For example, there is a show on TLC called Cake Boss. I happened to stumble across it while working the other day, and lo and behold, one of the pieces to it was about a wedding cake.

And a bridezilla.

Now, I have been called a bridezilla. And, after seeing this, I call BS.. I am not a bridezilla.

Back to the story: this bride and her mother walk into the shop. The bride is surly looking and the mother is as giddy as can be. All the bride can do is sit there and pout and tell the guy that she wants a black cake with calla lilies — in her words “funeral”.

Buddy, the baker, tells them that he will make a cake that is 4 tiered, ivory, with draping and calla lilies.

The above was his creation. And boy was he proud of it. Though it’s not my style, I can appreciate the cake. It seems as if it took a long time to create and everything.

Well, Bridezilla comes into the bakery the day before the wedding because she wants to see the cake. He obliges.

She walks in and tells him how horrible it was. That it was dull with no color and just terrible. I mean, it was bad — she was horrid to him. He walks out to go take care of something else going on in the bakery, leaving her alone with the cake.

We all know where this is going, don’t we?

Well, she turns around to grab all the pretty colored icings and goes to town on this cake. You can see the result above.

Talk about going ballistic. Carlo was not pleased and kicked her ungrateful butt out of that bakery. Now, please remember that this was the night before her wedding day. He calls the mom, who was a good friend of the bakery, and tells her what happens. You can hear the mom on the other end crying and apologizing etc. She begs him to create another a cake saying she’ll pay him for both as well as the over time for the bakery, whatever it took.

He gave in! He said he would do it because he wanted “to be the better man”.

And boy did he create her a gorgeous cake! 5 tiered, with a quilted pattern and sugar flowers placed onto it.

Now, the show leads you to believe that she wouldn’t look at it and was just a total b**ch about all of it. The mother loved it.I don’t know what she is like in real life. I have no idea if it was scripted or whatever. All I know is that she looked like a tool on national television.

Oh, and I am not a bridezilla.

You can see photos from the wedding here.

First stop was the DJ: We’ve decided to go with LiveWire Productions. And they are basically awesome. First off, the owner met with us when he had other events going on that day. That showed Chet and I that they took an interest in their clients, which was spectacular since the other DJs we spoke with wouldn’t really get back in touch with us. Double ugh.

Wade, the owner, sat with us for an hour weaving this beautiful pattern of all the things that they could provide for us. Unfortunately, we can’t afford their most premium package, but we can defintely go with their “Romance Package”, and we sure did. This provides music for 4 hours along with a professional DJ, lighting etc. We both agree that music is a huge thing at a party like this, and are more than willing to pay more than what we had expected. In total, with mileage, the DJ will be about $1100.

Our next meeting was with Aramark. You remember our issue with getting a meeting, correct? Well, we had a few more issues, however we did get a meeting with an assistant manager and went for it. So, we choose our menu (Champagne Chicken, London Broil, Roasted New Potatoes, Green Beans Almondine, Rolls, Iced Tea and Water service — yum yum yum!!) We talked about drink tickets, setting up the building, all of that stuff that we needed to.

After a few kinks with the bill, we got everything squared away and now have catering done. We’ll be spending about $2,500 on food and drinks. Not too shabby, I believe.

So, $3,600 will be going towards the food, drinks, and music. Way more than we had planned, but is still worth it in the end.

She went to IKEA and picked up clear plates, dessert wine glasses and museum gel and put ‘em together.

How cool is that? You could find colored plates or glasses, whatever. Different sizes… I think this would be perfect for our cake table.

Edit: This is even better. Same basic idea, but she recomends using candle sticks or those little rose vases to change up the sizes. Adore this.

First topic of the post: Flowers.
These are still a bit up in the air. I’m not really into flowers. They make me sneeze and cost  a LOT of money. And, like everything else, we’re planning on DIYing the flowers, just because it helps cut the cost down some. Since we were going to handle it ourselves, I had considered scrounging the craft stores for pretty silk flowers that look would good in the center of the table(s). And then, like with everything, I started thinking about having to cut the wire stems and shape them and… my head began to hurt.

But, eureka!  Sometime this week, I found this post by A Backyard Wedding. I can’t remember how I found it, and I don’t really care, at all. I’m just stoked I did.

“Nicole, why on earth are you ‘stoked’ you found that post?”, you may be wondering. Because, dear friend, I get all of my inspiration from blogs. And her wedding = uh-mazing! It was a backyard shin-dig (which you might have guessed), the kind that I would love to have if we had a house, or knew someone who had a house big enough.

But! Within this little treasure of a post, she provides links to The Flower Exchange and to a video on how to create bouquets. Now, the flower exchange seems pretty awesome, and legit. Both of which are good things. She said her experience was good with them and the flowers lasted forever. Yay!!

Centerpiece inspiration:

So, I began browsing. And they have these wedding combos. For example, the one I think we may go with is this:

-100 Roses (your choice)
- 60 stems gerberas (any color choice)
- 10 stems of hydrangeas (only blue or white available)
- 5 Salal Tips
- 5 Bear grass
30 bunches per box
$253.00

We’re still trying to figure out the “bunches per box thing”. I’ve sent them an e-mail and am waiting for a reply. But! I think this is awesome.

They also sell Baby’s Breath for $10.00 for a bunch of 6 or sixty stems. For this, of course:

via: Once Wed

Next up: Catering
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH. That’s about all I can say about that. Actually, it’s not.

Since we’re going through the university, we have to use the university catering. No problem. When they want to, they’re food is delicious. Absolutely delicious. We’re not talking about any kind of cafeteria-food-that-I-have-to-eat-as-a-freshman-which-makes-me-gain-45lbs*. No, this is good stuff.

If you could ever meet with them. No joke, we’ve been trying to meet with the catering director since March. She canceled our date in March because she was too busy. She said she would call in a week, and never called. So we called her in April. Set up an appointment, she was too busy, canceled. Said she would call. Never called. (See a pattern evolving?)

So, I called her yesterday and said look, “I’m graduating, we’re leaving, we can’t be back before July, and then on August 10th, we’re leaving the state and won’t be back until November… for the wedding.” Her response? Oh, well, let’s meet at 10. Great! Perfect.

Not even an hour later, she calls us back, and guess what?! She’s too busy. But, she can squeeze us in between 4:30 and 5 but closer to 5 because she has another meeting. Are you effing kidding me?

She then asks us if we’ve looked at their menu online. Online?! (Side note: they have a fantastic option to order your food online and then they verify it and whatever, it’s great, when you’re planning student organization stuff. Or minor events.) My response, which was a bit curt, was along the lines of: this is a wedding, we need to discuss what we want, alcohol service, set up, our cake service, etc. I cannot do that online, we have to talk to you, in person; is there anyone else we could meet with? She said that it had to be her because she didn’t know who would be there in November.

So then she gets all nosy and asks why we can’t be back in Huntsville before July, don’t we live here. And I explained that we do, but we’re graduating and moving, so it’s not possible. And then she said well, you’re moving back in August? NO!!!!!!!! WE’RE MOVING OUT OF STATE! Oh, well why are you having your wedding here.

I was speechless. But, I persevered. However, we’re not meeting with her until July I guess. Whatever. Chet suggested calling someone we know who is higher up and having her tell us what to do. Despite how annoyed I am with the catering director, I don’t want to get her into trouble, which that very well may. Any suggestions?

Edit: she called us back and said that we could meet Friday or Saturday. Really? She made it sound like it was so difficult for her to meet with us, and she’s such a martyr for doing it with commencement. Yeah, well lady, I’m graduating with family coming in. I can’t meet with you. Perhaps we should have done this in April, no?

Finally: Life as it it.
Y’all can skip this part. It’s just me being sentimental, a bit. No really, just go comment and don’t worry about this part.

I’m officially done with my undergraduate work…. and I don’t know how I feel about it. I’ve been waiting for this moment for about 4 years, but now that it’s here, I’m nervous! I don’t know what’s coming up next or what to expect. I am going to miss my friend severely. It’s going to be so strange to have to write a new script for my life, and I don’t know how ready I am to do it. I try not to get all sentimental, but still… oi vey.

And besides that, I’m packing, and dealing with moving and everything. We’ve just about sold all that we wanted to sell, which I am so happy about. Now we have to put our lives from the past three years into carefully marked boxes so they can being their journey to my parent’s home and then Lincoln. It’s all just very, very weird. How do y’all cope with big life changes?

*Yes, it really did. Bastards.

It comes from Eddie Izzard, friends. And it’s funny.

Please watch.

<object width=”425″ height=”344″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/BNjcuZ-LiSY&hl=en&fs=1&”></param><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”></param><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/BNjcuZ-LiSY&hl=en&fs=1&” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”425″ height=”344″></embed></object>

So, after watching it, you may still not get it. That’s okay.

It makes me giggle.

via: WhitneyLee Photography

“My therapist told me the way to achieve true inner peace is to finish what I start. So far today, I have finished 2 bags of M&M’s and a chocolate cake. I feel better already.” –Dave Barry

Cakes are expensive. I’ve look at places that want a $250 deposit on a cake — and that just goes toward the cake. Now, I know that baking a wedding cake isn’t easy, but really… that’s more than I am spending on my dress!

In steps my amazing, incredibly wonderful boss Angie. Who, bless everything about her, likes to bake cakes. Just because. And she wanted to make her cake for her wedding in June, but decided against it because she didn’t think she would have the time. But, lo and behold, she had bought all the stuff! And she said she would love to make us a cake for our wedding!! Yay!

And then Chet and I were like, that’s perfect. We’ll have a beautiful 2-tiered cake, and then we’re going to do a full out cake and table. But our spin? Pie. Yup. Good ol’ fashioned pie. Who doesn’t love pie in the fall? Actually, I don’t, but I’ll have my strawberry cake. Yay!

via: VintageGlam Blog

Cakes/Pies:

Red Velvet Cake…

And, of course, Apple Pie… hopefully with ice cream. I’m thinking that we should put Sissi Jo (aka Chet’s mom) on this task. She is a fabulous baker. What do you think?