bridesmaid dresses

So... does anyone know if it's bad luck/bad etiquette to reveal the bridesmaid dresses before the wedding? I want to show you all but not sure if I should! Enlighten me....

fall lasagna

Love this idea! Make the lasagna components, make coloured and shaped pasta using a cookie cutter and layer up! Genius. Wonder I can make a spring version? Hmmmmm!

I love you Martha Stewart!

winner of the ugliest wedding dress competition?

Just been looking at wedding dresses online and stumbled across this beauty - what were they thinking? Oh dear!

You can actually see her belly button!

music

Hello there, been a while... got a bit overwhelmed with the thinking and planning so decided to take a break for a bit - my obsessive personality was taking over a bit! But I'm back and with the hopeful and pleasant thoughts that my two diametrical bridesmaids have actually settled on a dress.

I've been thinking about music this week. I keep hearing songs on the radio that we should have at the wedding, including a new favourite - Bruno Mars' Just the Way You Are. We're going to do the classic and growingly popular iPod disco - basically, make a big play list on your MP3 and hook it up to some speakers and press play. It's cheap and cheerful and avoids the horrifyingly cheesy remarks from a DJ, oh and totally customisable (wish spell-checker would stop trying to get me to put Zs in everything!)!

Anyway, we've been keeping a list of songs that we want to include (well, I have) so that I don't forget the ones I hear! I'm thinking having one mix of nice romantic relaxing songs for pre and post ceremony, then a more funked up mix to get people dancing and having a great time when the drinks are a-flowing.

It's going to take a good amount of songs and I would really appreciate your help! Please add your suggestions in a comment below and if you have the song, feel free to email it to me! Lets make a great eclectic mix with all my lovely friends' input x

the cake

Mmmmmmm! Cakes!

Apparently in the US they use sponge cakes for their weddings - no fruit and no marzipan, so I have of course put my foot down and said that I'm going to have a marzipan covered fruit cake if it kills me. I plan to make my own(!?) to save about $500 or whatever a cake costs these days. I think what I might do is have a fruit and sponge combo - nice big fruit cake on the bottom and a couple of smaller sponges on the top. That way I'll keep everyone happy! I might actually cheat and buy the sponges (sponges have never been my forte). Oooo, maybe I can have one chocolate and one regular sponge...hmmmm. Anyway, as I'm no professional at cake decorating, I need a plan for making a simple cake look beautiful without all the expertise. I love the rainbow butterflies cake on the Martha Stewart picture below and I've found a wonderful lady on Etsy that sells them in all different shapes, sizes and colours. They look so pretty! I've also found this cake that looks so gorgeous and would be pretty easy to recreate, using silk flowers. I'm having a lot of fun looking at cakes and it's much less stressful than bridesmaid dresses! Any ideas, send them my way! x

bridesmaids

Out of everything I thought about for the wedding, including my own dress, the biggest nightmare is the bridesmaid dresses. My dear sister and bezzy mate, Dan are the chosen ones but they are so so different in their tastes. They both send me pictures of different dresses, none of which the other likes. One wants pastels and the other will not be seen dead in pastels (her words!). What's a girl to do?!

martha

Well, I am now a fully fledged member of the Stewart empire, Martha that is. She is a domestic goddess and crafter extraordinaire and if anyone can help me pull this off, she can! Her website is full of DIY ideas, not your average crafty crap but gorgeous and classy easy to make decorations and things to do in your wedding - including some truly AMAZING cake recipes. Might just have to have a tea and cake reception! (seriously, you have got to take a look at the cake recipes!). This sounds amazing...

It may seem like a break from tradition to serve more than one cake at a wedding, but it's actually quite an old custom. At medieval Anglo-Saxon weddings, many small cakes would be served in a mountainous pile, and eventually pocketed for the journey home. Sometimes the bride and groom attempted to kiss over this pile of cakes.... Five cakes are festooned with tuile cookies bearing words of love. Toasted-coconut frosting coats featherlight Angel's Food Cake. An Almond-Paved Dacquoise Cake has rich crunchy almond meringue, chocolate ganache, and thin layers of cake inside. A traditional French Croquembouche is built from profiteroles filled with passion-fruit custard; it has a halo of spun sugar. Read more at Marthastewartweddings.com: Five Little Cakes 

YUMMY!!

LOVE these - might have to make a bunch of these beauties! They'd look so pretty hanging from the trees, blowing in the breeze.

Also this bouquet is brilliant, might end up just having paper flowers for everything!

Watch out Hope and Tina - might be dragging you in for duties!

Anyway, that's way too many exclamation marks for one posting.