Wedding Memories

I sit here, early on a Wednesday morning and think back to Friday when I wrote my last blog before the wedding. As I wrote Friday's blog, I thought it would never be over. I sit here now and wonder, Did it really happen.
It happened for sure...... and it was a beautiful wedding full of fun and laughter. I can finally blog about all the fun wedding things we did.... but as for pictures, I don't have any right now, but if you go to my sister's blog, she has posted the ones she took.

Michelle and Scott are away until Friday, and therefore have not seen any pictures themselves, so I don't feel I can post them without them seeing them first. Let me tell you a little about the weekend, though...

We had 45 or so people at our house on Friday night, for a BBQ and to meet each other. Two families from all corners of the country, all ages, all together. It was a world wind night and Trudy, Mark, Terry and my sister in law Kelly and mother in law Marie worked so hard to make everything so perfect. It was mayhem for us, but the guests were happy to sit and chat, eat and drink. The weather was on the edge of rain all day and evening, with a heavy humidity. I would like to do the whole evening over again, without all the stress in my body, so I could really enjoy taking to everyone but we did get to do it all over again on Sunday for Brunch.

With a year and a half to prepare for this wedding, we were 100% organized.... but... there is just so much you can't do before the week of the wedding. There were so many last minute things to do that every day last week was filled with wedding errands and projects.

The Wedding Cake.....

Michelle loves to bake and has always maintained that she was going to make her own wedding cake and that it would be cupcakes. Over the year or so, she had tried different recipes for the cake part, and the icing part, she had baked, froze and thawed them to see how they would taste. She had played with Fondant and papers to find what she wanted. The time had come, and the unforeseen challenges loomed. Humidity was her worse setback. Fondant becomes a shiny sticky mess when its damp and although the flowers she made for the cake were stiff and slightly curled up when she made them, the humid turned them into shiny flowers that were glued onto the top of each cupcake.

Other setbacks... with the new apt they moved into, came an old oven. 2 weeks before the wedding, Michelle began making the cupcakes, a batch or two a night was her plan. After burning the first 3 batches, she gave up. She packed up all her baking stuff and headed home where she did a marathon baking session one afternoon and baked 153 Vanilla cupcakes. One of the neat tricks she used to make them look good was to put her batter in a ziplock bag and "pipe" it into the muffin cups, so there were no blobs on the papers or pan. Neat trick.

She decorated 3 of them in chocolate icing and sprinkles so that our houseguests to test the cupcakes before wedding... and the girls approved.

At the beginning of the last week before the wedding, Michelle gathered butter, icing sugar and pure vanilla and created 10 batches of icing which she stored in the fridge. Her plan was to assemble the cupcake tower on the friday night while we were setting up the reception hall. She took the icing out of the fridge on Friday afternoon so it would be soft enough to pipe....

Poor thing, during the dinner, and clean up, someone put it back in the fridge where it turned into concrete. Not a spoon, nor electric mixer would soften the problem. So, all the cupcakes, pink flowers, and icing were hauled back home for a "morning of the wedding" assembly party. Michelle got up bright and early, and she and her aunt Kelly started piping a big fat swirl on each little cupcake and they were all iced and packed in boxes within an hour. At noon, when the reception hall was unlocked, Kelly, Marie, Aubrey and I headed to the mess with the fondant flowers, the tower, the trays and the cupcakes and we assembled the whole thing for Michelle. She wanted to be the one to assemble it all herself, but time ran short and she had a hair appt with all her girls at noon. The top part of the cake when through two setbacks before a piece of fondant covered the tall topper good enough, with the help of some decorative flower patches. Humidity is a cake decorator's enemy! All in all, the tower was cute and tasty, and they enjoyed serving all there guests. There were less than 20 left over, leaving enough for the caterer and barstaff to share in the treats.

Sorry it took so long to get this out, but I didn't take one picture, so I had to gather pictures from friends and family. Michelle and Scott will be back on Friday.... I will blog a few other fun things we did before I can actually get some pics in.. remember.. please go to my sister's site to see some of her pics.