Amazing cakes

I've spent a long time researching wedding cakes. I'm quite sure Mike isn't really bothered about cake as he doesn't have much of a sweet tooth, but I really really love cake. Particularly beautiful crafted novelty ones. I think it might stem from when I was little and my mum (and my sister Avril) used to make me phenomenal birthday cakes in the shapes of my favourite things- a goldfish bowl, a teddy bear, a witches cauldron with black icing (for my superb Halloween themed birthday - my 11th I think). I remember Avril making and decorating her 13th birthday cake with a beautiful picture. I was usually allowed to stir and sift things, being far too small for any real assistance! I guess that's why I've become so obsessed with the idea of a beautiful wedding cake.
Of course lovely Deb at work makes the most amazing cakes, so she was naturally my first choice for making ours. Sadly, she will be on holiday at the time, so that option was out. She gave me some names of friends who might help, but they were all unavailable too! So eventually we found the lovely Andrea Barker, had a meeting at her house and she's agreed to make it. I just had to decide on a cake....

My first choice was the fantastic James Bond Wedding Cake:

Now even though Roger (my future father in law (who's a very nice man) ) totally agreed with me on this cake, Mike really wasn't having it at all. Not traditional enough apparantly. So in order to avoid a situation like this:

I thought I better search again. I thought, maybe it is the violence that upset him? Maybe I needed something more traditional? And what could be more traditional than a fairy tale castle? Aw, innit beautiful?

Perhaps this was romantic enough? But no. Too girlie, too pastel, too shiny... Back to the drawing board. I decided to take inspiration from one of our shared interests: Zombies. I wasn't going to go so far as to leap onto the recent American bandwagon of having a zombie themed wedding, but I thought he might just go for this utterly phenomenal cake:

Is that not the most brilliant cake you've seen? Despite it clearly being the best wedding cake on the whole of the internet ever, Mike wasn't having it. I think he just wasn't keen on seeing me with a chainsaw in my hands. And, to be honest, I was a little shy of showing the picture to the lovely lady who was actually going to make it!
So I gave up on my interests, and decided to just stick to what Mike likes. So some MORE searching uncovered this beautiful specimen...

See - it is gorgeous, it's not violent, it's not girlie, it's not pink, and it even encapsulates the things Mike likes (steam-punk, pocket watches). What could be wrong this time? Too shiny apparently. Ah well. Time to give up and turn to the demon drink.....

I'm too mean. We did on the end agree on a lovely cake design and Mike has really let me choose (within limits!). I'll not post a pic as it'd be nice for people just to see it on the day. Mike is a lovely lovely fiancée really, who has put up with my endless wittering on about cakes and flowers and shoes for a very very long time. Bless him :)

Lyn x

Rings

So Lyn and I have finally decided on the design of our wedding rings after a very pleasant trip to Hatton Gardens in London. Interesting range of shops, with an interesting range of sales people. Who, very often, spoke total nonsense about the benefits of their rings.


Like the shop that offered us a price for the rings, then offered to take over £1000 off the price, because 'we seemed nice'.


LIke the shop that told us that their 18ct gold was, gram-for-gram, heavier and stronger than 18ct gold from other shops.


Like the shop that went to considerable lengths to convince us that a German-machined ring was significantly superior to rings machined in Hong Kong (as if we were discussed precision-made components for a jet fighter or something!)


Very quickly, Lyn and I came to opinion that if it fulfilled these criteria, then it was fine:


1) It should be ring shaped
2) It should be metal
3) It shouldn't cost the same as a deposit on a house


In then end, we picked a two-tone ring in white gold and rose gold, which we both really liked.




The precise design will be revealed on the big day!


Anyway, that's enough babble from me. Hope everyone's staying hale, healthy and hearty!


Mike

Bridesmaids' dresses

It's been ages since we've updated - very lax. I guess we've both just been really really busy. So I've sorted the bridesmaid's dresses which is good - I seem to have squeaked in at the last minute in terms of ordering in time! Well, for the dress I've ordered anyway. I had a lovely time trawling round Colchester with one of my bridesmaids, Jo, and found loads of dresses, some of which were frightening prom looking things, and some of which were really really lovely. In some shops, it was like entering a whole other bizarrely coloured world of sparkly weird dresses for 16 year old girls waiting to go to the prom.... very scary! Still, there were some really nice shops and I got a really good idea of what suits and what kind of thing to go for.

So I returned to the lovely 'Abigail's Collection,' because the people there have been so helpful. They recommended a really nice, elegant dress for my bridesmaids which I just loved, so I ordered it. It was in just the right colour too. I won't describe it too much cos I don't want to give away all my secrets! Sadly, I couldn't choose the dresses with my bridesmaids because Rachel and Avril are both in Scotland, and the shop had so few available appointments - Jo couldn't make the only time they had. I hope it all works out all-right. I'm sure they will all look stunning.

Now on to buy accessories! I have to decide to tiara or not to tiara. Can I resist the small girl inside me's desire to look like a Barbie doll princess? Hmmm...

Seriously, having bought four pairs of shoes for my wedding dress already, none of which are quite right, I'm looking forward to going on a shoe hunt with Rachel and Avril, both of whom I hope to meet up with in April. My mum recommended Dr Martins would be more 'me' and I tend to agree.... bright pink ones I think!



We'll post sooner next time!

Lyn x

Casino

So...I've finally managed to convince Lyn to let me have casino tables at the wedding. Jacqui and Andy had them at their wedding and, although I was delirious with the flu at the time, they were great fun. 


The big question is: which two tables should I get? My choices are stud poker, roulette, blackjack, chuck-a-luck, craps and Texas Hold'em (my favourite). I'm reliably informed that poker isn't a great idea as the turnover is really low, meaning that not everyone gets a go. Apparently chuck-a-luck and roulette are pretty much the same experience.. Craps sound interesting, but the rules are complicated (doesn't usually equate with fun).

Chuck-a-luck

That leaves me with roulette and blackjack (big fan :)). Or chuck-a-luck (for the novelty value). Or Texas Hold'em (my favourite). Or craps (dice games would be something new). Or stud poker (old classic).


Nuts. Back to square one.


Mike

Wedding Dress Shopping

So lots has happened since the last time we posted, which was far too long ago! I have mostly ben obsessing about dresses, and am now starting to get a bit panicy about how soon I need to order it. Apparantly some of them need 8 months to arrive, which is scary because it means I need to choose basically now, instead of just dreamily looking through magazines.

So I visited about 5 different shops, mostly in Colchester, which seems to be the home of Wedding Dress shops. It's quite nice them all being in the same place. I've tried on what feels like a million dresses, with Mike's mum very patiently waiting to give me advice about what looks best! Though I have discovered that anything too big looks ridiculous, and that corsets are my friends. And that there are some fantastically pink, sparkly and fluffy dresses out there. Nancy's been brilliant at helping me pick out dresses that will suit. Some of the shops I've been in are just lovely - wine and chocolates, my own private consultant and everything, and my own plinth to stand on.... I'd post pics but I need to keep some secrets! Still, I need to order it.

I guess the next step will be choosing accessories to suit the dress. Though there's nothing I like more than shopping for shoes. Except Mike, of course.

I'm looking forward to going shopping with Jo, one of my bridesmaids for those dresses too sometime next month :) It's fun being totally girly for once! Wonder if Mike'll run a mile if I wear Doc Martins going up the aisle?

Lyn :)

Colours

Mike won't let me put any pictures of him at the Modern Bride show - shame :) It's my goal to finally get some piccies of him on the blog, though I fear they might be sabotaged and removed before publication....

So I've decided upon the colour scheme, I think, either green dresses and white daisies or blue and bright yellow. Something cheerful I think for summer! I'll probably change my mind again by the time I have to make a proper decision... although pinks been banned :( It's a shame - no fuchsia dresses for my bridesmaids! I'm determined to make something in the wedding pink, even if it's just my shoes. Or my hair. Mike might have a small heart attack at the altar if I did that though!

Cheers,

Lyn :)

The Wedding Show

So off we went to the Wedding Show in London - Lyn thought it'd be nice to go to one and get some exciting ideas before we've booked everything up. There were many stalls there, ranging from chocolate fountains to wedding dresses to close-up magicians to psychedelic lighting displays.

They even had a champagne bar were you could sip champagne whilst contemplating your wedding plans (although we elected not to do this at £10/glass or £35/half bottle).

I'd love to share some of the things that we saw on our nice trip to the wedding show but, three pictures in, I was stopped by event security and asked to desist from photography. Here are those three pictures:

Bah.

Anyway, lovely, lovely day.

No new ideas though.

Hope everyone's happy and healthy :)

Mike