Good Grief!

Hive! I finally bought/finished our semi-DIY cake topper and I am so excited to share it with you!

But first, I feel as though I should explain the story behind it.

A long, long time ago before I was blogging as Miss Coyote I was a very active member on the Wedding Bee boards. Maybe some of you will remember me by my avatar:

Good ol' Lucy! Now my choice in avatar was not just a random happenstance. There's a lot of meaning behind that cute little image. One of my nicknames for Mr. Coyote has always been "Charlie Brown". I'm not quite sure how it came to be (since his name sounds nothing like Charlie Brown), but I think it's a personality thing. Eventually Mr. C started calling me "Lucy". I have a particularly wicked sense of humor and Mr. Coyote always says that if we were to ever play football together I would almost certainly pull the football away from him every single time. Hee. He's right. I'm mean like that.

And so when I found these little dudes on Ebay:

Image via Ebay

I knew I just had to snatch them up!

Once they arrived I quickly set out to make them more wedding appropriate.

I made a cute little bow tie for Charlie:

(Personal Photo)

The bow tie came out perfectly so I thought I would try to make a top hat too. This was more difficult and I swear it looks like a pilgrim hat. I think I might try to remake it (or maybe just give up and let him be bald). What do you think?

(Personal Photo) / Silly pilgrim, bow ties are for grooms!

Finally, I made a veil for Lucy using all that leftover lace ribbon from my hair flower:

(Personal Photo)

I also just picked up a piece of white foam board that we can glue Charlie and Lucy onto and then stick on top of the cake. I've just been too lazy to cut it out and I'm thinking I'll probably get around to it the week before the wedding like the slacker bride I am.

In the meantime, what do you think I should do with poor Charlie? Hat or no hat?

The Grand Finale

Well, today I'm wrapping up my trilogy on foodie posts and this one is gonna be all about desserts! YUM!

A long, long time ago I talked about how we stuffed our faces with cake. Well, I'm happy to report that we've chosen our bakery and are super excited to have Villa Italia Pasticceria making our wedding cake. I've had their cakes many, many times and I swear, every time I have one it's better than the last!

We're having a four tier cake and we've decided to offer our guests two different flavors. Two tiers will be marble cake with cannoli filling and the other two will be vanilla cake with a raspberry cream filling. Oh man, I am drooling just thinking about it.

The cake will be covered with a vanilla buttercream frosting and we're hoping for something that looks a little like this:

Image via Samdogs on Flickr

Just without all the flowers and maybe with some pretty swirls and flourishes in our wedding colors. (And yes, all of this is a reminder that we don't have a cake topper yet!)

But the night doesn't end with cake. It just wouldn't be a true Italian wedding if we didn't have cookies and pastries! So we also went ahead and ordered trays to be put on each table when dessert is served.

Image via Jonathan's Pastry

For me, this was always a no brainer - I have never attended a wedding or family function that DIDN'T have cookies on the table - but apparently this is a cultural thing. When we were discussing our options with our venue coordinator he told us not waste our money on the cookie trays and said that (in his experience) no one even notices if they're missing.

At this point in the conversation my father slowly leaned over the table and said very seriously, "There will be over a hundred Italians at this wedding and I guarantee that they will notice if there are no cookies. Do YOU want to be the one to tell them that there aren't any cookies?" And so, cookies it is!

Oh and during one of our last trips to the our venue we noticed they had an old school espresso machine near the bar. It kinda looked like this:

Image via Victorian Trading Company

Except way more awesome. Unfortunately, the last time I visited our venue was way before I was a blogger bee so I didn't even think to take photos of it! I promise next time I'm there I will try to sneak a few shots of it because it really is the coolest thing ev-ah. Anywho, we were told that they usually keep it out of sight unless the bride and groom request to have cappuccino and cordials served with dessert. 

Hive, remember I told you how excited I get when I think about the espresso machine we registered for? Yeah well, multiply that times infinity and you will maybe begin to understand how excited I am that we're going to have espresso and cordials served with our dessert. Let's just hope that I don't suffer from a serious sugar/caffeine crash the second the party is over.

Are you serving anything other than cake for your dessert? Maybe a candy bar or a late-night snack? Oh and what about cookies and pasties at weddings? Is it as common as I think it is or is it more of a cultural thing?

Let's Eat!

Since I talked about our cocktail hour breakdown yesterday I figured I might as well keep on going and talk about the rest of deliciousness we've got in store for our guests.

I will say that the one and only bummer about our venue is that they don't do food tastings.

Image via Open Clip Art Library

I fully understand that we are taking a huge risk by booking a venue without tasting their food, but honestly we have read so many raving reviews about the food at Franklin Plaza that I think we're safe.

We'll start the night off right with a champagne toast (hey, just in case the food's no good at least our guests will be too tipsy to know the difference, am I right?!) and an appetizer. This is followed by a salad, the main entree and dessert. We decided to go with a basic penne marinara for our appetizer (I'm sure all of our Italian relatives will approve!), followed by a mixed salad with peppers, marinated artichokes and balsamic vinaigrette. Mmmmmm. Now for the main meal things got a little tricky. We were told we could have three entrees for our guests to choose from. We settled on the Filet Mignon, Chicken Piccatta and the Eggplant Rollatini (for our vegetarian guests). Okay awesome, so... we're done here, right?

Nope! Imagine our surprise when our coordinator told us that we could can three entrees in addition to a vegetarian dish. Score! And then we were also told that we don't need to choose a specific vegetarian option ahead of time. All we need to do is make note of who would like a vegetarian entree and the waitstaff will present them with four different meat-free options that they can choose from right then and there.

Now that's some good service my friends!

Image via tinypic / I don't know you guys... I have been  in a lolcats kinda mood lately.

But now we are faced with a bit of a predicament. We've chosen two of our three entrees and can't decide on a third. We've got beef, poultry and veggie options covered so our final one will be a fish dish (Hee Hee). Do you look for the seafood entree at a wedding? If so, which kind would you be most likely to enjoy?

As a wedding guest, which would you prefer?
- Grilled swordfish with herbed butter
- Salmon en Croute with lemon, white wine and dill sauce
- Grilled salmon with mango salsa
- Poached salmon with a dijionaise sause
- Rolled fillet of sole florentine

Cocktails, anyone?

One of the things that impressed me about our venue is the quantity and quality of food they provide for their wedding receptions. But what really impressed is their extended cocktail hour. Yea, that's right. Instead of a cocktail hour we get a cocktail hour and a half. Okay so that doesn't flow as well as I thought it would, but you get the point.

The cocktail hour is definitely my favorite part of every wedding I've been to and I always feel like it goes by way too quick. I'm really excited that we get to sneak in an extra half hour of cocktail time.

Image via Access Hollywood / It would be extra exciting if we got an extra half hour of cocktail time with Tom Cruise, but I think I remember him saying he has other plans that night.

Now I have never had the pleasure of attending a wedding at Franklin Plaza so of course I had some concerns. I mean, aside from having Tom Cruise himself as our bartender, what could possibly keep our guests entertained for an hour and a half?

Oh that's right! Food! Delicious, delicious food.

Image via I Can Haz Cheezburger

And I have to say, Franklin Plaza totally delivers when it comes to food. When we were looking through the packet of info they gave us we noticed that there were three whole pages just dedicated to the cocktail hour! Unfortunately that packet didn't come with photos so bear with me as I take you on a literary adventure for your taste buds. (Yea, that doesn't make any sense either... Just go with it, okay?!)

First there's a fruit and veggie spread. I don't have to describe that one to you right? Pretty standard stuff.

But then there's the antipasto display:

Imported cheeses (provolone, fontinella, jarlsberg, etc), Italian meats (salami, pepperoni, mortadella, prosciutto... omg is your mouth watering yet? Mine is!!), bruschetta, roasted red peppers, olives, marinated artichokes and mushrooms and foccacia.

As an Italian, I have to say that antipasto is one of my most favorite things in the world. Honestly, I would be the happiest wedding guest ever if I saw a cocktail hour full of nothing but Italian meats and cheese. Yummmy.

Image via Dave's Gift Baskets 

But wait, there's more!

Aside from the spreads we also get to choose eight different passed hors d'eourves. Some of our selections so far are spinach and cheese wrapped in filo dough (I have a feeling Mr. Coyote will be chowing down on those), scallops wrapped in bacon (my personal favorite), chicken tempura and mini beef wellington.

Finally, we get to choose three hot chaffing dishes. This was actually the most difficult food-related decision for us because our venue provided us with almost 40 different options to choose from! And with everything sounding so delicious how on earth could we possibly only choose three? Well, the truth is... we haven't yet! But some dishes that are in the running are eggplant rollatini, mussels marinara, veal marsala, cheese fondue, and beef stir fry. Wowza!

Oh and of course it wouldn't be a cocktail hour without cocktails right?! I'll get into more detail about our booze fest later, but don't you worry... No one will go thirsty!

Yeesh, I haven't even gotten to the main meal yet and I'm already full. What do you think? Is that enough food to keep our guests satisfied for an hour and a half?!

The Longest Veil

So I kinda did things backwards here by showing you my hair flower without talking about any of my other wedding day accessories. I couldn't help it! I was just super excited with how it came out and HAD to show it off right away!

What I should have told you is I have a huge crush on wedding veils. More specifically, on cathedral length veils. How can I resist when I see photos like these:

Image via Pretty Chicky / Photo by Jessica Claire Photography

Image via Fishtale Photography

Image via Fishtale Photography

Image via Global Times Forum

Okay, so I'm kidding about that last one (what the heck?!), but seriously... I love long wedding veils!

My mother wore a cathedral length veil at her wedding too and told me that she loved it so much she refused to take it off -- even for the reception! She just draped it over her arm and carried it around all night.

Now, I can't see myself having that kind of patience so the hair flower is my back-up for when my veil starts to piss me off. And I'm sure at some point during the reception it's going to piss me off. ;)

But for the formal photos and the ceremony I can't imagine wearing anything other than a long, flow-y veil.

I haven't chosen one yet, but I've definitely been checking out Etsy to find the perfect headpiece. I thought about using my mom's veil, but there is a lot of beautiful detailing on it that doesn't quite jive with my heavily beaded dress. I need something light and simple. Something that won't overwhelm my dress or (more importantly) me --  oh, have I mentioned that I'm barely five feet tall? And so my hunt continues.

So let's hear it. Are you wearing a veil for your wedding day? Maybe even a cathedral length one like me?