My Best Friend's Wedding

Tee hee.  I thought that might be an appropriate title to this post.  Love that movie.  But seriously, my friend Katie was married this past weekend, and what an amazing wedding it was!

After many years (Oh, a decade or so) of dating, Jeremy and Katie finally made it official.  It was a long time coming, but well-worth the wait.  I was her Maid of Honor (notice I said 'Maid' of Honor even though technically I'm married and that makes me the 'Matron' of Honor, but I politely asked if I could ditch the elderly-sounding title and take the youthful 'maid' title instead.  Katie obliged.) Is that weird that I wasn't really digging the Matron of Honor title?

Rich was the Best Man.  (Anyone else find it ironic that they don't distinguish a married best man vs. a single one? They're always trying to emphasize women's age. And by 'they,' I'm not sure who I'm referring to, but you get my point.) Anyway, what was I saying? Right.

It was a really busy week leading up to the event, with me flying to Dallas for business for a couple days, having a business dinner meeting one night, and Katie & Jeremy's rehearsal dinner another night. Whew!  I think I blinked and the big day was there!  Friday was Baking Day for me--I baked two huge sheet cakes for the wedding, which probably seems like it should take all of a couple hours, but ended up being an all-day affair.  I am a pretty experienced baker, but this was definitely the most baking I have ever done at once.  I started in the kitchen at 9 am and finished them at 11 pm (with about a 2-hour break in there when I went to the salon for a nails-and-spray-tan-appointment).  I made 6 layers in all, 3 red velvet and 3 german chocolate, and I think the final total was close to 5 lbs of butter, 5 lbs of sugar, 3 dozen eggs, 2 lbs of flour, 5 sticks of cream cheese, and a GALLON of heavy whipping cream.  ha! They were very healthy cakes. I was proud of the final result--they tasted delicious and looked pretty.  They were the cakes that no-one actually saw, but were sliced up in the back by the caterers and offered to guests as an additional choice to the standard white wedding cake.  Katie's sister, Kelly, who is pretty much the most creative person I have ever met, made the beautiful display cake.  She took a couple of cake-decorating classes and told Katie she thought she could do it, and lo and behold, she did.  It was amazing.  The top four layers were styrofoam, covered with fondant, and the bottom layer was real cake.


 Here's a close-up of the gum-paste orchids that she made.

She only took a few classes.  Seriously?!

Here is my german chocolate cake.

Almost as nice, right? HAHAHAHA! Well, as I said, my cakes weren't on display for the guests to see, but they were quite delicious for them to eat! :)

Katie came over to our house on Friday to spend the night, and we did last-minute wedding preparations and spent most of the night talking into the wee hours of the morning.  Finally, at 2 a.m., Rich sent us a text message (from the bedroom) suggesting that it might be time to go to bed, and could we please turn off the lights for him?! Oops! It was like we were in high-school again, getting in trouble by mom! Ha!

So we finally did get about four hours of sleep and woke up just in time to get to the salon for our hair and makeup appointments.

Then we headed to the wedding location.  When Katie put her dress on, I almost started crying at that very moment.  But I remembered the make-up lady told me to do my best not to cry because as she said, "False eyelashes and water don't mix!" Ha! Of course, once the night progressed, I was a teary mess anyway.

Back to Katie.  She was stunning! Seriously, look at this gorgeous bride:

The ceremony was perfect, everything was beautiful, and we had a blast!  I danced 'till my feet ached.

After it was through, we came home and relieved Rich's parents from babysitting duty.  They watched Alex all day and said they had a great time with her.  All in all, it was an awesome wedding!