insides of the cake are PHENOMENAL!!

Winner of cake tasting round 2:

• Top Tier – White cake with pastry cream (éclair insides) and fresh blueberries
• Mid Tier – Chocolate cake with hazelnut mousse
• Bottom Tier – White cake with pastry cream and fresh strawberries

Overall Mr. D’orsay and I decided that Touchet Touchet was the more traditional choice while Puffs and Pastries is more modern. Both delicious, but in different ways.  Given that we are leaning towards cake #2 it shouldn’t surprise you that we are also now considering a croquembouche.  The funny thing was that each cake design we discussed was vastly different although we began at the same inspiration (the invite scroll work).

Were your cake tastings vastly different or mostly the same?

At first Nick and I were excited by the prospect of entering a store in a virtual candy land state. If we had a house what would we chose to fill it with? Plus, they give you a scanning gun!

However, the whole project quickly became daunting when we realized that we in fact did not have a house, or even an apartment to call a home. We currently switch off crashing at our parent’s homes depending on the country we’re in at the moment.

Therefore, how do you a fill an imaginary box that is sub-divided into several other imaginary rooms? While duking it out over china patterns and discussing imaginary future holidays that my cousins would be invited to, we both began to understand that registering wouldn’t be the highlight of the 12 hour registry blitz we created.

There were highlights of course, the amazing sheets and throw at Target, the china pattern that stole my heart (Nick won the glasses), and the one we can’t stop talking about: the automated soap dispenser from Simple Human. However, we can’t even begin to discuss dinnerware since I spent over an hour scouring the web for a set we’d enjoy looking at everyday and in the end have decided to go with plain white plates. Oddly enough, this was decided by the complementary Williams-Sonoma registry guide which recommended the prison-esque motif. I’ve decided to think of plain white plates as “classic”, instead of boring..