Lobster, Steak and Cake!

First, let me say I'm sorry for taking so long to finish my wedding re-cap. Now that I think of it, I realize I never finished my honeymoon re-cap either. Still a few good posts in this old bee, but this is my busiest season at work and I've been swamped. So, now back to our regularly scheduled re-cap!

Mmmm...three of my favorite things! After the toasts, the sun began to set and our guests enjoyed their meal.


(we took over the second floor for the evening)

We arranged with the restaurant to offer four menu choices. This is one of the perks of hosting your reception at a restaurant -- they do this every day and can be more accommodating about choices.

Sautéed Statler Chicken Breast
Mushroom Trio, Prosciutto, Green Olives, Sherry, Herbed Mashed Potatoes and Grilled Asparagus



Grilled Beef Tenderloin
Lobster Béarnaise Sauce, Roasted Ratatouille and Saffron Mashed Potatoes



Exotic Mushroom Ragout
Served over Crisp Mascarpone Polenta Cake and Sautéed Spinach
Paella
Lobster, Shrimp, Mussels, Chicken, Chorizo, Bell Peppers, Peas & Rice with a Tapenade Aioli

I don't have pictures of the other two dishes, but our guests really enjoyed all the options. I had the steak with lobster claw -- mmm. I didn't finish only because I was leaving room for what came next.


People ate...(wasn't the glow of the candles and low light lovely?)


They laughed...


They enjoyed each other's company...


They checked their email?!


After dinner it was time to cut our beautiful wedding cake.


This is something that you don't think about in advance and is much harder than you'd think! I made sure the servers had a plate, two forks and a knife waiting for us, there was no fondant to cut through (it was smooth yummy butter cream) and STILL it was a challenge.


I took the lead here and cute a really small sad little piece, but with everyone watching I didn't think I should try again.



But we got enough to share a bite and a sweet kiss.


And then Mr. Onion thought his job was done and he made off with the cake and left me holding an empty fork! Everyone died laughing, including me....I guess he didn't know how this was supposed to play out! At lease he didn't smash it in my face (we were very clear about this prior to the cake cutting - NO CAKE IN THE FACE)!

Up next...a trip to Ben & Jerry's and see Mrs. Onion's "What, no coffee heath bar crunch?!?!" face!

Photos: Daria Bishop Photography
All flowers: Fresh Floral Design Studio
My Dress: Romona Keveza from Mark Ingram's Bridal Atelier
Mr. Onion's suit: Alan David Custom
Wedding Cake: Mirabelles Cafe
Marzipan Pears: Marzipanworld.com
Reception: Adrianas Restaurant (sadly they closed a few months after our wedding).

DIY Wedding Menu

I purchased 100 extra blank sheets of our invitation card stock from Creative Montage for my DIY printing projects. I got started on our first project last night -- our wedding menus.

I have never used Microsoft Publisher before. My fiance and I worked together (which usually on a computer is a challenge as we think differently in our order of operations) and I think they came out really well.

Here is a print screen of the publisher file:



Here is a picture of a test print (changed a little of the wording/spacing etc.):



Close-up



Publisher How To:

I would say publisher was fairly simple and intuitive if you are familiar with the Microsoft Suite. Here are some basic instructions if you want to do this yourself.

1) I typed and formatted the menu text in Microsoft Word

2) Created a text box in publisher and sized it to fit two side by side with equal space on all sides.

3) Inserted an image (our monogram from Creative Montage. They are only 5 for $15 so check it out!) by clicking "Insert" and then "picture" and placed it at the top of the text box.

4) Pasted the text from the word document and it fit pretty perfectly! Just lucky I guess.

5) I did a quick select all and centered the text.

6) Then I added a border by clicking on line/boarder style on the tool bar (3/4
inch).

7) I then selected all the text + the boarder and changed the color to match our monogram exactly. Note: I used Adobe photoshop to get an exact color match, but you could eyeball it I guess.

8) Then I did a "select all" and copied then pasted and dragged the exact match over to the right hand side of the page.

Publisher is great for things like this because it does this thing that I started calling "click and lock" although I have no idea if it has a real name. If you click and drag a text box it will "click and lock" to the margins you established (ours are .25 all the way around) so it fits perfectly and you're not worried if it will line up.

I look forward to making our wedding programs with Publisher too next month. I wish I'd discovered this program before I designed our "out of town" guest booklets in Word, but live and learn! We'll have to buy a few packages of ink for our printer before we're ready to print all of these, but well worth it I think.