Enough Already!

I have dragged this wedding business out long enough, don’t you think?

Today I’ll post a few shots that the photographer took at the reception. I don’t have photos from the wedding day at the Temple yet. But our photographer for that event has health issues and is confined to bed this week after receiving her monthly plasma transfusion. (I used two different photog’s) We’ll get those when she’s back on her feet…

 

 

 

 

 

 

The FABULOUS kitchen help. Biff’s dad was in a car accident several years ago that left him paralyzed from the armpits down. We weren’t sure he was going to be able to come to the reception, so we were thrilled when he showed up!

***********************

Below are some snapshots that friends and relatives took at the Temple.

The Temple, thankfully, had this beautiful white cloak to loan to the brides. Isn’t it gorgeous?

As we were leaving the temple to go to the luncheon, Buttercup ran into an old friend from when she was just a little, little girl… aged 3 – 6. We knew this girl and her family when we lived on the Oregon Coast. (She and Buttercup have the same name even!)

Buttercup II was recently married and was going to a session at the Temple with her new husband. It was a total coincidence that we ran into them! What a treat for both of them!

***********************

How handsome is this guy?
(He insisted that he have a bow tie and pocket square.)

*****************************

Papa is NOT usually allowed to do this. He usually gives Inigo a funky/weird hairdo.

**********************************

The cute little girls who kept the tables cleaned of dirty dishes. My sweet neighbor made
the darling zebra print aprons for them to wear!

*******************************

And finally…
this snapshot sums up our whole weekend.
Buttercup was giddy and happy and just a little silly.
I was overcome with emotion and by the time she and Biff left, I was a bucket of tears and bawling.
And there’s Max.
His life motto is “I’m just happy to be here.”
You can see by the look on his face, that he is.

*********************************

And if you have made it through these long, drawn out posts, I commend you and I thank you. Your dedication to my ramblings is admirable.
I seriously hope to be finished posting pictures and stories.

Although, I haven’t mentioned the story about how I got pulled over by a police officer on our way to the luncheon….

So…. How’d It Go?

Smoooooth.

Piece of Cake.

Like a breeeeze.

Seriously.

Having the wedding and reception on a different day worked perfectly for us!

(Too bad you can’t hear my singsong voice as I say each different line. It might make this post a little more interesting.)

Setting up for the reception was so easy. No pressure.

I supervised and hung around a little. Our sweet little decorator was so patient with me, but I knew that deep down she was wanting me OUTTA THERE!

And I was happy to leave it all in her EXTREMELY capable hands: I had family at home that needed feeding. I had to get dressed and get my boys dressed. I needed to get my daughter all fancied and gussied up. There was still plenty to do.

But you know me, Miss Control Freak. I needed to see with my own eyes that everything would be done in time.

And it was!! And it was GORGEOUS!! (There’s that sing-y voice again!)

Sadly, I do not have a photo that shows the whole cultural hall all decorated.

I know! I know! Me? Not have a picture? WHAT!?!?

That’s what happens. I was busy making sure everything and everyone was where they needed to be. I handed my cameras off, but – wouldn’t you know it? – both camera batteries died.

I know! I know! Me? Not be prepared with extra batteries? I plead guilty of having a distracted mind. (Many of the following photos were taken with my cameras before they became inoperable.)

Here are a few of the pictures that I do have:

 

<< The beautiful cake made by Buttercup’s grandma, who is also Max’s mom. Isn’t it gorgeous?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

^^^ The pictures above are the centerpieces I was in charge of. (I should explain that the decorator was in charge of all the backdrops, table coverings, chairs, etc. I had to be in charge of everything that went on top of the tables. It was daunting for me… a very non-creative person.) These centerpieces were wine glasses turned upside down with a flower under the cup and candle on the stem/base. I also put heart jewels around the candle, on the base, but you can’t tell in the picture. My mom hemmed the zebra fabric. The decorator, who is simply amazing, then took these glasses and made them pop and look fancier than the vision I saw in my head of how everything was supposed to look.
Also, on the tables were little books I printed up. The cover said, “Words of advice and helpful hints for the bride and groom.” When you open it up it said, “Dear Buttercup and Biff,” with a few lines for guests to write down helpful hints or advice for them. Then there was a place at the bottom for the advice writer to sign.

 

 

 

 

 

 

^^^ These are the centerpieces that were on 4 of the tables. The cute box belonged to the decorator and I just had to fill them.

HA! ME?!?

I don’t do flowers. So I called in reinforcements. You know, a floral “arteest” that has the designer eye: My seester, Red. She did a GORGEOUS job! She rocked the gerbera daisy look that I wanted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

^^^ These are some of the display tables. The top picture is the “display table.” IMHO, it’s the silliest table at the reception. It’s just crammed full of things/pictures/memories of the bride and groom. There was a lots of pressure for me to create a decent display on this table. All of Biff’s photos of his childhood are in a storage unit somewhere, along with all of his childhood memorabilia, so I had to use pictures I lifted off his Facebook page and printed up. Buttercup, of course, has more pictures than anyone has a right to have, so the challenge was NOT picking a photo from every age in her life. I printed most of the pictures as 8 x 10’s but there are a few 5 x 7’s on there too. I then mounted the photo on a piece of artist’s canvas, coated them in a generous covering of Decoupage and planted them on an easel…

The bottom left picture is the “Eats and Treats” table. This photo was taken early in the evening before the reception started, so there isn’t much food on it. Seriously, every time my kitchen help put food out, everyone would run up and start eating, so they had to wait or there would be nothing left for the reception.

The bottom right is the Sign In table. I found the cutest little lamp with fuchsia fringe on it to use at this table, but it was broken and wouldn’t turn on. Bummer. I like the lamp the decorator brought though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some details from the tables.

 

 

 

^^^ This shows some detail of the tables. They were triple covered with black and fuchsia cloths and made to look “swaggish” by pulling up the pink cloths and pinning them with a beautiful broach. You can see one of the broaches on the empty table in the background.

Aren’t the chairs cool? Not your ordinary LDS church/ cultural hall chair! I tried to talk the decorator out of using them, but now I’m so glad she insisted (nicely of course).

And that about sums up the reception side of our weekend.

I’m sorry this post is excruciatingly boring.

Oh well. I do it for posterity, right?

One more photo. Sorry it’s blurry. There was bad light and no time to fix the situation. This is Buttercup’s reaction when she saw the decorated room. I kept her out of it until everything was finished, then walked her in with her eyes closed…

Yep! Tears of joy! She was so happy with how it all turned out! And I’m so grateful for everyone that came and helped! There is NO WAY Buttercup could have had such a nice night without all the help that my friends and family gave. I’m so blessed to be surrounded by so many wonderful people.

THANK YOU, EVERYONE!

(Coming tomorrow… professional photos @ the reception. I know you can’t wait!)

Blood, Sweat and Flour

*Editor’s note: This is the second time I have posted this. The first post had it’s formatting messed up when I opened it up in the “editing” format on Blogger to add an additional photo. Rather than fight the HTML part of making everything look nice, I opted to re-post this in a more readable format. I’m sorry for the people who already left comments on the previous post! I will leave it on my blog because your comments are important to me.

**********************

I’m cheap.

I admit it and I embrace that part about me.

I hate spending money on frivolous things like:

FOOD!

Seriously, how stupid is it to spend a ton of money on something that is so consumable? You eat it, you enjoy it for the 30 seconds it’s dancing around on your taste buds, you swallow it and then… well… we all know where it goes after that.

Yet, I (obviously) enjoy eating.
I really enjoy putting that tasty food on my taste buds for that 30 seconds and savoring each flavor as I chew each bite
(unless it’s really good. Then I just inhale the food.)

That left me in a bit of a conundrum as I was preparing for
Buttercup and Biff’s reception.
How do I serve the tastiest morsels ever without spending a gazillion dollars?

My answer was simple:

I make all the food

1) It’s much cheaper than catering.
2) I am in control of the ingredients.
3) I am in control of the outcome and how it ultimately looks and tastes.
If it tastes great, then I win.
If it tastes bad, then I can’t blame anyone else.
Which can cause a problem
because if it tastes bad and doesn’t work,
I’d rather blame someone else…
Ahh… what a vicious circle!

I digress.

I felt that I would save a lot of money if I made all the tasty reception treats on my own.
So that’s what I set out to do.

Here’s our menu:

1) Ohio Buckeyes
2) Mini pies
3) Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread
4) Oreo Bark
5) Brownie Bites
6) Cream Cheese mints
7) Mini fruit pizzas
8) Mini cream puffs *
9) Mini cheesecake bites *

* Foods that I purchased.

I have to say that I’m pretty proud of how things turned out!

************************

I’ve never planned a wedding reception before, so I didn’t know how to plan the numbers.
I made the Ohio Buckeyes first.
(They are a peanut butter balled dipped in chocolate)
I made about 700 of them and they were the crowning jewel of the refreshment table.
I didn’t realize how many 700 really were.
That was an insane amount.
Steck and I ended up dipping only about 500.
That was an insane amount.

*****************

My mini pie shells were different. I only made about 300 of those.
I used my regular pie shell recipe and a flower cookie cutter to cut the shells out. Then I baked them in mini muffin tins. They were so tiny and cute and the crowning jewel on the refreshment table.
A  serious amount of time and effort was needed in baking them. I felt like a quitter when I gave up after baking 300. I wanted to bake more, but I ran out of shortening and was too cheap to buy more.
If 300 wasn’t enough, it was too bad.

We filled the shells with pie filling purchased at Prepared Pantry. which is pretty much the coolest store in the western United States.
We used chocolate, lemon, cherry and apple pie filling. It comes in pastry-type tubes, so it was a breeze to squeeze a dollop into the shell and then top with a squirt of whipped cream from a can.
They were so cute!

(From left: Oreo Bark, Mini Pies, Ohio Buckeyes and Brownie Bites)

The mini fruit pizzas were my crowning jewel.
I saw the idea on Pinterest but used my own recipes.
I baked about 400 round sugar cookies and used my aunt’s fruit pizza recipe to make the cream cheese “sauce” that goes under the fruit.
That was topped with slices of strawberries, blueberries and kiwi.
They were so pretty and absolutely delicious.

 

***********************
Biff specifically requested the Pumpkin Chocolate Chip recipe. I had help on this one!
I baked the first 5 loaves….my recipe makes 3 at a time.
BUT WAIT!!The math doesn’t work out on that!

When I baked the first 3 loves, I didn’t put parchment paper in the bottom of the pan, so when I dumped them out, the bottom of the bread stuck to the bottom of the pan.
It’s not attractive.
And you can’t serve “unattractive” to your guests.

Sadly, my family had to consume the ugliest loaf that refused to be separated from its baking dish.
It was definitely a burden, but we sacrificed. ;-)

(The recipe is called Better Than Great Harvest Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread.
I promise it wasn’t a burden to consume that destroyed loaf.)
My wonderful seester, Red, made another batch of the bread, so that gave us a total of 8 loaves.

***********************

Remember when I posted my brownie recipe last summer?
That’s the recipe I used for my brownie bites.

When I was baking the mini pie shells, I looked at that cute little mini-muffin tin that I borrowed from Steck and had an epiphany.
I wanted to use that pan to make brownies!
Brownies that were cute, and colorful chocolaty goodness.

So how could I do that?

I held on to the pan and slept and pondered and brain stormed (with myself) on how I could make those bites yummy and memorable and pretty.

And then it came to me!

I have a recipe for mint brownies.
You make a mint flavored frosting and frost the brownies.
Then you slather the top of the frosting with a chocolate coating to seal it up.

I’m pretty sure the brownie bites were the crowning jewel of my refreshment table.
I bought fuchsia food coloring from Prepared Pantry and colored the icing, hoping it would match Buttercup’s color theme.
(It was close… which is pretty good when it comes to food.)

When I finished making them and putting them together, I was very relieved to take 300 of them over to my neighbor’s freezer.
Otherwise we would have taken only about 75 to the reception.
They were so good and extremely tempting!

*****************

The Oreo Bark was not planned. I made it the night before the reception.
Biff loved it.
I tried making a cream cheese and Oreo cookie to fit the color theme, and they FAILED!
Dismally.

This left me with  3 packages of left over Oreos. And I wanted to do something with them.
I remembered seeing a picture on Pinterest where you take crushed Oreos and mix it into melted white chocolate and pour it onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
When it’s cool, you break it into small pieces and voila!
A delicious sweet treat is born!

I liked how the black and white of the Oreo and white chocolate looked on the table.

****************
Also on Pinterest, I saw a recipe for Cream Cheese mints.
I remember my mom made these when we were little.
I LOVED them!
So I asked Steck if she would make them for me, which she graciously agreed to do.

I was really bummed for a couple days because I couldn't find the left-over mints.
I searched high and low and I couldn't locate them. But today I started cleaning out "Command Central"
-- which is Mom Talk for "The Extra Bedroom Where All the Wedding Stuff is Stashed" --
and lo and behold! there they were!

I was pretty excited!

They were beautiful and matched Buttercup’s color theme as well.

I also found the left over pie shells, so put them together and took a photo so Buttercup and I can always remember what the treats looked like.

*****************

My last two dessert treats were purchased at Sam’s Club. Mini cream puffs (which I hear are quite tasty) and cheesecake bites. I didn’t get a taste of either.

************************

It was a lot of work doing all that baking.
But I had a BLAST!
I’m sure my hands will eventually recover and stop cracking and bleeding from all the washing (dishes and hand washing) that I did, but it was all worth it.

And I’d do it all again.

To save money.

To have fun.

To create a beautiful memory for my child.

**********************

P.S. I will post recipes for these treats, eventually.

Blood, Sweat and Flour

I’m cheap.

I admit it and I embrace that part about me.

I hate spending money on frivolous things like: FOOD!

Seriously, how stupid is it to spend a ton of money on something that is so consumable? You eat it, you enjoy it for the 30 seconds it’s dancing around on your taste buds, you swallow it and then… well… we all know where it goes after that.

Yet, I (obviously) enjoy eating.
I really enjoy putting that tasty food on my taste buds for that 30 seconds and savoring each flavor as I chew each bite
(unless it’s really good. Then I just inhale the food.)

That left me in a bit of a conundrum as I was preparing for
Buttercup and Biff’s reception.
How do I serve the tastiest morsels ever without spending a gazillion dollars?

My answer was simple:

I make all the food.

1) It’s much cheaper than catering.
2) I am in control of the ingredients.
3) I am in control of the outcome and how it ultimately looks and tastes.
If it tastes great, then I win.
If it tastes bad, then I can’t blame anyone else.
Which can cause a problem
because if it tastes bad and doesn’t work,
I’d rather blame someone else…
Ahh… what a vicious circle!

I digress.

I felt that I would save a lot of money if I made all the tasty reception treats on my own.
So that’s what I set out to do.

Here’s our menu:

1) Ohio Buckeyes2) Mini pies3) Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread4) Oreo Bark5) Brownie Bites6) Cream Cheese mints7) Mini fruit pizzas8) Mini cream puffs *9) Mini cheesecake bites *

* Foods that I purchased.

I have to say that I’m pretty proud of how things turned out!

************************

I’ve never planned a wedding reception before, so I didn’t know how to plan the numbers.
I made the Ohio Buckeyes first.
(They are a peanut butter balled dipped in chocolate)
I made about 700 of them and they were the crowning jewel of the refreshment table.
I didn’t realize how many 700 really were.
That was an insane amount.
Steck and I ended up dipping only about 500.
That was an insane amount.

*****************

My mini pie shells were different. I only made about 300 of those.
I used my regular pie shell recipe and a flower cookie cutter to cut the shells out. Then I baked them in mini muffin tins. They were so tiny and cute and the crowning jewel on the refreshment table.
A  serious amount of time and effort was needed in baking them. I felt like a quitter when I gave up after baking 300. I wanted to bake more, but I ran out of shortening and was too cheap to buy more.
If 300 wasn’t enough, it was too bad.

We filled the shells with pie filling purchased at Prepared Pantry. which is pretty much the coolest store in the western United States.
We used chocolate, lemon, cherry and apple pie filling. It comes in pastry-type tubes, so it was a breeze to squeeze a dollop into the shell and then top with a squirt of whipped cream from a can.
They were so cute!

(From left: Oreo Bark, Mini Pies, Ohio Buckeyes and Brownie Bites)

The mini fruit pizzas were my crowning jewel.
I saw the idea on Pinterest but used my own recipes.
I baked about 400 round sugar cookies and used my aunt’s fruit pizza recipe to make the cream cheese “sauce” that goes under the fruit.
That was topped with slices of strawberries, blueberries and kiwi.
They were so pretty and absolutely delicious.

***********************
Biff specifically requested the Pumpkin Chocolate Chip recipe. I had help on this one!
I baked the first 5 loaves….my recipe makes 3 at a time.
BUT WAIT!!The math doesn’t work out on that!
When I baked the first 3 loves, I didn’t put parchment paper in the bottom of the pan, so when I dumped them out, the bottom of the bread stuck to the bottom of the pan.
It’s not attractive.
And you can’t serve “unattractive” to your guests.Sadly, my family had to consume the ugliest loaf that refused to be separated from its baking dish.
It was definitely a burden, but we sacrificed. ;-)
(The recipe is called Better Than Great Harvest Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread.
I promise it wasn’t a burden to consume that destroyed loaf.)
My wonderful seester, Red, made another batch of the bread, so that gave us a total of 8 loaves.

***********************

Remember when I posted my brownie recipe last summer?
That’s the recipe I used for my brownie bites.
When I was baking the mini pie shells, I looked at that cute little mini-muffin tin that I borrowed from Steck and had an epiphany.
I wanted to use that pan to make brownies!
Brownies that were cute, and colorful chocolaty goodness.
So how could I do that?
I held on to the pan and slept and pondered and brain stormed (with myself) on how I could make those bites yummy and memorable and pretty.
And then it came to me!
I have a recipe for mint brownies.
You make a mint flavored frosting and frost the brownies. Then you slather the top of the frosting with a chocolate coating to seal it up.

I’m pretty sure the brownie bites were the crowning jewel of my refreshment table.
I bought fuchsia food coloring from Prepared Pantry and colored the icing, hoping it would match Buttercup’s color theme.
(It was close… which is pretty good when it comes to food.)

When I finished making them and putting them together, I was very relieved to take 300 of them over to my neighbor’s freezer.
Otherwise we would have taken only about 75 to the reception.
They were so good and extremely tempting!

*****************

The Oreo Bark was not planned. I made it the night before the reception.
Biff loved it.
I tried making a cream cheese and Oreo cookie to fit the color theme, and they FAILED!
Dismally.

This left me with  3 packages of left over Oreos. And I wanted to do something with them.
I remembered seeing a picture on Pinterest where you take crushed Oreos and mix it into melted white chocolate and pour it onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
When it’s cool, you break it into small pieces and voila!
A delicious sweet treat is born!
I liked how the black and white of the Oreo and white chocolate looked on the table.

****************

Also on Pinterest, I saw a recipe for Cream Cheese mints.
I remember my mom made these when we were little.
I LOVED them!So I asked Steck if she would make them for me, which she graciously agreed to do.

I was really bummed for a couple days because I couldn't find the left-over mints. I searched high and low and I couldn't locate them. But today I started cleaning out "Command Central" -- which is Mom Talk for "The Extra Bedroom Where All the Wedding Stuff is Stashed" and lo and behold! there they were!

I was pretty excited!

They were beautiful and matched Buttercup’s color theme as well.

I also found the left over pie shells, so put them together and took a photo so Buttercup and I can always remember what the treats looked like.

*****************

My last two dessert treats were purchased at Sam’s Club. Mini cream puffs (which I hear are quite tasty) and cheesecake bites. I didn’t get a taste of either.

************************

It was a LOT of work doing all that baking.
But I had a BLAST!
I’m sure my hands will eventually recover and stop cracking and bleeding from all the washing (dishes and hand washing) that I did, but it was all worth it.
And I’d do it all again.
To save money.
To have fun.
To create a beautiful memory for my child.

**********************

P.S. I will post recipes for these treats, eventually.

The Final Countdown

It’s 9:30 pm -- two days before Buttercup’s reception --and I have two choices of what to do with my time:
a) Go to bed.
    I don’t need to explain this, do I?
b) Keep cleaning my house.
    Yes, the house that has been sorely neglected for the past 6 weeks while I have been feverishly crafting, painting and baking.
I won’t go into the sordid details, but I will confess that the spiders from town saw the neglect and brought their U-hauls and have been escaping the sudden temperature drop outside to take residence in the cozy comfort of my dusty corners.

What’s my choice? What am I going to do with my time?!?

Why, I’m going to start blogging of course.

Sometimes, it just feels good to do something that you don’t HAVE to do, right?  I’ll let those spiders have one more night of frolicking frivolity before their demise at the sucking end of my Hoover. (I’m benevolent that way sometimes.)

We got Buttercup’s bridal pictures back from our photographer and I wanted to share a couple.

That’s a good reason for a blog post, right?

(The photo below is actually a photo I took. The photographer was very gracious and let me practice while she was working.)

I am ready to choose option “a” now. My eyes are feeling so heavy. But before I go, can I tell you how excited I am that we chose to have the reception the day before the wedding?!? (Gelly, you know I got the idea from you, right?!) I am excited to spend one whole day doing each event individually. I feel so busy and swamped with all the reception details that I am afraid I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the reason we’re celebrating… the actual wedding. By having the reception over with, we can just sit back and enjoy the wedding and celebrate the fact that these kids decided to make sacred covenants and enter into an eternal marriage. Saturday (actual wedding day) is looking to be blissful and calm and completely peaceful for me…. maybe…. Hopefully….. Keeping the fingers crossed.

Oh, and another wonderful thing has happened: Buttercup and Biff chose to be married in the Guilder Temple, which is the same Temple that Max and I were married in 24 years ago. I started to get curious about our sealer. Is he still working at the Temple? Could he actually perform the wedding ceremony for my daughter? I contacted the Temple secretary and found out that yes indeed he is still a sealer in that Temple! All we had to do was call him and see if he would be willing to come in on his day off.

Well, I knew we had that one in the bag. See, this man is an old family friend. He has been a friend of my family’s for decades. He was my mom’s bishop when she was a teenager (he was the youngest bishop in the church at that time); he was my stake president when I was born; we all lived in the same ward together and I’m sure some of his children used to babysit my siblings and I; he gave me and my siblings our patriarchal blessings; he married Max and I; and when my seester, Wees, was sealed to her husband and children, he performed that sealing. He has been engrained in our spiritual milestones!

I gave his phone number to my dad and said, “Dad, do your magic. See if he’ll come marry Buttercup and Biff.” Without hesitation, wonderful President said yes.

So… the same man that married Max and I will be marrying our daughter and her new husband. How cool is that?!?

It makes me happy.

And now, Option A, I CHOOSE YOU!!!

Dear Mom, I’m so sorry…

… that I got married one week before Christmas.

Yes, I did that to my mother.

Max and I thought we were acting in the best interest of everyone by getting married between semesters at Ricks College. That way I wouldn’t lose money on my housing contract, we wouldn’t be too distracted to get our school work done (that part of the plan didn’t work so well) and – well – we would be “on break” after all, so it would just be easier if we got married on Dec. 19.

Obviously, I was NOT the person planning my wedding.

And now I understand what a terrible thing I did to my mother.

I’m planning a wedding – I don’t have a huge holiday looming that I also have to plan and prepare for – and I feel like I’m about to lose my mind. People warned me about the intense work that is involved, but I didn’t fully comprehend what they were saying.

It’s like having a baby. People tell you that you can experience moments of being uncomfortable, but they don’t spell out the details of how uncomfortable you can actually be.
They tell you that labor and delivery are painful, but somehow they don’t communicate that it really IS similar to pulling your bottom lip up over the top of your head… pain-wise.

Holy cow!!

The days are winding down…. we have just under 3 weeks until the reception (remember, Buttercup’s reception is the day before the wedding) and my goal is to have EVERYTHING put together, completed and baked  in two weeks.

TWO WEEKS?!?!?

If you think I’m crazy now, just give me another 10 days and I’ll be completely bonkers!!

But even though I feel like my life is totally out of control, I should recognize that I actually have a lot accomplished. The dress is bought and we will pick it up from the alteration lady on Wednesday. We have most of the clothing we’re providing for the members of the bride and groom party. I have the centerpieces organized and ready. After searching long and hard for affordable, GOOD photographers, I feel confident in the ladies we have hired… and can I tell you that I feel we have them for a STEAL? Seriously, don’t ask how much we’re paying. It’s embarrassing. I feel so cheap!

Wait!

We’ll call it FRUGAL!

I have decided in an effort to save moola, I will make all the refreshments for the reception. I’m still working on that, but so far I have between 500 & 600 peanut butter balls rolled and frozen, waiting to be dipped into chocolate the week of the reception. I have about 400 sugar cookies baked and frozen (for mini- fruit pizzas). I’ve only made two loaves of pumpkin chocolate chip bread, because I had a slight disaster baking them, but I will finish baking them tomorrow. Also this week, I will be making about 400 mini pie crusts. Here’s hoping they turn out! And a few more items.

Yep,

Crazy.

Certifiable.

But I haffta do it! I only have one daughter. I only get one shot at this – unless Inigo marries a girl from across the country. Then I get to plan another reception, but on a much smaller scale, I’m certain.

Here’s an observation I recently made: Remember when I was Camp Director? The first year I planned camp, I was a basket case. I worked myself to the bone trying to learn everything, organize everything and make it the best camp EVER!

The second year was easier. I still worked hard, but it wasn’t as scary. I was a lot more confident in my abilities and had learned that whatever we had planned, would be fun and the girls would all say it was their “best year ever!” (Don’t they say it every year?)

The third year (yes, I was camp director for THREE YEARS!!) camp planned itself. It still required a little effort, but I had learned enough and had things left over from previous years that it kind of just fell together.

Planning a wedding/reception is exactly like camp. At first, I planned NOTHING. I was scared, overwhelmed and didn’t know where to turn or who I could ask for help. Little by little, people approached me and said, “Do this,” or “Look here” and I began to see that I actually can plan and prepare. Slowly, things began to fall into place and I gained a vision of what to do and where I can turn for resources and ideas. (HELLO PINTEREST!)

And now, I really believe that if I had to, I could plan another wedding reception. Yes, it would still require work and effort, but it wouldn’t be nearly as stressful. But, I don’t get to plan another one. Not for a long time anyway – at least 13+ years.

(Someone told me that if you’re the mother of the groom, you wear beige and SHUT UP! Meaning: leave it all up to the bride and her mother. It made me laugh!)

So anyway, in all my camp/wedding analogies, I was trying to decide which is more work: A week at girl’s camp with 10+ girls, or a wedding reception.

The race is close… very close… but I think the wedding reception wins! After all, when you’re planning camp, the bishop calls someone – an assistant – that HAS to help you. As it is, I’ve done most of the work for the reception on my own. HOWEVER!!! Let me add the disclaimer that I have had MANY offers of help. I’m not sure where to have people help, so I haven’t taken a lot of people up on their offers, but there’s still time… so all you friends and neighbors who read my blog, BEWARE!! I may have said no to you last week, but you may not be so lucky next week! :)

And if I have been neglecting my blog lately, please understand, because my daughter’s getting married and I’ve been otherwise occupied!