Three Weeks

There are now three weeks until the wedding.

That's 21 days.

A visual interpretation:

That doesn't seem like a lot of days.

That time is getting close, and, fortunately, despite having many details to manage and verify, I am feeling very calm.  I have a strange sense that everything is in its place and that all will be okay.  At this time, I am mostly just excited and ready to marry my love and to spend that day with the people who we love the most.

Shoe Clips: They're In

Coming on the heels of the Royal Wedding, I have extreeeeeeeeeeeeeemely important and exciting news:

I ordered shoe clips, they have arrived, and I am very pleased.

I know.

Revolutionary.

Whatevs. 

Here are my non-princess shoes with the shoes with the shoe clips attached:

Yes, I went with the turquoise flowers, despite concerns that the colors wouldn't match - a concern shared by all many some three two people.  I was a hair apprehensive, but I decided ultimately that I was more concerned about how the others might look a little over-bridal and result in the dreaded not-ever-going-to-wear-it-again disease that plagues weddings the world over.


And I have my results.
And I am happy.

Bottles of Bubbly

I have to say that this was one of my favorite wedding tasks to date: champagne tasting!

My wedding wine provider/selector, who also happens to be my step-uncle, chose a selection of three champagnes for us to try at Easter dinner so that we could select one for the wedding. (Chris did not participate since, as many of you know, he does not drink at all.)

First, up an Asti: the flavor was sweet and bright, and my personal favorite - hello! sweet tooth!! - but ultimately we decided that it was too much to serve to the wedding attendees since many are not likely to share my preference for sweet.

Second, Prosecco: very dry.  Some of the family preferred this one and, while I liked it, it wasn't a stand-out for me.

Third: Louise d'Estree: balanced, and spicy.  The ultimate winner with a good amount of flavor variety.

Who knew I was such a connoisseur of champagnes and that I would have such strong opinions on it?

It was certainly quite fun trying the different bottles and discussing it like a fancy-pants grown-up with my family members.  I'd never had that much of an opinion about these things, and I'm used to the real grown-ups making decisions about wine and things since I'm generally pretty easy to please.

It is definitely nice to know, though, that I got to pick this one....plus the bottle is waaaaaaay pretty, right?

Cupcaked!

After we decided that Frosting's in Walnut Creek would be our cupcake-provider for the wedding, the next step   was to go back and try as many of their cupcakes as we could so that we would know which ones we wanted.

So maybe we took a little bit of time to get to that step.

Whoops!

So we did it this week.

Chris graciously went to the bakery and ordered 9 cupcakes: 

1. vanilla with buttercream frosting, 
2. lemon, 
3. chocolate with chocolate ganache, 
4. chocolate with peanut butter frosting, 
5. chocolate-espresso with espresso-caramel-chocolate frosting which they call a caramel macchiato
6. black-bottom, 
7. carrot cake, 
8. red velvet, 
9. and chocolate with cream cheese frosting

I provided the knife, napkins, and milk.

Over a grueling 45 minutes Chris and I (along with my wedding coordinator/boss and my dad - since, you know, we were doing the tasting at the office) tried all the flavors.

The results:

A few of them were rather disappointing (*ahem* vanilla and red velvet!!! *ahem*), but a few were super-delish.

The Winners:

1. Black Bottom
2. Caramel Macchiato
3. Chocolate with Chocolate Ganache
4. Carrot Cake
5. Lemon

We figure that this will please various taste buds, as well as include our own personal favorites among the options.

There we have it!

I shot off an email to the owner of the shop and will place the custom order in the next few days.

Hopefully they'll be able to decorate with our colors and etc to add to the customization.

Now I have to rope someone into picking them up on the day of the wedding!

Any takers?

THIRTY DAYS!

That's ONE MONTH.

That's how much time is left until the wedding.

How did that happen?

I may or may not be having mini-panics thinking about what's left to do.....or, you know, just worrying about what's left to do that I haven't even realized needs doing - because I'm like that.

Ack!!!

Article: Gender Difference among Couples in Conflict

I stumbled across the following article recently: "Women Have More Intense Emotions Than Men When Conflict Arises Within The Couple"


Yeah, this one has a little bit of a "duh" factor, I know.
I can't help but enjoy it though.  And it helps that this study was published in a peer-reviewed journal.  The author of the article about the actual study printing writes: 

"One could expect men to express more domineering or "powerful" emotions as wrath, anger or despise, and women to have more submissive attitudes guilt, sadness or fear. The results have proved that women feel more intense emotions, both powerful and non-powerful."

Again, not that surprising, but having a scientific study note this definitely makes me and my feminist heart happy and feeling justified.


Even more, the actual authors of the study write: 

"The socio-cultural context and gender-based roles assigned to men and women respectively might have a relevant influence on the generation of expectations concerning their role in relationships and in conflicts within the couple." 

Not that any of this necessarily applies to me, but I do definitely pay a lot of attention to the articles about couples and marriage these days.  I wonder why......

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

What cures all ailments regarding DIY projects?

Ordering 80 pounds of candy!!

Last night, I ordered all the candy for the candy buffet (or at least I think I did) from Amazon.  I was planning to order from an online candy wholesaler, but it turns out that the shipping for that wholesaler would increase the overall price by 40%.  So, a $200 order would cost $280 to get to me.  Well, turns out that Amazon has some great candy deals that fall under the Free SuperSaver Shipping deal that they have (or are Amazon Prime eligible, if you have that- I have the one-year student trial :) ).

I got all the below for well under budget:

Albanese Beary Blue Raspberry Gummi Bears

Chocolate Toffee Almonds

Airheads White Mystery

Grapefruit Gummi Candy

(my 100% favorite that I fell in love with when working at the Sweet Factory)

Swedish Fish

Sour Patch Watermelon Slices

Peanut Butter Pretzel Poppers

Yogurt Pretzels

Tootsie Rolls

Candy Coated Malted Milk Balls

Cherry Sour Balls

Watermelon Jolly Ranchers

Albanese Lemon Gummi Bears

I think I ended up with a good grouping of chocolate, gummi, nut, sour, and flavors.  I also needed to consider the color situation since I want the candy, when all set up, to look good and cohesive and in line with my overall color scheme.

It was more difficult to determine the line-up than I thought it would be; all the considerations (color, flavor, price) made things somewhat challenging to balance well.

You know what, though?

I'm definitely excited to eat all the candy....you know, to taste test it...in case it's....poisoned.