The cake that started as a joke... (Part 2)

With our epic fail into the wedding cake world we started to look around at ideas for more traditional cakes. We found out pretty quickly that we both loved little fondant flowers on cakes.

theknot.com

marthastewartweddings.com

realsimple.com

While those are simple and beautiful there was one cake that we both just stopped and said 'yep thats the one!'.

gallery.weddingbee.com

Yes we fell in LOVE with Mrs. Emeralds cake (among like a million other things in her wedding). Those little flowers streaming down the side are the perfect mix of simple and modern. *swoon*

So while we made the decision to have a two layer version of Mrs. Emeralds cake made and use our Indy cake topper with it, there was still something missing. It just wasn't completely "us" yet. We finally figured out what it was. Two furry little members of our family were missing from it; Wicket and Bravo. We HAD to add them to the cake.  I sent photos of our boys to Clay Greys on Etsy and she created two little status of them.

I *heart* these so much! The coloring and markings are identical to Wicket and Bravo. Now our boys can play a part in our wedding day.

Did anyone else have a much trouble finalizing their cake as we did?

The cake that started as a joke... (Part 1)

One day, a couple months after we started planning the wedding, I got an email from Mr. Meerkat. He sent me a picture of this James Bond wedding cake:

davidmalki.com

I thought he was joking (he wasn’t) so I passed it along to our family as a joke. The overwhelming response I got back was ‘that cake is so you guys!’ As I started to think about it, it occurred to me they were right. A serious cake for a goofy couple like us just didn’t seem to fit. We needed to have something fun and light hearted like we are.

While we both liked the concept something about a crashed plane and bullet holes might not be exactly right for a destination wedding. I mean let’s face it if you flew all the way down to the Riviera Maya, would you really want to see a crashed plane with bullet holes on the cake? I think not.

And so the search began. We wanted something that not only showed our fun side but reflected both of us. It didn’t take Mr. Meerkat long to come up with a solution; Indiana Jones. He is the original traveler and explorer (which loosely fits with our travel/exploration theme) and we are both HUGE Indy fans.

I found the perfect cake topper right away:

weddingmountain.com

A family friend who is an art teacher is going to repaint the groom with the brown jacket with tan pants and add a little hat so that it will look like Indy plus make the brides hair a dark brown like mine.

At this point I thought we were rockin' this whole wedding cake thing. We had the concept, we had the topper, what else could we need.  Someone to make the cake? fan-flippin-tasic, we forgot to look for the most important part of having a wedding cake made.

What we found out was there are simply no bakers in the Riviera Maya who are able to create this kind of cake.  Who knew finding a baker to create a crazy, falling tiered cake would be so hard?  So now we have to find a more traditional style cake that we can use with our cake toppers and still make it fun.  (Don't worry, I think we found a winner you will love.)

Anyone else have something that they started off thinking NO WAY and ended up loving it?

Walking in the footsteps of a photographer

A couple months ago a friend of ours, Miss A, got engaged to a military man, Mr. S. They decided they were going to plan their wedding in just four short weeks so they could be married on the 4th of July. Now you have to know Miss A to understand that she is the kind of woman who could pull off an amazing wedding in just a month. One of the things she ran into of course on a short time line was getting a photographer. Luckily Sister-In-Law Meerkat is currently dual majoring in photography and digital media and was happy to be Miss A’s photographer.

Now while all this was happening Mr. Meerkat decided it was the perfect time to give me my wedding present. A brand spankin’ new Nikon digital SLR camera just like Sister-In-Law Meerkat has!!!  (By the way, it was love at the first shutter snap.)

With my new camera in hand I quickly volunteered to be the second shooter for Miss A’s wedding. I spent the next couple weeks pouring over photography forums and practicing every spare minute I could. Technically I was prepared but physically… well that’s a whole other story.  Of the 9 hours we photographed (outside in 92 degree weather) I think I sat down for a total of 20 minutes to eat dinner.  Add into the equation that a photographer hardly ever just stands and takes a picture. I spent a lot of time kneeling down and climbing up on stuff to get a good angle.  I don't think I have ever been that tired before.  While every single muscle in my legs hurt, I also felt like I had accomplished something amazing.

Am I glad I did it?  Yes, I would do it again in a heartbeat if I could! I had so much fun plus I now really understand what our photographer will be going through on our wedding day.  And not just the time I spent taking the pictures but the hours upon endless hours of editing the photos afterwards.  It has given me a real appreciation for what we paid for.

Have you ever walked in the footstep of one of your vendors? What was your experience like?

Ceremony Music for the Rock Lovin' Bride

Have you ever thought about if your life had a soundtrack what it would sound like? I think our soundtrack would sound like an action movie. Loud distorted guitars, driving drum solos... *blissful sigh* I confess, I am a rock music lovin' bride marrying a rock lovin' groom. I swoon over bands like The White Stripes, Hinder and Drowning Pool.

So you can imagine my dilemma when I was asked about ceremony music. Traditional wedding music, like Cannon in D, while beautiful simply doesn't fit the soundtrack of our lives. Everything else for the wedding is a reflection of us so why shouldn't the music be also?

We probably would have used something by the Vitamin String Quartet but with our ceremony venue being so rustic we don't have the power setup for a sound system. Lucky for us we were able to find a guitarist who offered to learn any songs we wanted including rock! YAY!

So we began our music research. In other words, we used our Zune pass and started listening to every instrumental rock song we could think of that was slow enough to use for the ceremony. Talk about an epic failure. There are not many instrumental versions of our favorite songs. So a new plan evolved. We picked songs we liked then searched youtube for people playing solo versions/instrumental versions of these songs on a guitar. Now this plan resulted in a major win!

The recessional was super easy after reading Miss Huskeys post about the song First Day of My Life.  With the miracle that is YouTube I found this instrumental version:

Now the processional music has been a little harder to narrow down. We only need one song for all of us to walk down the aisle to. We have been able to narrow it down to two but are having a hard time deciding which one to use:

Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars

I like this song because it talks about shutting out the outside world and just enjoying being together. Things get so crazy for us that often times Mr. Meerkat has to ask me this same question; will I just sit with him for a little bit and shut out all the distractions that are happening around us.  My favorite part about Chasing Cars is the part that goes:

I don't quite know
How to say
How I feel

Those three words
Are said too much
They're not enough

If I lay here
If I just lay here
would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Our other options is to go for something like this:



NickleBack - If Today Was Your Last Day

I know what your thinking. Why in the hell would we pick a song that talks about dying?! I guess I should tell you a little background on Mr. Meerkat. He was born with a condition called spina bifida but thanks to some amazing surgeons they were able to repair the damage to his spine. If you passed him on the street today you would never know about his condition but it doesn't mean that later in life some of the issue won't return. So we live each day of our lives like its the last. We don't want to put anything off that we might one day not be able to do anymore. I think the part of the song that really hit home was:

My best friend gave me the best advice
He said each day's a gift and not a given right
Leave no stone unturned, leave your fears behind
And try to take the path less traveled by
That first step you take is the longest stride

Alright ladies now that you see my dilemma, we need some help.  Which song would you go with for the processional?

Our Invitations: The Final Reveal and How-To

I guess I have kept you waiting long enough.  I'm a bad little bee for taking so long to write this so I will cut straight to the chase.  Here is the finished product:

Everything from the pockfold to the boarding passes in the pocket were made by us.  Here is the step-by-step of how we did it.

Boarding Passes

We found the Microsoft Word basic outline template for the boarding pass out at i-do-it-yourself.com. The design was created in Photoshop using palm tree silhouette brushes from phatbrush.com and the hibiscus flower dingbat font from dafont.com (all for free I might add).  Everything else on them is just a basic square or rectangle with some coloring and text.  Pretty simple, huh? If you don't have Photoshop you can do almost this same design using Microsoft Word or PowerPoint.

We made a total of six boarding passes that contained a letter to our family and friends, trip information, at home reception information and RSVP card. We printed them onto linen paper from LCI Paper and cut them out.  (Sorry the image below is a bit blurry.)

Pocket Folds

Next we made the pocket folds.  We used 8.5" x 11" textured scrapbook paper from our local Joann Fabrics.  Each pocket fold consisted of one sheet folder into thirds with the pocket portion glued to the bottom of it. To create the pocket we cut pieces of the same type of paper 9.5" x 3", folding each of the three sides at the 1/2" mark:

To make the pocket we glued the front side of the three 1/2" flaps onto the sheet we folded into thirds.

We finished off the pocket fold portion with a Fiskar corner rounder to give the top two corners that rounded look.

Main Invitation

The main invitation was also designed in Photoshop using the same elements as the boarding passes. The light and dark brown borders around the main invitation were simply more of the textured scrapbook paper cut into different size rectangles.  The dark brown layer measured 1/2" less on each side than the light brown and the main invitation 1/4" less on each side than the dark brown layer. Once they were all cut out, we centered them, glued them onto each other and then onto the pocket fold.

For the belly bands we used the same linen paper as the boarding passes and main invitation.  Using powerpoint, I typed our saying into one inch sections, printed them and cut them into strips.

The final step was to wrap them around the invitation, gluing the two ends of the belly band to each other.

The hardest part of the whole project was figuring out the dimensions of each piece to make sure they all fit together while giving it the over all look we were going for.  When you made yours, did you have a hard time making sure all the piece fit together?