Half DIY

When I envisioned my ultimate wedding of the century, I figured some crafting would be involved. I have an innate desire to make things, but it's not exactly my forte. I've bounced from craft to craft, whether it's knitting or painting or beading. Nothing's ever stuck. Probably because I'm not good. But I want to be a DIYer so badly.

So, when the time came to think about a guest book, I immediately decided to do some sort of cards instead of the traditional bound book. That way, I could display them in a cool frame or installation piece later on. I contacted Invited Ink to see if they could design some fun cards for us. Success! I printed them out at Kinko's, sliced 'em up and pasted them to some thick, sparkly cardstock. I'm pretty stoked about them.

Our baker, SLiCE, is making key lime shortbread cookies shaped like bikes for our favors. She's going to glaze and decorate them in our colors. Each one will be individually wrapped and placed on every placesetting. I wanted to have some sort of cute tag to accompany the bags. Here's what Invited Ink came up with. They are so darling, and I love how the "Celeste & Josiah" is being incorporated into various aspects of the wedding.

Never thought I would get tired of cake

So, a couple weeks ago we decided to go with Slice Cake Designs for our wedding cake. Meeting Chris was a huge relief -- she was so personable and ready to take on anything. Plus, the cakes were delightful.

We're trying to decide between key lime with a cream cheese frosting filling or an orange essence cake with strawberry mousse and sliced strawberries. Both were so tasty and very spring brunch appropriate. I didn't want anything heavy and rich. The citrus flavors were perfect and I am super excited.

We are doing a modified version of this cake, which I blogged about in one of my first entries here.

Cake surgery:

1. Chopping that top layer in half.
2. Injecting some white into the stripes to brighten it up.
3. Using a more springy green, as opposed to these wintry shades.
4. No flowers.

My mom and I had some pretty god awful experiences at the first few cake places we went to. Fleur de Lis was afraid to use fondant. Classic Cakes was a tad full of itself and quoted us $10/slice. Tammie Coe was good but the flavors were just kind of boring.

Chris from Slice came to my house, brought us two cakes (while other places charged us for tasting), was fabulous to work with and open to my ideas. Plus, she was excited! She was definitely the baker version of our florist, Jeanne from White Poppy. I'm really excited to work with them both.

And the real reason I opened up the blog browser (believe it or not, I had intended to write a super quick entry)...

Chris mentioned that she can do favors too -- cookies, cupcakes, truffles, candies, whatever. My mom and I loved the idea. In fact, my mom came up with the idea of a bike-shaped cookie glazed with a fun color on top. I love it! We are planning on doing some sort of cute and easy packaging. I just came across this post at Once Wed. I love the little tags with the favors. Such a great idea. I think I may steal it.

Photograph by Kyle Hale

I hate chocolate, except when combined with hazelnuts

Yesterday Bethany and I were having an emotionally charged conversation about old people not liking cute invitations. In a rash moment, I blurted out (via Gchat) “My mom is just lucky that I didn’t fold the invitation like a crepe and put Nutella inside.”

Thus came the greatest idea of the wedding so far: “You should do mini things of Nutella as your favors.”

Oh yes.

Anyone with a brain knows how good Nutella is. Especially paired with bananas. And especially inside crepes.

Like all good things, Nutella comes in small jars that would be perfect as a gift. I’m still unsure whether people will think I’m odd or not. I mean, it’s not exactly the same as gifting a jar of super-crunchy Jif, right? I wonder if our non-hip, non-Euro guests will even know what Nutella is.

Who cares. Nutella!!!!!!!!!

Here’s a picture of a cute set of seven mini jars.



I have an inkling that mini Nutella jars will be:
1. Hard to find. Dumb imports.
2. Not economical.

Regardless, my search starts now. As I told Bethany, I hope people are confused and don’t want the Nutella. That way I can take it all home. I deserve 100 mini jars anyway. Think of all the crepes I could make…

I have a jar of Nutella in my “pantry” (really just half a spice cabinet) that hasn’t had any use in a long time. That needs to change. When I studied in Italy, I had a Nutella and banana sandwich every day for lunch because there was no peanut butter. I also had four helpings of gelato a day. And I still lost 10 pounds!

In honor of Nutella and the glorious Italians who created it (I think. Maybe not. Too lazy to go on Wikipedia.), I am going to make banana and Nutella cupcakes from the blog Bleeding Espresso. Maybe I’ll post some pictures tomorrow.