V: Cakes, A Tale of Evolution

A Martha Stewart.

Another famous Martha.

No clue, a Wedding bee?

Get the gist? I quickly went from tiered monstrosity to trendy cake bar, thinking it was the crafty, vintage, cost-effective route. Clearly, avoiding anything with the 'wedding' label would be cheaper, right? Mostly, yes. But I forgot to take into account the fact that seven to eight pretty vintage cake stands really REALLY add up.

So, here she is:

Awesome photo by TM Photography.

Introducing, from left to right: chocolate, my special white chocolate lemon, and red velvet. One for my mom, one for me, and one for Mr. B's mom. All frosted in creamy, smooth cream cheese frosting. Fancied up with a yellow velvet ribbon and real pink rose buds left over from my bouquet making endeavor. 

And instead of tromping off to the fancy bakeries in town selling cake that BEGINS at $5/slice, we hit up the official cake baker of our friend group. Mary Jane Confections is a one-woman local shop, famous for affordable, moist, buttercream-y cake. If you are in Atlanta, we highly recommend her! 

The military wedding!!

It's time friends. Time to do a feature on the military wedding!

I am very excited to be marrying a Navy pilot in September, who will be wearing his dashing uniform during our wedding! His uniform is called Dinner Dress or "mess dress" in the service, but is far from messy! It's quite hunky, if I do say myself.

His looks quite similar to dear old Will's uniform, except black. I'm a fan. We're inviting all of our military guests, retired or active duty, to come in uniform too. Shall be quite festive. Mr. Livalittle's five brothers are all in the military, so they'll be decked out as well!

Two weeks after we had met, Mr. L told me that he wanted a sword arch at our wedding (I know, two weeks, right? Look up "whirlwind courtship" in the dictionary and you'll see us). The notion of the sword arch is quite romantic to me; I remember seeing one at a royal wedding in a movie as a child and still sigh dreamily just thinking about it.

Although the crossed swords are a big part of the idea of our wedding, it only lasts about one minute! For just one minute, there are many rules. First of all, there must be between six and twelve sword bearers, wearing the proper sword-bearing uniform of their service; second, sword archmen standing across from each other must be of similar height (or all tall on the groom's side, all short on the bride's side) and in the same military service; finally, the last two sword bearers must drop their swords and the couple must "kiss to pass," after which the last swordsman smacks the bride on the behind. At this point, they normally say "welcome to the Navy!" According to tradition, the bride and groom walk through the arch of swords to "ensure the couple's safe transition into their new life together."

When reading about military weddings a few weeks ago, the phrase that stuck out in my mind was the following: "the military wedding features extensive use of weaponry." Of course, Mr. L thinks that this is the best thing that has ever happened and has since asked if we can use fireworks, canons or other incendiaries. What if we did fire a canon? What if we had a civil war reenactment wedding? There could be some pretty terrible worst case scenarios if that were to happen; my vivid imagination is providing all sorts of insane possibilities. This is why there will be no explosives.

In a military wedding, the highest ranking officers and the groom's commanding officers must be seated near the front, in the second row or in the first row if the parents are not present. Also, the groom's sword is frequently used to cut the cake. This makes me highly nervous, however, seeing that my lovely fiance has already threatened to behave inappropriately during the cake cutting. Adding a sword to this mix may not be the greatest plan. I mean, look at the image below! She's holding the sword like she's at a firing range. The most hilarious part about the whole cutting the cake with the sword thing is that Mr. L will have to somehow transport his sword to DC for a weekend. I don't imagine that it classifies as a carry-on. Oh well!

Wedding, I'm done with you for a while. We need some time apart.

Yesterday, I made some major decisions and was so relieved. I had researched all of the following elements endlessly and decided to just bite the bullet and just book these services! After all, I leave next week for Hawaii and will need to focus on finding gainful employment, not on finding the perfect ribbon.

On Wednesday, I walked into a bridal shop and asked a woman about veils, flower girl dresses, necklaces, shoes and headpieces, all in the span of about one minute. I think she may have suspected that I had either downed 2304923 cups of coffee or was on speed. This is when I realized that I was turning into...not Bridezilla...but the OCD Bride. Enough! I want my personality back!

Voici, my accomplishments of Friday:

1) I bought my veil-- it is long and very, very glamorous! I purchased it from White Swan Bridal in Vienna, VA. I'm not re-veiling what it looks like though (get it? re-veiling? I crack myself up).

2) I booked my florist. This has been in the works for many months now, but we've finally engaged the service of Melissa Sylvain, owner of Sylvain's Florist in Reston, VA. I'm am going to have a beautiful pale peach, pink and ivory bouquet with some sort of gorgeous ribbon yet to be determined. The bridesmaids are going to be sporting red dahlias, red roses and red lilies with a rich ribbon (I'm thinking velvet). At our reception, we'll have dendrobium orchids and curly willow on each table, we think!

3) I booked my photographer. I'm going with Bella Photography. Their concept is pretty cool- the company first sets you up with a consultant, who interviews you, collects vital information about your style and then helps you to make decisions about which package works best. At that point, you go online to rate up to 200 photos, which will help the consultant match you with a photographer. Bella is a national company, so they could theoretically bring a photographer from New York City to DC at no extra cost to the couple, if that NYC person's style was the best fit. Bella exclusively employs 300 people in the DC area alone and so if your person gets sick, there is always a backup. Also, they give you ownership of all your photos and you don't have to order through them- they give a you a CD that does not have watermarked pictures. Also, if a couple can't afford to buy an album at the time (hello! that's me!), you can order it years later. Finally, it only takes 28 days to get photos back! I'm hoping that this works out because pictures are important. Just in case, I'm going to encourage lots of outside picture taking of family and friends! Below is Princess Sophia of Spain at her wedding! 4) I ordered a cake. Pastries by Randolph makes SUPER delicious cakes and has fantastic reviews. Each tier of the cake has five layers and four layers of frosting, so it's very moist (ugh! hate that word.) Their prices are fair and they make very pretty cakes as well. I like the idea of integrating a cascading ribbon into the cake as well- perhaps I'll use the same ribbon as my bouquet? Hmm! Mom likes the separated tiers, so seperated tiers it is. I think we'll have some flowers in between. I toyed with the idea of cupcakes, but I think I'll encourage someone to get them for some other pre-wedding event!

5) I chose invitations. Although we were initially deciding between William Arthur and Crane paper, we decided that they were too expensive, so we're going to order from Invitations by Dawn. Since they are an online company, we requested a sample to make sure that the quality and thickness of the paper is up to snuff. I love traditional stationery and the invite we've chosen is actually quite beautiful and the most old-fashioned, of course!

OK, that's it. Now I'm happy:

(my little niece! love her!)