Ring Bowls

I am hearting ring bowls right now. Needless to say I am hearting them upon the much anticipated arrival of my own ring. Yes I am ringless (however, that is for another post).

So I am bookmarking my favorites until that special day.


Images in order of appearance

1.http://www.everydayartifact.com/gifts_artroom.htm

2.sherry truitt studios :: forging, one peace at a time (1st image)

3. Etsy.com Paloma's Nest... Crafting, one Peace at a time

Garden Shots

One of my passions is flowers and I love to garden. I take pride in my little patch of earth. Thought I share photos of my flowers that are currently in bloom.

This totally unrelated to wedding stuff and most of these can not be used as bridal flowers (except the irises)

Enjoy.

Cake Recipe: One Bowl Chocolate Cake

Since I am a cake fanatic ( though my hips cry out in rebellion), I am going to share with you a simple and oh so YUMMY recipe I got from our girl Martha. (She really is uber talented and I have yet to have a bad experience with her recipes).

This cake is moist, rich, flavorful, and to top it off fast and easy to make!

Enjoy! I know we did this past Memorial Day and oh how my hips hate me.

Makes awesome cupcakes too.

Ingredients

Makes 2 eight-inch square or 3 eight-inch round layers

• Unsalted butter, for pans
• 1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder, plus more for pans
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 cups sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter round or square cake pans, and line bottoms with parchment; butter parchment, and dust with cocoa.
2. Into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, sift cocoa, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. With the mixer on low, stir in eggs, 1 1/2 cups warm water, buttermilk, vegetable oil, and vanilla until smooth, about 3 minutes.
3. Divide batter among prepared pans. Bake, rotating once, until tester inserted in center comes out clean, 35 to 45 minutes for 8-inch layers, depending on amount of batter.
4. Let cakes cool in pans on a wire rack for 20 minutes, then remove from pans and cool completely, right side up on rack.

Cake Part I: Not all Cake is Created Equal

We went on our first cake tasting at Bredenbeck's Bakery. Though I have passed by Brendenbeck's thousands of times never considered them for our wedding cake until we came upon their booth at Chestnut Hill Day a couple of weeks ago. Their portfolio of cakes were beautiful and the clincher was they could lock us in at '08 prices. For the future Mister this sent him over the top.

Now I am somewhat of a cake snob and price is not the deal clincher. I want a cake that tastes FABULOUS! One that makes you feel like you have died and gone to heaven. So needless to say I was a little skeptical and really needed to get a taste before I said yea or nay.

So we went on a cake tasting this past Sunday. The staff there at Bredenbeck's are very helpful and friendly. The bakery storefront is extremely small so for the tasting they take you up to the third floor and it is a hike. But once up there you are in a room surrounded by beautiful cake models. They present you with a plate of different flavored pound cakes (Basic package, however basic layer cake is same price as traditional pound.)

(Clockwise from top raspberry swirl, lemon, traditional, chocolate chip pound)

I liked the traditional best while the future Mister loved the raspberry (one of their most popular).

Future Mister while eating his raspberry swirl

While the cake was good it was not Fantabulous. We asked about the layer cake and they provided us with one of their chocolate cupcakes to sample. It was somewhat dry and the pound cake was clearly better. Their pricing of $3.75 a serving is very reasonable and a cake for a wedding our size would be about ~$200. (I talked to another bakery and they have cautioned that like all other food items flour has gone up in price which may drive up the cost of baked goods. So be warned for 09 at any bakery!) I loved the fact that Laura our tasting consultant was good at listening to our design ideas and made great suggestions about sizing. Since we want the look of a three tiered cake and that would clearly be too much for our wedding party, she suggested a dummy tier made out of styrofoam which they could execute with butter cream or fondant icing.

They clearly had beautiful designs, however, I was just not won over by their taste. So the hunt continues.


Here is a link to their website.

http://www.bredenbecks.com/weddings.php

Their online album does not do justice to the work they are capable of, the sample cakes at the tasting were gorgeous. (Sorry no shots! What was I thinking.) I suggest if you like a good traditional pound cake and care more about the look rather than the taste then they are a great choice.

Venue

So after a semi-exhaustive search we chose the Four Seasons in Philadelphia as our venue.

Here were the driving reasons:

1) We were adamant about having a Center City location. Convenient for our in-town guests to get to and our out of town guests really get a taste of Philly by being in the heart of the city.

2) We wanted a hotel so we could have the ceremony and reception at the same place. (Cuts out the whole cost of transportation).

3) Since we are not going the traditional route of having an evening wedding we needed a place that could accommodate a late morning - early afternoon wedding. (Really its a deal for the hotel because they get a twofer in one day. Some hotels were very adamant that since we wanted to do it on a Saturday they could only accommodate day time weddings on Friday or Sunday. Saturday's were reserved for their big weddings in the ball room)

4) We wanted to do a brunch (the best meal of the day), heard raves about their brunch spread and the brunch menu options were spectacular.

5) Their decor is gorgeous and the level of service is beyond compare.

6) In our venue visit the wedding coordinator Lanay was prepared & organized, friendly beyond compare, and seemed genuinely interested in us and our wedding plans. She did not push us to do things we didn't want to and really helped in working with our theme and things we love.

7) The meeting rooms were beautiful and went along with our cozy sophisticated theme.

8) The flow of the hotel was great. Everything on one floor. Which we have to consider for older guests and just for ease of moving from one room to another.

9) The possibility of using the terrace for the cocktail hour.

10) Possibility of great shots right outside the hotel on the Parkway or at Logan Circle.

Even though they were the priciest of all the hotels we looked at the future Mister, who is very strict about the budget, turned to me on the car ride home and said "Let's do the Four Seasons". Which came as a totally big surprise. I had casually thrown out the question "So what do you think? Thoughts, impressions?" Holding my breathe and expecting him to pick the most economical venue. But this time he was the "BUDGET BUSTER". And I was advocating for the cheaper venue. (I know .... me advocate for the cheaper item .... Bizarro World!) Well I guess in all of this nothing will ever be as you expect it.

I will admit there are some cons to the venue we choose but I feel they are minor in the grand scheme of things.

1. We did not get a complimentary room, though other hotels offered. We are only getting a discount on a suite. And this was the case with a couple since we were not doing a night time wedding.
2. We do not get a tasting. We actually had to go to Sunday brunch at the hotel to get a feel of what the quality of food would be like. (So in essence we paid for the tasting).


But needless to say we have the Four Seasons and I love it. YEAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

(It was secretly the one I wanted anyhoo!)

Here is a link to a picture of our reception room.

Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia Meeting - Meeting rooms : Washington Room

Boutonnières

(All top photos courtesy of The Knot)

Okay so me and the future Mister went back and forth about the boutonnières.

I think they are terribly kitschy! To me they bring up images of high school prom. And do not to me make a man look dapper at all. But yet I feel strange breaking with tradition. The pics above are lovely examples of some versions of the traditional boutonnières.

Well at my first floral meeting we decided on simple rose boutonnières, however, after some thought I really hated it. And considering the Mister's personality and style I didn't think it was truly a reflection of him. Then we kicked around the idea of one made out of Swarovski crystals to give him a little bling. But I must admit to me it did not come across as too masculine.


Then we found the following site http://www.wirename.com and I knew I found the perfect alternative. And the Mister loved it. See a sample of their work.




We are thinking of either doing his initials of his full name or linked initials of our names. How cute is that!

What I am obsessed with lately

So I go through periods where I become maniac and obsessed about certain aspects of the wedding (Yeah and its 478 days away, just call me crazy!). Well its my hair today.

See just 3 months ago I had to cut off a substantial amount of my hair because it was breaking off and severely damaged. From what I don't know and my hairdresser still can not figure it out. Well needless to say I was not pleased, in fact I was devastated! Still am and still have not adjusted to seeing myself with hair this short ...... I am going to stop now because I could go on about this forever.

Well needless to say even though the wedding is so far out I will still need to get extensions put in to get the look I want. I got them from my friend's wedding this past September and loved it! They looked so real, but I think my hairdresser did a wonderful job blending it with my natural hair. Here is a pic.Well I found a great site for hair photos (http://s20.photobucket.com/albums/b207/be_byte6/)

And found a couple that I really love. I want a soft romantic look for the wedding and also something that I can easily wear down for the reception if I so choose.




I know I want the front to look like Eva's and the back of the last photo with a pretty flower or hair pin would be gorgeous!

Inspiration Board & Thematic Elements

Welcome to my first entry in my wedding blog. Though no one may ever read it, my fiance suggested that it may be a good outlet for me since I am trolling the internet all day looking at wedding stuff anyhoo. His thought was why not join in all the fun and stop being a spectator. And unfortunately I am ashamed to admit that I have been bitten by the wedding bug. I was not one of these little girls that always dreamed about weddings, or a single girl that had a secret stash of bridal magazines and kept a book of clipped wedding pics for that "special day". Quite frankly till me and Mr.R decided to get married, I truly had resigned myself to a life of singledom and thought of weddings never crossed my mind. But now that I am actually planning one (which quite honestly is not till September 2009) I see how it is easy to become absorbed and consumed with it. It combines all the things women love: fashion, entertaining, shopping, partying, etc. How could anyone not be won over. And for me a person obsessed with planning and organization it is an unimaginable high!

So needless to say in my over achiever anal compulsive way I already have a venue, wedding coordinator, photographer, and florist. (Scary right - considering my wedding is only for 50 people including me and Mr. R and I will gladly fill you in on all the details in future entries).

Working in collaboration with the wedding coordinator she and I cam up with a theme that embodied all the things that Mr.R and I liked and truly captured the look and feel we wanted for the wedding. And that was (drum roll please): Olde City Elegance with Soft Romance. A play on the fact that we are both natives of Philadelphia and love it and wanted a soft romantic yet elegant wedding.

She had us list out things we like and words we would used to describe the look and feel of our wedding. Using this she came up with a theme and also pulled out 4-5 elements that we could use in the design of the overall look of the wedding - thematic elements.

Here is what our original brainstorm list was:

Casual-Elegance Black & White Films/Photographs Calm Rain
Intimate Jazz Music Serenity Laughter
Romantic Ballet (Giselle) Apples Animals
Fragrance/Cologne Tea Brown Sugar The South
Simple Art Clothes Baking Mirrors
Candles Warmth Books/Reading Clouds
Peonies Inviting Flowers/Garden Silver Metal
Chocolate Clay Architecture
Cookies Roses Diamonds
Leaves (Autumn) Impressionist Art Watches
Italian Spring Fun

From that we got the thematic elements of: Diamonds/Crystals, Silver, Wrought Iron (Inspired by Architecture), Romantic Flowers (Roses, Peonies, etc), Candelight.

Doing this has really helped me to focus in planning the look and feel. It also caused me to make major changes to my inspiration board. I love my board!!!!!!!! I love to just look at it and I take it with me to all my vendor meetings and when I see ideas on the net or books I refer back to it to make sure things are in line with the overall vision.