Food Tasting, etc.

Our tasting on Friday evening with Ryan went very well! We tried one appetizer item, two chicken entrees, and two beef entrees. The appetizer was a shrimp wrapped in bacon, with a chipotle BBQ sauce. It was sooo good, so we'll certainly be having those. The two chicken entrees were a lemon dill chicken and a chicken scallopini. Ryan was a little worried about mass producing the chicken scallopini, and after trying both we decided we liked the lemon dill chicken better anyway. For the beef entrees, we tried his german pot roast and a bourbon beef tenderloin. And the bourbon tenderloin was by far the best item of all. It was absolutely fabulous! The one negative about the tenderloin is it's going to be slightly more expensive. We're not sure how much yet, Ryan was hoping to get a good deal with his butcher. He is coming up with a quote for us on a per person basis, including appetizers and the tenderloin, so after we receive that we'll see if the total price is still within our budget.

After our tasting that evening, we drove to Jefferson City to have "real" dinner at Madison's Cafe. It was one of the restaurants we were considering for the rehearsal dinner, so we thought it was a good opportunity to try the food and see what we thought. Madison's serves Italian fare and is within blocks of the hotels where the guests will be staying (http://www.madisonscafe.com/). And, funny enough, they have a location right here by us in O'Fallon. After our dinner, we decided the food was decent and the location couldn't be beat. We spoke with our waitress about rehearsal dinners, and we ended up booking it! The room we have holds up to 75 people, and Nate and I were estimating at least 50 off the top of our heads. As far as decisions remaining on the rehearsal, all we really have to do is pick 3 to 4 entrees off of a set menu they gave us, and then figure out how we want to handle drinks. They didn't even need a deposit!

Our final accomplishment of the weekend was determining a cool layout for the reception hall. We wanted to do something different, and Nate came up with a way to utilize a different entrance to the building...and hide the buffet line! So, I hope it works out. Luckily, my dad had drew up the plans when the building was being built, so we were able to use the plans for the building and some quarters to represent tables to kind of play with the layout. Our favorite layout is displayed below. We are using the side entrance to the building. The tables will be lining the left and right sides, with an open aisle down the middle that leads to the head table. The cake table will be in the middle of the aisle, and the buffet tables will be behind the backdrops of the head table. We "think" this will work, so it's all just speculation now, but it's still a lot of progress and exciting to think about. I hope our decorator lady agrees that this layout is feasible.

And The Winner Is...

I know, I know...I took a VERY long hiatus from blogging. But I do have excuses. I've been working my hiney off for a major software release in early December, I had a marathon weekend of Christmas shopping, I've been trying to catch up on work around the house... Oh, who cares about that stuff! I'm sure nobody wants to hear my lame excuses. ;) On to the wedding talk...

So, the biggest happening of the last few weeks is that we FINALLY have chosen a photographer. And what a big relief that is, let me tell you. We decided that style ranked above all other components, and we both have a thing for guy photographers (not sure what that's all about...), so our photog of choice is the one and only Stephen Seward! You can check out his website at http://www.stephenseward.net. And this time, it's a for sure thing--the contract is signed, the deposit is in, and we're in discussions with him about engagement pictures. Yay! We're thinking late April for the engagements pics in an urban setting. We need to scope out some cool locales.

We also have a tasting with our caterer, Ryan, this Friday evening. And I do say our caterer because we've reserved him and sent in a deposit...so a lot of the big things are starting to come together. Now I'm just nagging Nate about a DJ....nagging in a nice way, of course! ;) Anyway, we're going to be trying some options for our main entrees, as well as a couple of appetizers. Nate's been in talks with Ryan over the phone trying to pick out just the right food, so this should be fun!

I also recently discovered a great wedding resource for St. Louis brides. The site http://www.stlwed.com has wonderful recommendations on accommodations and vendors. And the best part....a forum where brides can talk to other brides! It's absolutely fabulous. Now if I am ever unsure about something or need advice, I know one resource I can turn to. It is a little less helpful for me since our wedding won't actually be in St. Louis, however the forum alone is well worth it.

Invitation Ideas

So, we recently got some books of sample wedding invitations to look through, thanks to my aunt Donna who owns and runs Linn Printing. However, in looking at them, we didn't see a whole lot of samples that had the modern feel we were looking for. After doing a little searching online and randomly stopping in the Papyrus store in the Galleria, I discovered the layered invitation. I love the look because it is very simple and modern, and I can incorporate our wedding colors of burnt orange and brown into the layers. Here is an example I found on The Knot that resembles what I am talking about:


I was thinking we could do the burnt orange for the bottom layer, brown for the second layer, and an ivory for the top layer where all the wedding information will go. For those of you that know anything about wedding invitations and/or paper and printing however, you know that layering an invitation only adds more cost...not less. But, after talking with my aunt over email, it sounds like she can get the colored card stock relatively cheap, and we can print in whatever font and color we want....and, as long as I'm willing to put in the grunt work and assemble them (a.k.a. glue--we're having a gluing party, girls!), then we can do them in an affordable fashion.

I just ordered a sample invitation online tonight, and plan to show it to my aunt at Thanksgiving so we can start the ideas flowing. The one con of the square invitation is that it will cost more to mail, so we may end up doing something rectangular to save on postage. If any of you have any other creative invitation ideas, I would love to hear them!

Photographer Update

Well folks, next week is do or die week for finding a photographer. I have an appointment on Monday at lunchtime with Michelle Ross from Under Grace Photo in St. Charles (http://www.undergracephoto.com/). Thanks for the suggestion Jen! And Wednesday I have an appointment after work with Joanna Kleine from Joanna Kleine Photography (http://www.joannakleinephotography.com/). And I am trying my darndest to get an appointment with Stephen Seward (Stephen Seward Photography - http://www.stephenseward.net/#). He had to cancel a previous appointment due to some unexpected life events. I think out of the three - who all look quite good - we should be able to "click" with one of them. The end of next week equals decision time. That is my goal and I'm sticking to it!