a cake that scares me.

This cake is so huge and sprawling that it is hard for me to comprehend. There is so much going on and i am overwhelmed by a CAKE. insane.
anyway,
We've been looking into cakes. I cannot believe that people actually pay $600-$700 for a CAKE. A cake?! Cake is like, three ingredients and so easy to make! who pays that much for a CAKE!
sooo...
we might be making our own. Casey has been researching things like fondant and tiers. Seriously, if we made our cake ourselves I bet we could do the whole thing for like, $50 max. especially since we want funfetti cake and each box is only a dollar! and funfetti cake is guaranteed to be delicious, by the way, so we don't have to worry about making a recipe wrong or anything.
Everyone says not to do things yourself because you'll have too much to do. But Casey is more of a teammate than other grooms, and I think making our cake would give us something else to freak out about in the days preceding our wedding. Like, instead of worrying about something that we can't control (spilled beverage on dress, wilted flowers, late arrivals, whatever), we can worry about the cake together, be a team, and cross something off the checklist. And save at least $500.

Another thing we were thinking of doing is having a baker make a smaller wedding cake that is like, maybe $100 and then making our own grooms cake. Unfortunately though, most bakers don't offer box funfetti as an option, and they try to make it all fancy and gourmet when what we really want is the $1 box. so who knows.

Food Presentation

While probably none of these would work for my own wedding, i really love the way the food was presented at these weddings and I hope I will be able to make ours look as wonderful!









I've also been looking at place settings. I found some sort of examples of things I like, but we'll have to see how it all works with the budget (and the wooden cutlery which was already purchased, as well as my centerpiece idea).







images from oncewed.com

i cannot stop looking for wedding photos! it's insane.

Toppers

Probably six months or so before we got engaged, Casey and I decided on our cake toppers. I found them while browsing etsy one day and fell completely in love with them! They're designed by Jennifer Murphy, and she put out this great little tutorial so that people can diy them, which is what we plan to do. I can't wait to get started, and I will post a picture of our little guys when they're all done!





images from oncewed.com via Jennifer Murphy

and here's a picture of the exact ones we want to make. so cute!!!

pompoms

i love pompoms on everything. I think they're so lovely.

and i love this idea, instead of rice or birdseed!

Of course, the colors would be different, and they'd likely be handmade, but aren't they wonderful?!

image from oncewed.com

Teacup Engagement Shower

Well, it's official! We had our first party! Actually, Casey wasn't invited, but it was a party celebrating us!
Casey's family got together to throw me my very own teacup shower. Each girl brings a wrapped teacup without a name on it, and I guess who brought each one. They pick the teacups based on their own personal taste, not on what they think I'd like. It was really fun and I thought it looked beautiful!
Here are some pictures:


Maid of Honor, Me, Mommy

My little sister and I

Maid of honor/sister, bridesmaid/casey's cousin, me, bridesmaid/casey's sister

Carissa, Me, Aunt Lynette

Me with the women behind the whole party, Casey's Grandma and Aunt!

Casey's family and I

Yum!

It looked really pretty :)

Grandma Shaw (Casey's Dad's Kindergarten Teacher) and I

Me and 2/3 of my grandmothers!

Casey's Mom and sister enjoying their tea :)

I love all of the teacups that I received. They are all so beautiful and different from each other and I like the way they look all together. Some of them were really easy to guess and some were really hard! I had a really fun time at tea with all the girls. :)

The French Estate

Casey and I booked our venue yesterday and we couldn't be more thrilled with it. We had had our hearts set on the beautiful outdoor chapels at Kindred Church in Anaheim Hills, but they wouldn't allow us to have a cake and punch reception on site, and it seemed silly to leave and go to another site for only an hour or two.
On a whim, I searched for something like 'cheap beautiful wedding venues' online, and found The French Estate!

The French Estate is actually a little more expensive than Kindred was, but it is just about eighty billion times better as well!

It is owned by a woman named Sarah (she lives there), and she is just wonderful to work with. She is very sweet, accommodating and honest, and she offers to do all these extra things all the time that weren't agreed on when she gave us the quote. And then she leaves the quote the same!
Ceremony Location:
It looks like a lot of people choose to use the backyard for the reception, but we decided to use it for the ceremony instead. The front half of the yard will be in shade, so we figured it will be better for people who want to stand and talk after the ceremony. The backyard is also farther away from the street, so we wont be competing with cars who don't know they're intruding on a wedding.





Cake and Punch Reception Location:
Here's the front yard, all dolled up for weddings and not receptions. Just imagine what it will be like, I guess! The two yards are connected by a wide side yard. There is no pesky fence separating the two, which means that we can just mosey wherever we want to mosey.





Interior (for photos, etc.):
We love how period-accurate the entire home is. It's beautiful!



When I first called Sarah, she asked me what I wanted in a ceremony location. I told her I only needed two hours max.. that I wanted the ceremony and the cake and punch reception outside and that's it.

The two hours has turned into four or five hours, she's offered to let us use all her chairs and tables, she has cake cutting utensils, she is making the punch, she is letting us use the interior, she is including a wedding coordinator, she is including offsite parking and a shuttle bus... the list goes on.
All for the same price. I have not seen this kind of kindness and generosity in a vendor yet! She seems so willing to help us make our day perfect, instead of wanting to make money. It's like she wants to take special care of us as though we were her own family members getting married, not some random people who called in, irritated because their last place fell through. The French Estate is a really wonderful location and both Casey and I are so glad that we decided not to use Kindred - we like The French Estate so much more!


It took me a long time to find all of these photos online and I couldn't find credits with them. If you are the photographer and would like credit given, a link to your website or for me to remove the photos entirely, just let me know.

INVITATIONS

And just for fun:


he only pictures that I can find of our invitations are very small. But these are the invitations we bought! We also got matching thank you's, and for 100 of the invitations, response cards and thank yous, we paid $100 at Target. The Target website does not show these invitations, but they're in the stores!
They are a brand called letterimpress. We get all the glam of having letterpressed invitations (trust me, there's a lot of glam included.) without the yucky expense!

In other news, we booked our venue today!!!
We are thrilled with it. And on top of all the other things that Sarah has offered to do for us to help our day be perfect, today she even offered to make punch too! :) She is very sweet and both Casey and I love working with her. Turns out that not being able to use Kindred Church was a blessing in disguise! More photos/information on the venue to come... stay tuned!