Cake...check!

So our cake tasting adventures this weekend turned out great. We have a cake lady! Actually, I had made appointments at two places, and we didn't even go to the second. Talk about an easy decision! Can't they all be this way? The lady we hired works out of her home in a neighboring town. I had asked to make sure we could taste a sample of her cake, and when we got there she had a small, square, white cake iced and ready for us. About two bites in, as I was enjoying the smooth, moist texture of the cake and the perfect not over-the-top-with-sweetness icing, she mentioned that this cake had been frozen for 6 months, and she had just thawed it out the previous day. Six MONTHS! It had been frozen without icing, mind you...that was fresh....but if the cake tasted THAT good and moist after being frozen, think what a freshly baked one would taste like. Yum!

So, we went on to get a very reasonable price quote from her for a cake that serves 250 people...a little over a $1/slice. The other bakery we were going was going to be at least $2/slice..and that was just the base price! And since the cake I want is very simple, we were out of there in a half an hour! We're having white, chocolate, lemon and red carpet cake, with a buttercream frosting (off white, to match the color scheme of the day). There will be 5 square layers, each framed with a chocolate brown ribbon on the bottom section of the layer, held on with a small shell pattern of icing around the base of each. The rest of the icing will be smooth. And we will have flowers for the topper (variety TBD) as well as a few scattered about here and there on the other layers. I put the deposit check to her in the mail today!

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Honeymoon!!! & STD

To continue with the picture theme, we recently booked our honeymoon. And we're going to...wait for it....Tahiti!!! I am so excited...you really have no idea!! It looks absolutely gorgeous, as you'll see from the pictures. Do you think we could just stay forever?! We're going for 11 days and we're actually going to Tahiti (1 night), Moorea (5 nights), and Bora Bora (4 nights). We'll be staying in these fabulous overwater bungalows, we get a few provided breakfasts and dinners, we get to swim with the sharks and rays, we get a rental car one day in Moorea, and we get to soak up the sun and scenery. I am getting tons of drinks with little umbrellas in them! :)I've also been working very diligently on our save the date (STD) cards. And no, STD does not stand for that other thing you're thinking. Shame on you! ;) My mom and I met with my aunt Donna right before Christmas, and Donna has been nothing but fabulous! We talked over what I had in mind, and we have been exchanging emails ever since. We just finalized the design this past week, and I am very happy with it. It brings in the burnt orange and brown colors and has a very modern feel. Now we're working on finalizing the guest list, so we can get the STD's out around the end of February. Be expecting yours in the mail around that timeframe!

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Back in the Groove

Well, the holidays are over, so it's time to get back on the wedding planning wagon. But before I do, here are some quick highlights of how we spent our time off!

South Lake Tahoe

It was like 10 degrees...That's me with a warm alcoholic beverage
The Seibel/Brown clanChristmas #2 at my parents' house
New Year's Eve

Dancin' the night away

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Thought of the Day...Cake!

I was doing a little cake browsing tonight (planning on talking to a bakery or two next month), and I found a picture of almost exactly what I had in mind. I would want square layers instead of the hexagons, the brown ribbon, flat white icing (or maybe ivory...do you match your icing to your dress?!), and orange flowers of some sort. The lilies are nice.

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Snazzy Floor

As Sheryl Crow would say, a change will do you good. :-) They changed the floor at the Community Center just for our wedding! Well, not really...but it's pretty neat-o anyway!! Bye, bye concrete, hello smooth gray sparkly acrylic stuff. That's my own technical term, by the way...

See pictures below. There are still basketball court lines and basketball goals for that matter... But no more barren looking concrete. We haven't seen it in person yet, but I'm confident that anything would be an improvement. Thanks for the pics Dad!

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What's a Girl to Do?

I had some free time on my hands, which is rather hard to come by these days, so I made some changes to the blog! I found a cool way to change the background using digital scrapbooking, so my paper of choice right now is Christmas trees...as I'm sure you've noticed.

I also added a widget on the right that shows you a random sampling of books in my library. Since I absolutely LOVE books, I think it's the coolest thing ever!

Additionally, I added some of my favorite wedding links, a wedding countdown clock, and a visitor counter so I know how many peeps are checking out the blog. Especially since no one leaves comments anymore.. :-(

Did the guilt trip work??

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Introducing...

our new skinner Christmas tree! I know this isn't wedding related, but Nate insisted we show off the tree. It went on a diet over the last year and lost a few inches. Ha. No, we bought a new one at Lowe's just last weekend, and got a fab deal on it. And, it's much smaller width-wise than our other one. We love it!


Note: You are not hallucinating. All the presents stacked under the tree aren't fake presents. They are actually real. Most are being shipped off to Sacramento THIS weekend!

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