US meets UK

I never really told the hive about our first baker.  She was new and up and coming in Baltimore and her shop was down the street from where I lived in college. She had delicious cream puffs infused with lavender and heavenly chocolate tortes and though she had just opened a few months prior to our visit she said she was offering wedding cakes. We let her know we’d be leaving the country soon and we preferred to sign a contract and place a deposit ASAP.  A month passed without a response, and when I’d contact her she’d ask all the same questions that had been answered and re-ask for the design file.  Then? nothing. I repeated that process 2-3 times before finally giving up in March.  After I returned to the US she contacted me asking for the details, specifics and design files.  I’d had enough. I’d already moved on to the idea of the cake buffet and felt so frustrated at that point with her service.  Here I was trying to give her money and a contract and I kept getting blown off or stalled. The good news? I experienced her inattentive behaviour prior to signing the contract or giving her any money, so it was 100 times easier to walk away from our verbal agreement.

I figured I’d try the one last baker in my area, Sweet in Ellicott City.  We met with Tracey (the Cake Baker) and while I at first felt guilty that I was taking up her time to discuss a cake buffet rather than one giant, cool, wedding cake she quickly put me at ease and there were tons of details I hadn’t considered.

We spent about an hour discussing sizes, servings, colors, designs and placement. Poor Mr.D leaned over at one point and whispered “I just want to eat cake!”. I’m glad we used that time to go over the details and specifics, because we were able to make several decisions and leave it at that. Yay for making decisions!

Then we moved on to Mr.D’s favorite part – eating cake! We tried X different combinations. The cakes have three layers of icing and four layers of cake. All the cakes will be covered with vanilla buttercream and the chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream. What did we taste?

• Chocolate chip cake, cannoli cream filling
• Almond cake with custard, two layers of chocolate mousse
• Lemon cake with raspberrry fruit filling and two layers of raspberry mousse
• White cake with coconut frosting filling
• Chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream and coconut pecan (german chocolate) filling
• Rum cake with cream cheese frosting

Holy Moly – I didn’t even attempt to count these calories.

We ended up with:

One 8 inch cake (bottom of two tier cake), 25 servings of Chocolate chip cake, cannoli cream filling

Two 6 inch cakes, 28 servings of Almond cake with custard, two layers of chocolate mousse

One 6 inch (top of two tier cake) and one 10 inch cake, 53 servings of Lemon cake with raspberry fruit filling and two layers of raspberry mousse

One 8 inch cake, 25 servings, Chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream and chocolate mousse filling

What will all these cakes look like? Like this:

But with real cakes.

When I first decided on a cake buffet I figured that my friends, family and I would be responsible for transporting and setting up the cakes.  By scaling things back a bit and sticking with a bakery, we’re now able to have the bakery drop them off and set them up just as they would a real wedding cake – one less thing for us to worry about!

Was your cake baker search easy? Or did you taste your way through every bakery in town?

Oh yes we seriously did.  We seriously just decided the whole name change debacle with rock, paper, scissors. The stakes? If Mr.D won we’d either both take my last name as a second middle and his as our communal last; I’d also retain middle name rights or my surname as a first name for our future kids.  If I won? We’d both double barrel and so would our future kids. We played best out of five to determine the winner.

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The results? Mr.D won 3 out of five and we had one draw.

As far as the name changing goes we had reached a stalemate.  Mr.D didn’t want to upset his family and I didn’t want anyone else dictating my choices. After yet another day of irritated discussion, going to our separate corners and me pouring over WB name changing posts and Indie Bride Kvetch I somehow came up with the rock, paper, scissors idea.  If we can’t decide, let “fate” decide.  While there is obviously game theory and strategy involved in “ro sham bo” neither Mr.D or I are at a skill level that would dominate the other to create an unfair advantage.  It really seemed like the fairest option.

Mr.D’s main concern was that if I lost (and I tend to be a wee bit of a sore loser) that I’d be unhappy or bitter about the outcome. So he had to take several minutes to consider whether or not he really wanted this important decision to come down to a child’s game. He acquiesced and we layed out the ground rules, which, basically were best out of five, and release on the word shoot. But hey, it’s over now, and we’ve made a decision.  Yay for making decisions!

These past two weeks, I’ve just been all about the decision making. There are so many that need to be made, I just want to get them over with. I’m probably most happy with this decision being finalized, more so than the flowers, centerpieces or cakes (obviously). But also because this particular decision has caused me so much strife. Several times a week I’d get pretty upset about the whole thing and I’m kinda glad it’s over, and was decided fair and square. I’m pretty content with the decision in the end, Mr.D incorporates my last name into his and our non existent children will for sure be given my birth name and the history associated with it in some way or another.

How did you decide the name change issue?

When we last left off talking about centerpieces it was waaaay back in the day. Waaaaaaaaaay, back in the day.  So it isn’t that surprising, after a color scheme change, and multiple flower posts – our centerpieces have changed too!

Before I even started blogging we were shooting for potted succulents or terariums

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Then we found these two photos

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Settled on the top one and started to create the vases out of wine bottles. Then…we went back to terrariums.

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And after all that? While Mr.D was still in England I scaled them back. Waaaaay back. As in, no flowers at all.  Which might be surprising because I love gardening and flowers. It always makes me swoon when Mr.D surprises me with fresh flowers. So why’d I do it?

I realized that while centerpieces make large statements AT the reception, there doesn’t seem to be a huge focus on them when it comes to the wedding photos.  When I look at people’s wedding albums, I hardly ever see the centerpieces. What I do notice? The bouquets, so I made the executive decision to focus the money on the personal flowers (bouquets, bouts, corsage thingys) and less on the centerpieces. The people accompanying the flowers have a much higher chance of being in our album and I’d rather see them honored with the best looking flowers.

What do our centerpieces look like now? I did a trial run, and the floating Michael’s candle was a total FAIL. It only last for about three and a half hours! That said, once I find longer lasting floating (preferably soy) candles we’ll be set.  They’re quite easy to set up and hopefully our caterer can light the candles before dinner (so I don’t have to worry about burn time during the ceremony/cocktail hour). I also wanted to do a trial run with these just in case they got hot or exploded (a la Miss Bear Cub), thankfully they didn’t. Without any further adieu, here they are!

Suuuuuuuper easy and scaled down, 3 wine bottle/vases of varying heights, river rocks from the dollar store, floating candles. Maybe a bit of lavender rice scattered on the table. Sorted.

Anyone else scaling down their DIY centerpieces?

Okay Hive, this is really it. Are you ready? I promise, no more flower posts from me (unless they’re a recap). Because I’ve finally decided on the flowers and there is simply no turning back. Yay for making decisions!

Since changing our color scheme, and flowers, and the flowers again our florists (rightfully so) wanted to re-meet with us.  I headed back over to their house armed with my many pages of print outs. I’m serious, I had over 10 sheets with more than a photo per page.  They must think I’m crazy.

I had gotten hooked on Michelle Rago’s Elegant Bride cover bouquet waaaaay back in the day, and it still remains the most beautiful bouquet I’ve ever laid eyes on. However, as we all know, if you’re not getting married in the Spring you may have to stay away from a lot of your favorite flowers. Peace out sweet peas and grape hyacith!

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Instead my bouquet will be composed of the following:

• Lavender Hydrangea
• Lavender Lisianthus
• Lavender Roses
• Lavender Freesia
• Lavender
• Brunia

For the D’orsay ladies? They’ll be rocking big fluffs of baby’s breath (Big Bee shoutouts to Strawberry, Joey, and especially the newly minted Mrs. PowderPuff for putting the idea into my head in the first place).

Mr.D? He’ll sport brunia with a bit of lavender, while his Gmen wear poofs of baby’s breath with a bit of lavender as well. Brunia are the little gray balls in the photo below.

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As for the centerpieces? You’ll just have to wait and see how they evolved, or rather… devolved.

Is there a part of wedding planning that has consistently had you waffeling?

Last night we met with our officiant for the first time. ever. As in, I had never spoken on the phone or seen her in person till last night. Mr.D and I aren’t particularly religious and we come from different faith based backgrounds. We don’t have a church we attend regularly (when we’re not country hopping) and as such, we don’t have a minister or priest that we have a close relationship to.  Not to mention that we haven’t solidified which (if) organized religion suits us, and we simply wouldn’t feel comfortable marrying in a faith we weren’t 100% committed to.

Many people have asked how we found our officiant, and really, I’m just a huge review devotee.  I searched on Wedding Wire for an officiant, and a general google search (Maryland non-denominational wedding officiant), and checked out the reviews on Project Wedding. Then I scoped out her website too.  Because three sources just isn’t enough for me, I told you, I’m devoted to reviews! So I shot off an preliminary email and when she wrote back Laura was so friendly and warm and I just felt comfortable working with her.

I’m a fan of “gut feelings” and I’m happy to say that this one panned out quite nicely.  During our meeting last night we were able to flush out the order of ther ceremony, which elements were most important to us, and Mr.D and I are even modifying a ritual to suit us perfectly.  We came with a huge pool of ideas and Laura was great in helping us to funnel them into a coheasive outline. Not only that, but she emailed us a ceremony draft to review the very same night!

At first, I was concerned about how we would find an officiant that would suit us, understand us, and really grasp what makes us tick.  After all, it’s pretty difficult to put your faith in the internet and hope that you’ve picked the right officiant out of the “bag”.  But really, through reading the reviews and hearing how people described her and their ceremony, as well as the words she chose to describe herself on her website, I began to favor her above all the others I had looked at.

How did you chose your officiant? Were you pleased with them?

A few weeks ago I attended what could possibly be described as one of the most fun days of my life.  I wore a pretty dress, and so many of my friends were there as well as delicious food and drinks at one of my favorite homes in all of Maryland (MOH MB’s mother’s house).

Although it was supposed to be a surprise, as with most surprises, I ruined it. I have a horrible tendency to ruin surprises, and it doesn’t matter if they’re planned for me, by me, or I’m just invited – they get ruined.  If you want anything to be a surprise, keep me far away from it. On the plus side, I showered and looked nice for the “surprise” shower.  On the negative? I ruined all the hard work MOH MB had put in trying to keep it a surprise.

Even though it had been raining the whole week the skies cleared so we could have drinks in the garden before heading inside for food and presents. Before we could open the gifts however, I had to answer a few questions about Mr.D. For each incorrect answer I had to chew a piece of Bazooka Joe bubble gum.  What didn’t help in this little game is that Mr.D straight up answered questions to fool me.  He doesn’t actually have a favorite color, but told MOH MB that it was “light green”.  When asked the questions “what was his longest drive” I answered New Orleans, LA to Orlando, FL from our first road trip together. Mr.D’s answer? Heysham Golf Course, 295 yards, par 5. Sooo funny.

Can you see the fear? So, with a huge mouthful of chewing gum I tried to soldier on, but being on the spot had worked me into a bit of a tizzy.  I found myself uncomfortably hot and sweaty, and nervous! So when it came time to open the gifts (sans giant wad of gum) I began to get a bit worried about how you were supposed to open presents in the “correct” way. What if I didn’t display one long enough? What if I didn’t thank someone enough!? I was overly, and unnecessarily  concerned, but it did take me about 15 minutes to fully relax after the gift opening part was finished.

Despite my momentary mini panic, I had the most fun afternoon of my entire life.  At a few points my mother or I started to well up with tears but we were thankfully able to hold them back. Being surrounded by my friends and family with so much love and kindness was genuinely overwhelming. I think it touched me especially close to the heart because I had been away from the area for quite awhile, so being able to be around so many different groups of friends was just lovely.

I just wanted to take a second and say a big shout out to my MOH’s, bridesmaids and mother, who organized, cooked, prepared and until I ruined it, kept it all a surprise from me.  I had no idea a day could be so perfect, thank you so much for being my friends and bridesmaids.

(I don’t have the photo of all the bridesmaids and I, but I do have one of my fantastic mom!)

Did you have any gift opening anxiety at your shower?

If you’re looking for a quick, last minute favor idea I have the recipe for you!  I tried my friend’s mother’s Peanut Butter and Chocolate fudge last week and it was so great I begged for the recipe right then and there! Lucky for me, it’s so easy you can remember it. It’s quick to make and really the only requirement is that you have a bit of patience and some upper body strength.  I have a 4th of July cookout today and forgot to make something – luckily we had all the ingredients in the house because I was feeling a bit too lazy to go to the store right before a holiday.

Start by melting your butter and peanut butter in your pot. Yes, it looks gross. No, there is no way to justify this as a diet treat.

Then add your sifted cocoa powder and vanilla extract.

Next, sift your confectioners sugar into the pot a bit at a time, mixing it completely each time. This is where your upper body strength and patience comes in handy.

Mix it ALLLLL together and stick into a 9×13 pan.  Place paper towels on top and weight with light objects (I used two boxes of crackers).  Replace your paper towels every so often once they’re full of oil, I did it about 3 times.  Let the fudge sit for 2 hours before cutting up.

OM NOM NOM.

Here is the tiny version:

Since we’re considering Mrs. Kitten’s lavender bud throw project it looks like we’re going to have an serious excess of glassine bags.  Which would be perfect for these fudgy favors or OOT treats!

Have you pondered making your own favors?

Oh crap.  Oh crap. Oh crap. Oh crap.  I’ve given up originality, because somehow whenever I think I’m being original or different suddenly everyone else is too.  Back (back) in the day I used to be a girl wearing dickies, ties and had an awesome graduated bob in the front sweeping back to spikey hair hairdo.  I thought I was soooooo cool.  Then Avril Lavine came out and I had to seriously re-adjust my wardrobe.

This wedding is starting to feel that way.  The bridesmaid dresses I coveted? So does everyone else.  Palates involving gray? Everyone is there too.  Wedding suit over wedding tux? Well, that’s an older one, I jumped on someone else’s bandwagon for that one.

It’s frustrating in the sense that people say that your wedding day should be “a unique expression of your union”.  Which I understand, I really do – no one wants a cookie cutter wedding.  But with inspirations overlapping it’s difficult not to flip a crazy switch and say “OH MA GAH! This wedding across the country that no one I know went to is going to look so similar to ours. Crap!”.  Not that any of our guests are probably looking at nearly as many wedding blogs as I am.  But you never know, what if they know my bridesmaid dresses have been featured in other people’s weddings on the internet!?!?

Like I said…crazy switch.

So whenever I start to worry about being unoriginal I start to think about authenticity and this little gem from the internet:

Do you ever find your mind going to the “crazy place”? How do you get back to normal?

We did postcard Save the Dates and I thought it would be fun to write a note to each recipient like a real postcard. Oh, yes, I did just say I thought it would be fun to write a note on a ton of postcards. Right….. In any case I found myself in starts and fits and I finally made a schedule to get them finished.

Bee Reader MissCamera posted in our month twin board (Go August!) that she had the resolution of getting out her Save the Dates by January 15th, which sounded great to me! Unfortunately mine made it across the Atlantic in February. Why didn’t I just mail them from England? The Royal Mail must hate me, because they’ve done things like sent Mr.D’s suit from England to Colombia (South America) instead of Columbia, MD, USA. I also did a price comparison and found it would be cheaper to send a tiny package to the US and send each STD domestically than to send each postcard from England to the US.

I’m not going to lie to you guys, if I had gotten my act together before we left the States it would have been much, much easier. I thought this would be a fun project and when I sat down and thought about how excited I would be to have these people with us on our wedding day I was happy to write each of them a note.  That said, it took me a very long time for me to get off my bum and finish them.

I also miscounted and sent my mother too many extras so I didn’t have enough to finish sending a few of them out! What’s worse is that my mother misplaced the extras (she had agreed to send) so several guests didn’t end up receiving a Save the Date which I didn’t find out till I arrived in the US in June…a bit late to send one at that point.

So without any further ado, I’d like to introduce you to our Save the Dates:

On the other side I wrote a note to each of our guests. We re-used the lower bird stamp from our invitations for the Save the Dates.

Regrets? Not being ultra clear about which side Kinkos should print on. There is a textured linen-esque side and a less textured side on the recycled cardstock. Our invitations printed/embossed perfectly on the less textured side, the Save the Dates and RSVP cards were printed on the linen-esque side which led to a few cards not printing quite right and the embossing process not working as well.

I’m glad we embossed these last, because our heat gun died with 10 extra ones to go. Moral of the story? give your embossing gun a rest so it doesn’t overheat and die. The silver lining? I won’t be attempting to emboss anything else for the wedding.

Any one else do postcard STDs or have any other STD mishaps?

Oh naming conventions. I tried to hide from you, but my honorifics post reminded me I’ll have to deal with you sooner than later. le sigh.

It’s not as though I want to become Princess Consuela Banana Hammock and Mr.D to become Mr.Bag (but I would be pleased if we both became the Banana – Bags), I am have deep issues with traditional naming conventions. What’s worse is that I’m starting to feel completely alone in this, even my father said I should change my name! Thankfully, I have at least one friend who has co-hyphenated and others who have kept their birth names. While Mr.D supports me on this issue he is also trying to see both families’ opinion on it, whereas I feel there are really only two opinions that matter in this decision.

If you’re struggling with the idea of a name change (for you or you and your partner) I’ve found a few resources that might help you too. My mother (who is a database administrator) is asking us not to co-hyphenate or double barrel, but only because it makes her job harder.  To illustrate this point she sent us this article detailing a co-hyphenated couple’s unintentional database name changes.

In an online forum I found this roman maxim ‘Sine nomine homo non est’ “(without a name a person is nothing). One’s name is a signboard to the world. It is one of the most permanent of possessions; it remains when everything else is lost; it is owned by those who possess nothing else…. When one dies it is the only part that lives on in the world.” Which almost makes the case for neither of us changing our names, except that my desire to share a common name with Mr.D is overwhelmingly strong.

If you’re interested, here is a link to a court case regarding combined surnames. The summery is pretty interesting and though the case involves a child’s surname it still seems quite applicable to marriage. Part of the summary states that “a combined surname is a solution that recognizes each parent’s legitimate claims and threatens neither parent’s rights.  The name merely represents the truth that both parents created the child and that both parents have responsibility for that child”.   In my opinion, you could easily exchange marriage for child and partner for parent with the same resulting outcome.

The most helpful place I’ve found to give me peace with either co-hyphenating or choosing a single surname (mine or his) has without a doubt been the IndieBride Kvetch Name Changing board.  While the site can sometimes be confusing to navigate (and why is second thoughts the first thing you always see!?!?!) it has really been a life saver when I’ve felt alone in this line of thinking.

While I would never do something because someone told me to, I also wouldn’t do something because someone told me not to.  The Kvetch board has definately helped me to think about the name changing issue in a more well rounded way. I also sent Mr.D this article from Salon.com and the wikipedia article which highlights different naming conventions for different cultures.

What have we decided? Well, we still haven’t.  We have all the usual concerns regarding identity, family tradition, personal preference etc but we also have to be concerned about immigration.  We aren’t too pleased with the thought that changing our names could result in longer waits and confused paperwork. So we decided to re-table the highly emotionally charged issue and think about it later.  While I hope that we decided before the wedding (because for me changing our name as a unit also signifies our bond to the outside world) I’m not entirely sure we’ll have reached a decision about this in the next few months.

Anyone else having struggles with name changing? Is your fiance considering changing his name as well? Any drama?