Cake On The Brain

I l-o-v-e me some cake. Seriously, I've rarely met a cake I didn't want to introduce to my belly. (Except carrot cake. Why ruin a perfectly good cake with veggies? I just don't get it.) Combine my love of cake with my love of aesthetically pleasing things and anybody could guess that I flat-out-faint for wedding cakes. Oh how I would love to feature one of these works of art at our wedding.

cake by Eat Cake Be Merry via Brides.com

cake by Sweet & Saucy Shop via Half Baked

cake by Vanilla Bakeshop via Brooklyn Bride

That said, I just can't get over what I hear is the Bay Area average of $7/slice for such a masterpiece. At ~100 servings, we're looking at 700 smackaroos for one cake. Yes, it would be an awesome cake, but it's still just one cake. For a woman who loves cake, I can think of better ways to spend $700 on cake - like by purchasing more cake! I got the idea from images like this.

image via Oh Happy Day

image via Distracted Homemaker

Freaking ingenious! What better way to honor my (clearly unhealthy, but whatevs) love of cake than to serve our guests not one cake, but lots and lots of cakes - plural! Plus I could probably do it for significantly less than $700, especially if some of those cakes were baked with love by myself and others.

The dilemma, though, is how to get the *aesthetically pleasing* part back. Clearly I need some way to link the cakes to our wedding "theme" and find a way to make it a focal point. We're working on creating a cool backdrop for the buffet table, so we'll have that. But those cakes need to sit on something. In my heart of hearts I imagine using cake stands like these.

image from In Style Weddings, Spring 2008 issue

In my wallet of wallets I imagine we'll end up with something like this.

plastic plates via Nationwide Party

Never one to be deterred from a seemingly impossible task, I turned to the interwebz and found some brilliant ideas here, here, and here. BTW, you people out there generating these ideas and posting these tutorials - you rock my world!

Although I love the idea of doing all-black stands, I am a little (unnecessarily?) freaked out by the idea of spray painting something and then eating a cake off of it. I don't tend to be a person who's overly cautious about that type of stuff, but it does worry me a little and I do have some overly cautious friends. So maybe it's best not to eff around with that. But how wonderful to get inspiration for all the different items you can use for either the plate part or the pedestal part! I'm particularly digging that last tutorial, because I can just imagine this cake stand painted black instead of yellow - with that awesome pop of white at the top - it's fabulous!

image via Eat Drink Pretty

I went around to some stores crazily snapping pictures of every potential cake-standy option. (It was either that or buy a carload of stuff and then return it all later. I think I made the right decision.) Then I came home to click through the pictures and try to figure out which option would be best for us (also known as ruminating myself to death).  But eventually I did make a choice, and it's a pretty fabulous one.  I'll post about it soon, I promise!

Would you ever be crazy/smart enough to try and bake desserts for the guests at your wedding?  If so, any tips on how you plan to do it and keep your sanity? 

Too Few, Too Many, or Just Right?

I'm talking guests here, people. Although there are about 125 people on our invite list, we've been guesstimating that only about 70 adults and 5 children would actually attend - and that's the number of people we've budgeted for. Now, I come from the 'more is more' camp when it comes to party attendees. In fact, I've been known to invite way more people into my home than could possibly fit comfortably, and just let them work it out for themselves with the help of everyone's good friend, vodka. So I've been secretly hoping that we'd have more, even *way* more, wedding guests than we've budgeted for. In my mind, that makes for a better party, even though it also makes for a sadder wallet.

image via Ronski Polski

My worst worst worst fear is that only, say, 50 people show up to the wedding and then we've spent beaucoup money on a party that will fizzle early because there aren't enough people there to keep up the energy. (Why it's not my worst fear that 125 people show up and then we're $10,000 over budget, I have no idea.)

image via Savage Chickens

Our social circle is much more on the small and intimate side, plus a smaller guest list is all we can afford. Furthermore, we've chosen a ceremony space that can only seat about 30-40, with standing room only for everyone else. With those calculations, it would stand to reason that 50 guests is too few, 125 is too many, and 75 is just right. But I can't shake the feeling that a few more than 75 guests would be just right-er.

So imagine my pleasant surprise as I've heard whisperings that some guests may be attending who we hadn't thought would be able to come.  And again when we considered adding a few extra invites for  some people who we've grown closer to since we initially made our guest list at the end of 2010.  It's impossible to predict those final RSVP numbers given that many of our guests would be coming in from out of town, but it looks like I might get at least a tiny bit of my 'more is more' wish after all.  

How did you decide your "just right" number of wedding guests?  And did you feel the pull to let that number creep upward?

Best Laid Plans

I swear we had it all worked out. The rules were simple. And there was only one rule. *Everyone* gets a +1, regardless of whether or not we've ever met the +1, no questions asked.

Here's a (poor quality, obvs) image of the wrap-around labels for our save the dates, which were mailed last December.  See you if you can catch my oversight.

{Does that look like it indicates "+1" to you???}

{How about this one? Would you think you could bring a guest if you received this?}

When we were printing these labels, we clearly didn't consider our rule.  I don't know what happened - maybe we thought the rule only applied to invitation labeling, or maybe we were just exhausted and wanted to finish these things and get them out.  Whatever it was, I didn't think about it at all until I was in Georgia over the holidays talking to one of my cousins who was trying to politely, and subtly, see if her boyfriend could come to the wedding. Of course he could come!  That's the rule!  But how the hell would she possibly know that since we stupidly sent the save the date addressed only to her?? 

I mean, sure, when she gets the invitation it would have said "and guest" on the label. But the invitation won't be mailed until about two months before the wedding, which is pretty last minute to plan a cross-country trip for two people that will require taking at least one day off work. Wasn't that the point of the save the dates in the first place - to give people almost a year of notice, so they'd have plenty of time to plan and thus be more likely to come?!  Now I'm stuck sending pitiful emails along the lines of, "By the way, you can totally bring someone to the wedding if you want to. But if not, or if you can't come, that's cool too. Whatevs."

Moral of the story: Do as I say, not as I do. However you intend to label your invitations, DO THE SAME for your save the dates.

What "oversights" (or, as some would call them, mistakes) have you made in your process, and how did you fix them?

Dressing the Party: Round 3

With David's Bridal and a smaller boutique crossed off the list of possibilities, it was back to the drawing board once more.  By this point, the infinity dress had been mailed back and forth across the country for everyone to try on, and the consensus was that it needed to be nixed as well.  Everyone thought it was a fabulous dress, and several people said they wanted to buy one even if we didn't use it for the wedding.  But there were concerns that it would look too casual in gray, even with a fancier fabric, and that it might be more "high maintenance" than people would prefer.  So it's a no-go for the wedding, but I'm seriously considering getting one for the honeymoon. 

dress by Etsy seller katesy

[By the way, if you're thinking about getting an infinity dress for yourself or your wedding party, I would highly recommend Etsy seller katesy.  She was wonderfully communicative, was flexible and patient in getting me a loaner dress to send around to everyone, she will customize the dresses both to your wedding color(s) and the specific measurements of your wedding party members (including plus sizes), and she offers matching tube tops for additional coverage.  And fyi: this is not a paid endorsement of any kind, trust me!  I was just really impressed when I was in contact with her.]

Now, back to the story - because this is the really good part, I promise.  :-)  It's the part where Party Person N and I trekked up to the Sacramento area to go to this mysterious Alfred Angelo signature store.  For those of you who haven't been before, it's pretty much like going to a David's Bridal - it's fairly big and busy, they assign you a consultant, and they have lots of styles and sizes to choose from.  Because I still didn't have a clear sense of what I wanted these dresses to look like, we just grabbed every cocktail-length dress they had that came in the charcoal color.

We were quickly able to rule out the satin dresses, which still left us with a bunch of chiffon options.

The initial verdict - charcoal was absolutely the perfect color (third dress in the bottom row), and I could be blissfully happy if our wedding party members chose any of those styles.  Finally, finally!  Oh, blessed color and fabric choice of the Ferris Wheel wedding, you had appeared to me! 

As I sat basking in my relief, this next little realization felt like it came out of nowhere yet made so much sense: Party Person N and I both both adored the black trim on that charcoal dress.  In fact, that's totally what made the dress for me.  The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a dash of black on a gray dress was just the little bit of edge and sass that I was looking for, and I was pretty sure it would work beautifully with the overall aesthetic of our wedding. 

We asked the consultant about dresses with contrast trim, and she told us that there were only a few that could be ordered that way.  But looking more closely at all of the dress options, I was certain we could find a way to replace sashes, belts, straps, or flowers with black ones in order to create a cohesive look.  As best I can imagine (and hastily throw together in Publisher), here's a very rough idea of what we're aiming for.

{flower boy, junior Party Person, 3 Party People, 3 Team Mr. FW people, and a flower girl}

gray dress images from Alfred Angelo (some edited by me), source for vest images and flower girl dress image lost forever in my inspiration folders - sorry!

We're not quite there yet, but it's definitely starting to come together.  Now... what is it that's left?  There's something... I just know it.  Something that we need... in addition to those outfits...  Something like...  Oh yeah, a wedding dress for the bride and a suit for the groom.  That's right.  Alas, something for another day.  (I swear I'm working on it.  I actually have an appointment tonight - wish me luck!)

Random question: where do you fall in the satin vs. chiffon debate?  (Yes, I realize there are other fabric options out there, but it seems to me that those two categories encompass at least 75% of bridesmaid dresses available, yeah?) 

Dressing the Party: Round 2

A few weeks after Round 1, I went to a fancy bridal salon hoping to see some of the Alfred Angelo and Alfred Sung dresses I'd been looking at online. As soon as we got there, I felt uncomfortable and out of place but I just chalked it up to lack of familiarity with this kind of store. Oh, if only I'd been aware of the 2.5 star rating on Yelp perhaps I would've moderated my expectations a bit. 

logo via Yelp

You remember me talking about how principled I am when it comes to dress shopping, yeah? Well let's just say that a huge store with only twelve "plus-size" (meaning larger than 14) bridesmaid dress options and a consultant who refused to acknowledge the store's limited plus-size inventory (until I brought it up), was honestly just never going to work for me.  Thus I learned that one needs to call and ask about these things before you you just show up for an appointment.

image via cbcastro's Flickr page

I'm not proud of it, but I'll admit that I was feeling pretty 'over it' from very early on. My Party Person shopping pal was wonderfully cheerful and optimistic to counteract my Eeyore-esque attitude, though. You'll notice that there aren't dress pictures to accompany this post, and that's because there really wasn't much worth remembering. We tried on all of four dresses, I think.  The consultant kept telling us that if we picked a dress online she would happily order it for us so we could buy it from that store, but for me the point of going to a store is so that you can try things on before you buy them.  Usually I'm all about shopping online, but my indecision over dress styles means I have this crazy need to actually see everything in person.  And in any event, if I were going to order them sight unseen, there's a more-than-decent chance that I'd stand on principle and order them from a store that carried a wider selection of plus-size samples. 

image by HerbFellow via deviantART

This negative bridal salon experience seriously made me want to crawl into a little bride cave and just disappear for a while, and it certainly did nothing to increase my excitement about wedding gown shopping.  But Party Person N encouraged me to get back on the horse, and she was right.  That same night I serendipitously happened to find out that Alfred Angelo apparently had these "signature stores" where they carried all their styles in the full range of sizes. And luckily for me, there was a signature store relatively close by.  Since I knew they offered a gray color called charcoal, I was feeling kinda hopeful that one trip to this signature store would result in me finally making a decision about these dresses.  So... I got back on the horse. 

If you were ever surprised (and not in a good way) by something that happened at a bridal salon, were you able to get over it or did you choose to move on to a different store?

Dressing the Party: Round 1

Several months ago Party Person K and I headed out David's Bridal to look at some potential dress options for the members of the wedding party (plus we threw in an infinity dress at my house, just for good measure). My goal for that day: if nothing else, get clarification on my preferred dress color and length. Who would've thought that was too much to ask of myself?! I partially blame K for this. I pretty much made her try on every dress in the store, and she looked damn good in nearly all of them!

I came home WAY more confused than when I left. Previously convinced we'd go with knee-length gray dresses, I couldn't believed how much I loved the elegance of the floor-length ones. And although I did still really gravitate towards shades of gray, those versatile black dresses were starting to call my name. 

That night I sat down to discuss the options with Mr. FW and I was so frustrated that I was teary-eyed. I felt confused and I was worrying about things I'd never questioned before. My main issue seemed to be a concern that a shorter dress wouldn't look formal enough for a downtown evening wedding. The longer ones looked so much more elegant and I thought maybe that was a better fit. 

Then Mr. FW said something that was oh-so-true. His exact words were, "We haven't made a single other 'elegant' decision when it comes to this entire wedding. Why are we going for 'elegant' now?" It was an Aha! moment for me. I had been mesmerized by the beauty of those long dresses, but it's true that we're not really trying to have a super-elegant wedding. Chic, yes. Elegant, no. Laid-back, yes. Formal, no.  In that moment I knew that knee-length dresses would obviously work better with our overall aesthetic.  It really helped to be reminded by Mr. FW to plan OUR wedding, not someone else's style of wedding. 

I also found out during this conversation that Mr. FW planned to wear a dark gray suit and he wanted everyone in the wedding party to wear something at least a little bit lighter. That means we'd need to go with lighter gray dresses.  So oddly enough, I'd accomplished my goal of determining the color and length of the dresses by the end of that day, even if it didn't happen quite as I'd imagined it would. We were squarely on the hunt, then, for knee-length dresses in a medium gray color. David's Bridal was out because they didn't have a good range of dresses in the right color, but the infinity dress was still potentially an option.  On to Round 2!

How many rounds did it take you to find dresses for your wedding party?  Did you second-guess any of your decisions about the dress color or length?

A Principled Choice

As overwhelmed as I was by needing to pick dresses for some of the gorgeous women in our wedding party, I wasn't desperate enough to let go of what is perhaps my only abiding principle when it comes to dress shopping.  Under *no* circumstance would I pick a dress from a retailer that did not sell plus-sized dresses.  Obviously there's a backstory here, and it has nothing to do with our wedding party.  Nope - this time, it's personal.  (Doesn't that sound so dramatic?!)

I've only been a bridesmaid once, and this was the dress I was told to buy: 

Lorelei from J. Crew

Sounds easy enough, right?  Well, as you know I have been a plus-size girl for a long time and moreover, I am particularly well-endowed in the chest area.  Can you see where this is going?  Um, yeah.  So J. Crew sizes go up to a 16.  Now take a look at the side view of the top portion of that dress.  Even if I could've fit into a size 16 waist, there was never any hope that my busty self could have squeezed into the bodice of that dress.  Because I didn't really have a relationship with the bride, I didn't feel I could call her and explain the situation.  So what could I do?  The only real option I saw (besides backing out, and you gotta really make that your last resort) was to buy two dresses and find a seamstress to magically create a whole new dress for me.  And that's exactly what happened, but let me just tell you this...  In the end, that one bridesmaid dress cost me almost $600! 

Needless to say, it left me with an embarassingly bad taste in my mouth.  So when it came to choosing dresses for my own wedding, I vowed to veer far, far away from designers and manufacturers that offer only limited sizes.  That means none of these beauties will ever get to compete for the affection of our wedding party members.

Dress sources from L-R:  J. Crew,  White House Black Market,  Banana Republic,  Nordstrom,  Bloomingdale's,  Mod Cloth}

I could easily shop plus-size only departments, but that won't work for all our party members (unless I wanted to retaliorate against the universe by forcing our small-framed wedding party folk to cough up the money to pay for expensive alterations as some sort of plus-sized cultural immersion experience - but I'm not *that* evil). 

I quickly figured out that taking this stand would likely mean purchasing dresses from a big name bridal retailer, and that was totally fine with me.  So we considered David's Bridal, Alfred Sung, and Alfred Angelo (what's up with dress designers named Alfred?), all of whom offer sizes up to at least 26 and often 30. 

above dresses from David's Bridal

above dresses from Alfred Sung via Dessy

above dresses from Alfred Angelo

In a world of sheer madness where it's my job to choose another grown person's attire, knowing that I practice what I preach gives me just a little bit of much-needed peace. 

What are your abiding principles when it comes to your wedding, and what kind of principled choices have you made?