Occasional Sugar Gets Hitched!

Hello readers and welcome back to my blog! It's been a long time (5 months) and I have missed you and missed talking and writing about baking. What was I doing all this time you might ask? Well, Eric and I spent a beautiful Saturday with our very favorite family and friends and promised to love each other forever. Heavy stuff? I think not! Our wedding was everything I dreamt it could be! It was casual and fun. There were games (beer pong being a big hit). There were homemade cupcakes from yours truly. There was dancing and accordion playing. There was Star Wars and Jimmy Buffett. There were flowers! But most importantly there was the bride and groom who had the very best day of their lives.

I worked very hard planning my dream wedding (hence the 5 month blog hiatus) and just couldn't be happier with how everything went. There were a lot of homemade touches and I am literally on a first name basis with the staff at my local Michael's Craft Store. A couple days ago, I received the digital copies of our professional photos from the extremely talented and wonderful Julie Cheshire. I'd like to share a few of my favorites with you...

My very good friend and bridesmaid, Emily, did our hair and makeup. Thanks Em, we all looked so beautiful!!

Here are a few ceremony pics. It was short and sweet. Our friend Monica performed our ceremony which included so many inside jokes and references. In the middle of the ceremony, our moms came up to read a fairy tale I wrote about how Eric and I met. Every detail of the ceremony was so personal.





The reception was just a big party. We had a few games set up for our guests.

The decor kept the "backyard barbecue" theme with bright flowers. Instead of using table numbers, we chose to name our tables after drinks that reminded us of the people sitting there. For example, our Office Thursday friends sat at the Orange-Vod-Juice-Ka Table, a drink invented by Michael Scott from NBC's The Office:

Michael Scott: That is vodka and I mixed it with orange juice. I call it an orange-vod-juice-ka.
Jim Halpert: [takes a sip] Wow that is delicious. I can't believe no one's thought of that before.

Michael Scott: I know!

We tried to come up with a personalized drink for every table. The table names were written on cards stuck in potted Gerbera Daisies. My dad and I hand-painted all the pots and my very good friends, the Sutherlands, potted the flowers and delivered them to the park for us. For the guest favors, I decorated matchbooks and filled them with wildflower seeds.

Sometime after the food and before the open dancing, I busted out the accordion. This special instrument is a family heirloom that was passed to me. Growing up, I've played a lot of instruments but my dad always dreamed that I would one day learn to play Lady of Spain on the accordion for him. I resisted for years. To put it lightly, this instrument is not my favorite. He always joked that I would finally learn the song so I could play it at his funeral. As a special surprise and dedication to my awesome dad, I took a couple lessons prior to the wedding and played it for him.

On to dessert! I am going to do an entirely separate post on these cupcakes to include the recipe. I'll also include some tips for baking such a huge quantity and not going bridezilla and losing your mind. But here are some pics to savor for now. I baked 180 of these little cupcakes and a small two-tier cake for us to cut. It all looked beautiful!

Our wedding was absolutely perfect and I would like to thank all my friends and family who helped us celebrate!

So I'm back. I may not have been posting for the past five months, but I have been baking a lot. I have a huge back-log of yummy treats to share with you and am so excited to have Occasional Sugar back in my life!