Thursday, September 04, 2008

Wedding plans...

You may have noticed that I haven't been sewing much lately. There's a good reason for that. We are in the throws of wedding planning, and I just don't have much time for anything else. Maybe in a week or two I'll become reacquainted with my sewing machine...

This last weekend the bride and groom-to-be came for a visit. We kept an appointment with the florist where they picked, from among all the awesome choices, the flowers for their reception here in Colorado. They are going with a slightly Asian theme ... not an over-the-top, obvious Asian fare ... but more subtle, earthy Asian images. Oh man, it's going to be gorgeous! The bride chose different shades of pinks with a touch of lime green and a background of chocolate brown for her colors. Their wedding will be in October, so I think those colors will be so beautiful. Some of the flowers they chose were different shades of pink roses, pink tulips, pinkish orchids, Kermit chrysanthemums (green), and willow branches. "Earthy elements" will be represented with water, fire, wood, rock, and colorful flowers all in abundance.

We also ordered some small Chinese take-out boxes in chocolate brown for favors. We then added to the shopping cart some fortune cookies with fortunes inside that the bride and groom-to-be personalized themselves! The day before the reception we are going to dip the fortune cookies in chocolate and put a few chocolate sprinkles on them. Then we'll place two in each take-out box, add a little ribbon and a sticker with the Chinese symbol of "double happiness" -- which is a common symbol associated with weddings in China.

As if all that wasn't enough, they also picked out their cake. This is probably one of the easier appointments to be kept. You get to sit down and stuff your face with different types of cake, filling, and frostings. Yup, it's a tough job. We (my husband, daughter and I) sat back as the bride and groom carefully tasted each selection and made their decisions. After they were finished the rest of us descended on the possibilities with the enthusiasm of vultures to select our favorites (not that it mattered.) As far as I was concerned any of the choices would have done nicely. The bride and groom made the following decisions: Layer 1 - pumpkin cake with cream cheese filling and frosting; Layer 2: poppy seed with raspberry filling and cream cheese frosting; Layer 3: white cake with pineapple filling and cream cheese frosting; and finally, "Italian Ice" cake with apricot & pineapple filling and cream cheese frosting. All this will be covered with a pale pink fondant. Before the fondant is applied to the cake, they will run an embossed fondant rolling pin over the fondant to make a leaf pattern on the fondant. The sheet cake will have the Chinese symbol of the newly married couple's last name on the individual pieces. Awesome? I think so.

Yup, sometimes the ol' sewing machine has to take second seat to more important things!