stuffed animals

Possibly the hardest secret to keep about our wedding was these little stuffed animals. These guys were our gifts to our guests, so I couldn’t share without ruining the surprise.

I started making them nearly as soon as we had set our date, spending any spare time I had sewing, embroidering and stuffing them. Not one is alike or from a pattern. While the task was daunting, and took several months, it was never unpleasant. Not to mention, I had a great deal of help from friends. I made them out of eco-felt and a good deal of scrap fabric we had at home. The faux fur is from a film Shawn made years ago. I think they were my favorite.

This is Bebop and Green Bean. We became a little too attached them, so they had to stay with us.

I really wanted to do something exceptional for our favors. I know it’s something that is last on the list for many weddings, but it is one of the few very memorable things for people. It’s the piece of the wedding guests get to take home with them. Ultimately we pinned little name tags on each and they became our escort cards.

With them living and multiplying in our apartment for so long, it was a bit sad to see them all off to the wedding. On the other hand, they were pretty excited to go on a ride in the car.

In the end, we ended up with a few more than we needed so a handful still live with us. The rest found new loving homes with our guests.

Irish Spirit

Happy St. Patrick’s day!

I should be writing a lovely post about these wonderful cornish pasties I made last night, and I will, but first, let’s talk about this vegetable. Read More

For Japan with Love

Every day we are inundated with new tragic news of the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. With thousands of people missing still and countless without shelter, food and water it feels as if we have to do something. The scale of the tragedy is overwhelming though.

I was compelled when I found out about For Japan with Love, a site put together by Ever Ours and Utterly Engaged. The fund will donate to the organization Shelter Box which will provide basic living necessities such as a tent, water purification tools, blankets, a stove and other items that can help a family get by when everything has been demolished.

I will be participating in the bloggers day of silence out of respect for all those who have been so deeply affected by this disaster. I keep having the feeling that it just does not seem right to blog or tweet about every day things when Japan is in such crisis. I urge other bloggers to participate.

Obviously there are many ways to donate and help and hope this will serve as a small reminder that even a little from a lot of people will go a long way for the people who have lost everything.

Night before the wedding

Let me set the scene. It’s Friday February 18th. It’s raining, a lot; an uncommon occurrence in Los Angeles. It’s the weekend of the NBA all star game and the city is packed with visitors and traffic. It’s also the day before our wedding.

I’ve been in the kitchen all day putting final, albeit rushed, touches on our wedding cakes and Shawn has been running around taking care of last minute preparations. We find ourselves exhausted just a short time before the rehearsal, but pull everything together and make the trek to the Natural History Museum.

While we’ve visited the museum numerous times in preparation for the wedding, this was the first time going after hours, when it was empty except for a few staff. Walking into the museum on this night, with all of our wedding party and family, I realized what a crazy wedding we were about to have. It was about this time that most of the stress and frantic feelings I’d been having for months began to subside.

We walked through what would happen on the following evening and you could feel the excitement from everyone there. Then, in the rain, we all piled into a bus and headed across town to my mom’s house for a little party.

Early on, we decided we didn’t want to have a formal rehearsal dinner. Instead we were able to host all of our out of town guests and spend time with everyone.

The coolest part was that we hired Seabirds Truck to cater the party. They pulled into our driveway and everyone had their choice of vegan tacos and sandwiches.

Everything was so yummy and fresh. Stephanie from Seabirds picked out some seasonal fruits and vegetables for salads and was great to work with. Everyone loved it and gobbled up tacos till they were stuffed. We got so many compliments on how good everything was, especially the beer battered avocado tacos.
Check out the menu!

Here is the part where you can get mad at me for not taking any photos of the food. Everything was just too overwhelming. I totally had exactly this plate again though.

It was awesome to just get to hang out with people in a more relaxed way and eat and chat. Not to mention, our friend Alicia decorated my mom’s house beautifully. I was so surprised when we arrived to see such pretty centerpieces, lights and banners.

She strung up felt streamers with bunnies and foxes and our names as well as hand making each little mushroom and moss centerpiece. It was amazing to see the house transformed in the few hours between when I left from my cake making extravaganza to when we all arrived at the party.

Shawn’s sister and brother-in-law, Missy & Mark, came early and helped out arranging flowers and setting up candles.

We borrowed hurricanes from Jannatha & Kyle who used them in their own wedding. Wedding recycling!

Many of the glass bottles were from Alicia & Baxter’s personal collection. They were so pretty.

Everyone was so happy and you could really feel everything building for the next day. Big smiles from my parents and Shawn (which is serious, Shawn rarely smiles in photos).

After the party we headed to the Standard Hotel downtown for some craziness. There was a giant foot in our room!

There was dancing in the bathtub.
There was a huge orange couch, with room for everyone. I want this couch for my own.

And best of all, late at night, I got to stuff my face with Bella sandwich that I’d saved from Seabirds. Most satisfying sandwich ever I think.

Gosh that turned into an epic post, and I left so much out! More importantly, so much more to come.

Wedding cakes

Hello dear friends! We’re back from our honeymoon which means back to blogging for me. I hope you all enjoyed the guest posts while I was away.

With everything that happened in the past few weeks, I’ve got lots to share. There were many adventures on our honeymoon. There were many fun times with our visiting family and friends. And of course, there was the wedding. So I’ll have lots of details and treats in the next few weeks for us all to nibble on while we wait for the official photos from the wonderful Liesl at Photo Pink (I’ve seen just one photo so far, and it’s stunning and I can’t wait for the rest).

I want to tell you all about everything, the food, the music, the rain, the craziness and all the fun, but it just won’t be the same without photos I think, so I’m going to string you along a little bit longer. Not to worry though, the road to the finish will be highly entertaining and delicious.

Let’s start with cake, shall we?

Perhaps you recall, I chose to make our wedding cakes. Yes cakes, plural. There were eight of them.  I took over my mom’s kitchen for 2 days and made a huge mess. We spent one day baking and one frosting more or less.

When I say that I made eight cakes, I really mean I made about 24 (or 30, I lost count), since each cake was several layers. We made 10 chocolate cakes, in 3 different sizes alone.

Luckily, I had lots of help in the kitchen to get everything done. Robin, Agatha & Shiri, some of my oldest friends, came in from out of town for the wedding and spent their extra time preparing frosting and measuring ingredients for me. I would not have been able to do it without them. I put Robin to work as soon as she got off the plane. Shiri and Agatha were also kind enough to actually drive all the cakes across town to the wedding.

Many cakes were made, and even more frosting. Vanilla frosting, chocolate frosting, espresso frosting, peanut butter frosting. More than I needed it turned out.

I made a raspberry sauce for one of the cakes. It’s one of my favorites, as it’s sweet and tart, with only a few ingredients. I also made a chocolate ganache to top a few of the cakes, but something went terribly wrong along the way. This is the sort of thing that happens when you are making a ton of cakes at once, and also trying to organize the final details of a wedding. So there was no chocolate covered cake, though I wish there had been.

Here are the beginnings of a little coconut cake. With these cakes being a bit taller than usual, I reinforced them with some wooden dowels. A few were still a little wiggly though.

Despite everything being rushed, I was happy with all the cakes except for one. If only that chocolate ganache hadn’t turned to chocolate fudge, it would have been lovely. Instead this cake was a chocolate raspberry mess. I couldn’t leave it alone even with the reassurances of my friends. Alas, despite my best efforts, it remained a mess. It tasted awesome though.

So for the record, I have no regrets making the cakes. Even with all the time it took, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Nearly everyone told me that they tried a few flavors and loved all of them. Every single cake was completely eaten by the end of the night. I would say that’s a wedding cake success.