Our Pawfect Wedding: First Feeding...

When guests left our wedding, they walked downstairs to see the church's gallery area in the basement transformed! Aunt P outdid herself and had a spread all ready.

Gorgeous, no?

Naturally, I was too busy greeting to eat anything at all. And I'm a horrendously picky eater. But I'll try and tell you what we had. First there were little rolly things...

Skewers of tomatoes, mozzarella, and artichoke...

Miniature cheese balls...

Little cone things...

Nuts...

Hummus...

And for the sweet tooth there was some candy bark...

And our favor cookies!

We had a sign that I made to tell people about the cookie favors.

I wish you could see it more... there was a great tray that Aunt P and I made to match our theme.

I loved how our plates looked against the green tablecloth.

I couldn't have done it without these two ladies: Aunt P...

And Aunt T.

These two made it possible for us to give back to our guests by way of delicious food and more together time, before we went to dinner with our family and wedding party. And- they coordinated their outfits to our black, white, and green color scheme! Bonus awesomeness points!

Next post? You'll see our guests ENJOYING! And Mr P and I enjoying being husband and wife finally!

PS- Check out Ashley's blog Bride on a Budget since our wedding was featured!!!!

Less than a week! Productivity continues!

Seriously people, I had such a productive weekend! I started out on Saturday morning at Aunt P's. FSIL and I went over there to make the cookies. We did half in green and half not-colored (white?) Here's FSIL rolling out the green dough.

We then used royal icing to put dots along the edges and other decorations. We did green on the plain cookies and white on the green.

I left around 11:30 (we got there at 9:00 am!) to get my hair highlighted. I was about 3/4 done getting the foils put in when I get a frantic call from Mr Pug. His task for the day was to take two of our pugs, Dixie and Harley, to the vet so they'd be cleared for boarding while we were gone. (Sophie went a week or two ago.) He went to get gas and while his car was on, he somehow got locked out... with the pugs in the car! He wanted me to come let him in with his spare key (on my keyring.) I tried to explain that I had chemicals in my hair and couldn't leave til they were done. Clearly that didn't make the situation any better. We couldn't find anyone to come pick up my key and bring it to him, so I just took off right after she washed my hair (soaking wet!) to try and help him. By then though, he had a locksmith come and open the door for him. Luckily his car and the pugs are ok, and they made it to the vet. We took some much-needed together time that night.

Today we went to church and then a church fundraiser luncheon. After that, Mr P and I went tanning! I got him signed up so we could get his Irish skin a bit of a base before our sun-filled honeymoon.

After tanning I went to Michael's and Jo-Ann's for some craft items. The first thing we did when I was done shopping? Spray paint!

I got the most boring basic white birdcage card box at Jo-Ann's, but black spray paint gave it a new lease on life. I also got a basket for programs (I need to buy more spray paint for it) and used the spray paint for a business card holder as well. It'll hold our photo request cards.

Aunt P bought this cute little clip stand at Crate & Barrel and I made this sign to put near our cookie favors.

I also made a sign for the birdcage.

I did the linen paper for the wording, then the green cardstock, then black cardstock, then added the ribbon, then finally white cardstock. I think it'll look nice against the black birdcage.

Next up was what I dreaded most. The programs. I went to Kinko's and first got the green cardstock cut in half (less than $2.)

Jumping ahead- when I got home I used the perforation blade on my paper cutter (makes an indent for easy folding) 1-inch in on each 1/2 sheet of cardstock.

Ok, back to Kinko's. While I was there, Mr Pug cut the ribbons I had purchased at Michael's. I loved how much he helped me today! Meanwhile, I was cutting our programs. Each sheet had two program pages on it. Each program was four pages. Which meant I had 240+ sheets to cut, with seven cuts per page. Not fun. It took me more than two hours but I did it! Yes, Kinko's centers have a big industrial paper cutter you can use. Some are good, some aren't. Luckily when mine started to rip up the paper a bit, they brought out the brand new cutter which had come in the day before. Great timing, right?

An overview of the day's projects:

The gorgeous ribbon I got for the programs, cut by Mr P!

The card sign for our birdcage card box.

The piles of pages! I seriously am amazed that I got them finished already. I have cutter's arm now though (paper cutting equivalent of tennis elbow.)

Such a successful day! I seriously cannot believe I'm going to be married to Mr Pug in less than a week!! A week from right now I'll be finishing packing for our honeymoon! CUE FREAKOUT!!!!!!!!!!!!

Overwhelmed.

Ok guys. So I just started my new job yesterday - and I'm so busy learning and training, plus right in the view of everyone, so no internet funsies at work. So no wedding tasks or tweeting or blog reading during the day. Add that it's oh what 11 days til the wedding and I am endlessly stressed. I'm feeling VERY overwhelmed and feel like I am doing a lot, all on my own. I have too much to do. I have a feeling this weekend will be hell.

I am at that point where I'm so overwhelmed that I want to just do nothing. Last night I forced myself to do something. So I took the Uprinting stickers I won from Miss Mojito and cut them.

Here they are pre-cutting... the smallest stickers I could get from the giveaway were the 3 inch square ones, so I just did four per sticker.

They didn't all come out perfect. OH WELL. I am so over it at this point.

I probably cut 1/3 to 1/2 of the 250 stickers. Which will be more than enough to seal the bags for our favor cookies. I can also use them for out of town bags (ha. I haven't done anything for those...) and sealing thank you notes.

PS- bachelorette weekend was FABULOUS. I don't have the time or energy to recap just yet but pics are on facebook for my fbook buddies, and I will give you a teaser...

Yes, it was that good.

Stay tuned for more. PS supportive texts/emails are welcome... it's times like right now that I wish my family and friends were here :(

Cookie Field Trip!

I found a gem of a set of cookie cutters on Williams-Sonoma's website on Friday. I sent the link to FSIL and Mr Pug's Aunt P, to see if they'd be willing to bake some with me for favors the weekend before the wedding. They both were excited about the idea- and I'm excited about a wedding task I can do with my future fam!

Aunt P then emailed me about going out on Saturday, but didn't tell me where we were going. She picked me up at 11am and we went west. We were going to a self-described hole-in-the-wall baking goods store! We were in heaven. I wish I remembered to take pictures! There were aisles upon aisles of cake decorations, pans, sprinkles, candy making supplies - pretty much everything you could imagine.

Aunt P treated me to cookie-making goodies! She got us royal icing mix (since we didn't feel comfortable using eggs in ours), good food color (the gel/paste type that's super concentrated) in green, little decorative shiny balls in black and pearl, a few piping bag tips, bags to put the cookies in, a booklet with good cookie recipes (they suggested one that wouldn't rise), and probably a few other things.

We then went to get Mexican and she let me vent about the wedding process and missing my Mom. Aunt P is the one person out here who really seems to care about us and our wedding, and it's so great to have someone like that available to me. My Mom was really glad to know that even though she can't be with me to do all this stuff, I have support from someone who keeps me happy and positive.

When Mr Pug and I went shopping that evening, we picked up the cookie cutters and Williams-Sonoma. Behold!

This green one in the scalloped shape was my inspiration. I think it somehow fits my theme perfectly! I'd like to do the white along the scalloped edge though.

I wish I was talented enough to make designs like this:

These are what the cutters look like. That bag is full of alphabet letters for you to slide in, as well as some common phrases.

This is the cookie we'll be doing. I flipped it in photoshop so you could read it! We'll give these cookies out as people exit the church, as a yummy favor.

I also threw together this one to make Mr Pug smile. And to see if he could read backwards (again, I flipped it for ya'll.) Although, this would be great for a birthday or Valentine's Day cookie!

We didn't know it, but the cutters come with a recipe.

The best part? These cookie cutters, which will allow me to make adorable cookies for tons of types of parties for years to come, only set me back twenty bucks!

I didn't know Williams-Sonoma sold things for less than twenty bucks! HA!

The rest of the evening was spent baking cake balls for a huge important thing that was going on on Sunday...

source

YEA BABY! AFC CHAMPS! It was a wonderful game, and the Jets played well of course, but I was OBVIOUSLY glad the Colts won. I actually had an old high school friend in town (he's a Jets fan, like many of my Jersey peeps, including my sisters!) Mr P and I went downtown after the Colts game to have a few drinks with him during the Saints - Vikings game. I was very glad to see the Saints win and can't wait for the Superbowl!

Yesterday I had a "swap meet" with some of the girls I know through Mr P's friends. We all brought a few items we didn't use anymore (I brought a purse, sunglasses, and some necklaces) and some wine. We took turns each picking an item until we were all satisfied. I got a small lamp, a painting, a set of decorative plates, and two scarves! It was an awesome night and such a great idea. Plus, someone brought their pug over, which makes everything better :) It was such a success we planned to do it again next week.

Any other Colts fans? And is anyone else DIY-ing edible favors?