Southern Sweethearts: Time To Stuff Our Faces!

Our first dance song faded out and our DJ announced to our guests that the Lady & Sons-catered southern buffet was now open.

Once again, I wish we had more photos of the nom-worthy food.

Mr. Lab and I had already eaten, so we took that time to move around the room and socialize with our guests.

Bottom right photo by guest.

I also used that time to grab photos with my sisters since they left the square before formals.

Wait a second...what's that buzzing sound? Is that a bee?!?

Mrs. Crabcake and Mini! (photo courtesy of Mrs. CC!)

Mrs. CC drove all the way from the other side of the state to share our wedding day with us! :D

Pretty soon, it was time to do a standard at almost every wedding: cut the cake! Our DOC made sure to move our ceremony wreath to our reception for added decor. Before the wedding, I scoured the internet for a pretty vintage oval cake stand but had no luck. But I still loved the simple cake display, even though it bugs me that the table was off-center.

The cake didn't quite live up to its Martha Stewart inspiration because I opted for butter cream frosting over fondant, but I was still pretty darn impressed with Publix's handy-work.

What I wasn't impressed with was that they messed up my order and made it a completely white cake on the inside instead of one tier of red velvet and the other vanilla with raspberry filling! ARGH!

Mr. Lab and I went into the cake cutting with a firm understanding that there would be no cake smashing. I paid way too much for my makeup to have it ruined!

Little did I know that he had just chatted with the videographer who encouraged him to do it.

And honestly, I didn't care at all! But I did go after him to even up the score!

Next was the Sanford Stadium groom's cake that was my surprise to Mr. Lab. It was soooo hard finding the right baker to create this sweet masterpiece...and even harder to keep it a secret from Mr. Lab!

The score on the jumbo tron was our wedding date. And of course, I was winning! Mr. Lab married a highly competitive person. :) Btw, the real score from that day's game was a 38-0 shutout against [admittedly cupcake opponent] Tennessee Tech.

Photos of us at Georgia games surrounded the groom's cake.

Mr. Lab loved his cake!

And the cake was a huge hit with our wedding guests. Especially the Bulldog fans!

And my semi-DIY cake topper project wasn't lost on guests either!

Guest photo.

Someone wanted a piece of that cake and cut into it before we could! But we still did a formal cutting and this time, there wasn't any smashing. Glad Mr. Lab got it out of his system because bourbon chocolate cake with a Kahlua filling would not have gone well with my wedding dress!

Will you have a special cake for your groom? And are you implementing any cake smashing policies? ;)

Previously on Southern Sweethearts:

• Southern Belles Do Tea
• A Rude Vendor Interrupts Our Rehearsal
• We Have Dinner on the Savannah River
• A Spooky Ghost Tour and My Last Fling
• Our Wedding Trailer
• Becoming a Blushing Bride
• I Slip Into My eBay Wedding Dress
• The Fellas Get “Sessay”
• He Got Boudoir, I Got Bling
• An Unplanned First Look
• Our Wedding Party…and Paparazzi
• Details Tell the Story
• Years of Waiting for This Moment (Ceremony Part: 1)
• We Tie the Knot with Faith, Hope, & Love (Ceremony Part: 2)
• My Wedding Party Poses for Mug Shots While We Take Formals
• We Shared a Private Dinner for Two During Cocktail Hour
• Our Wedding Party Lines Up for Introductions
  

Next Up: We Dance with our Moms!

*All professional photos by Lindsi Jones Photography. Some images may have been slightly altered by moi.

Piece of Cake Part 2: There's Nothing Finer in the Land

Last Sunday my future in-laws and I stopped by Publix to pick up my cake samples. Boy were we surprised at Publix's idea of a "sample" size.

It was practically an ENTIRE cake! I honestly thought I wouldn't have enough to share with my FMIL & SIL when we went to try it. I was clearly wrong. Publix even threw in an extra flavor combo (half & half aka chocolate & vanilla). It was around lunch time when we brought home our sample, so we undoubtedly gorged ourselves. Hey, it's all in the name of wedding planning, right? ;)

Um, Mr. Lab, I am going to politely ask that you refrain from clicking the "read more" link below. K, thx!

As expected, I went with the red velvet and vanilla with raspberry filling, all in buttercream frosting. We managed to quit stuffing our faces long enough to wrap up some of the cake to take back to Mr. Lab when I visit him next week. Look how nom nom nom, er...yummy, they look!

The perfectionist dwelling inside me loves how the two flavors are alternating colors. It's going to be pretty even after the cake has been sliced and diced! As for the updated price for the red velvet flavor I mentioned in Part 1, Evelyn put down the same $165 on my order form! I'm assuming she gave me the prices with the extra 20% included already. Nonetheless, it's on the contract, so that's what I'm paying!

So now that the wedding cake was all settled, I excitely moved on the the groom's cake!

Some of you may remember my scare with Mr. Lab and his desire of a meat cake. Well, he assured me that it was mostly a joke. He definitely thinks meat cake is totally awesome and wants to try it one day, but he also said that he didn't really want it for his groom's cake. Whew! I'm was so relieved he felt that way!* It meant that I could move forward with my plans for a (surprise) cake that represents the pasttime we both share a love of: Georgia football games!

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I had a vision that our cake would be a replication of our beloved Sanford Stadium with a few added personal details. It would be presented soon after the cake cutting to the Georgia fight song and placed on a table full of photos of me and Mr. Lab at Georgia games.

Just some good-hearted fun with our arch enemies! :P

On the field would sit a "cake topper" of me and Mr. Lab playing some football, kinda like this:

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I love how the bride looks like she's tackling the groom. That's what I'm talking about! And to play on the idea of us in the middle of a "game", I'd have the jumbotron personalized with our "score": LeiLani (me) winning 11 to 7 against Chris (Mr. Lab). The 11-7 score reflects our wedding date and the fact that Mr. Lab scored a touchdown and made his PAT and I would have had to score a touchdown, miss the PAT, and kicked 2 field goals OR scored a touchdown, made the PAT, and gotten two safeties OR, well, you get the point! Can you tell I'm ready for the college football season to start? And can you tell that I take competition seriously? ;)

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Anyways, the first place we went for the groom's cake was Custom Cakes by Minette Rushing. She is Savannah's premeire cake designer. She's even making the wedding cakes featured in the movie Miley Cyrus is currently filming in Savannah! But because of her talent, she comes with quite the price tag. She doesn't sell any cakes under 100 servings or $550. I decided to still have a consult with her because I was saving so much with my wedding cake. So FSIL and I booked an appointment.

When we walked in the door, the first thing I saw was this:

I thought it was pretty ironic that I was there for a cake honoring the Georgia Bulldogs and ran into a gator! But I was helplessly in awe. I couldn't believe this was a CAKE! I felt extremely confident that Minette would be able to carry out my vision flawlessly. I mean, look at some of her other work on display around the room!




But alas! After the consultation, she sent me the price for what my vision would cost: $1200 plus tax! YIKES. I have expensive visions. For that price I would have to put the cake in a glass box and display it in my living room for the next 50 years.

So I went back to the search. I happened to run across a Sanford Stadium cake online and found out that the baker doesn't live far from Savannah. Thank goodness it's the weekend so I actually have the time to give her a call. Isn't this cool?!?

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So stay with me. This cake saga isn't over yet!

*Oh, and just because Mr. Lab was a good boy (hehe) about the meat cake, I'm planning to make him one in honor of our fourth anniversary in October! :D

All un-sourced photos are my own.

Meat Cake?

This post is a warning for all brides-to-be out there:

Do NOT let your groom watch wedding shows with you!

"Why?" you ask. Because there is the possibility that he may get some crazy idea from a show and force you to make it happen. You say "But it's GOOD that he's getting involved and voicing his opinion!" I politely scream back "Not when it that idea is a MEAT groom's cake!!!!"

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Mr. Lab and I were watching an episode of "Whose Wedding Is It Anyways?" when one groom insisted on having a "meat cake" for his groom's cake. It's a "cake" made of meatloaf and "iced" with mashed potatoes. Decorations are done with meatloaf-complimentary food items like ketchup.

Mr. Lab had been watching passively until the mention of the meat cake. He then perked up (as does every man at the mention of food) and was like "I want that! I want one of those for my groom's cake!" I gave him the stink eye. I couldn't tell if he was serious or just pulling my leg because I obviously had a look of horror on my face. I mean, I love meatloaf as much as he does, but not for our wedding! Maybe for his next birthday or something, but not for the wedding! Besides, I already had plans for his groom's cake that I was keeping secret as a surprise for him...

Mr. Lab, look away if you want even the slightest chance of having your meat cake!

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I'm currently searching for a baker for both the wedding and groom's cake. For Mr. Lab's cake, I was planning on presenting him with a replica of Sanford Stadium since the Georgia Bulldogs are so important to both of us. Okay, maybe it won't look as good as one of Duff Goldman's Charm City Cakes (like this one of Wrigley Field shown above), but it will sure be better than this:

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I'm really hoping Mr. Lab is playing around with this one. I can usually tell when he's joking, but I'm not so sure on this one. He's barely made any requests for the wedding (ironically, the only real requests he's made have been on the menu items-food again!). And to make matters worse, I feel like I'll have to comply since he has had SO FEW requests for our wedding. I mean, it is the GROOM'S cake, not mine. But I'll be sad that my "UGA table" idea will be nixed if this goes through. I planned to have the Sanford Stadium cake as the focal point on a table filled with photos of us attending football games together. :(

What should I do? Is anyone else experiencing trouble with a groom's request?

Our Engagement Photos!

Lindsi (our photog) just sent over the photos from our engagement photo session a couple of weeks ago! We chose the beautiful campus of the University of Georgia as our backdrop and the photos turned out AMAZING. Take a look for yourself!

Highlights from our engagement photo session with Lindsi Jones of Lindsi Jones Photography. Click on the photos for bigger versions:

We started off with pictures in the Founders' Garden which is still beautiful in the middle of winter with no full blooms. :)

After that we moved towards North Campus to get photos with the historic buildings of UGA and of course, the Arch! The Arch picture is probably my favorite because it just captures everything I love about Athens: the university, downtown, and the love of my life.

Next was the gorgeous Tanner Building. It's a renovated warehouse that is now used for art classes. This building is one of my favorites on campus even though I've never even been inside it!









Lastly, we were supposed to take photos inside Sanford Stadium where the Georgia Bulldogs play on Saturdays in the fall. However, the man who was supposed to let us in never showed up! ARGH! I'm just glad Lindsi thought to get this photo outside the ticket office before we left.

I am extemely thrilled with the outcome of the shoot! I am planning on using the photos to make a yearbook-style guest book for the wedding reception and Lindsi is helping me look into albums, so they'll definitely be more on that later.

Being the perfectionist that I am, I would have done a few things differently though for the session. Mostly, I wouldn't have worried about getting my makeup done professionally. I needed new MAC foundation anyways so thought I might as well get a free appointment out of it for the engagement photos. I asked for a very natural look with just a little emphasis on the eyes using neutral colors. However, they put a new girl on me (even though I had an appointment with someone else who is very experienced) and she basically did makeup 101. She applied tons of black eyeliner and purple eyeshadow because purple is the color that's supposed to make brown eyes stand out. She also gave me HUGE fake lashes that I had to cut down when I got home. I ended up looking very unnatural in a lot of the close up photos. What's more, the appointment took twice as long making me have to push back the photo session and lose critical light!

The other things were pretty much out of our control. We wanted pictures ringing the Chapel Bell (a big tradition after football victories) but there was a service in session and we were prohibited from doing so. Then there was the stadium fiasco which was really upsetting. I wish we had thought to go around to the front of the stadium and get a few photos with the back of the jumbo tron. But hindsight's 20/20 on that one. Like I said, I'm very glad we got what we did and all of the photos were fantastic! Lindsi was such a pleasure to work with and I can't wait to work with her again during my bridal session, rehearsal dinner, the wedding ceremony/reception, and *drumroll* the boudoir session that I just added on! More about that later as well! ;)

Anyways, if you'd like to see even more from our engagement session or just more of Lindsi portfolio, visit her blog here! And if you're looking to have a professional photographer for any of your photo needs, I highly recommend her. She's also willing to travel, so don't be scared if you think you live too far away from the Valdosta area. Just let her know what you're looking for and she'll work with you!

Engagement Photo Session Date Is Set!

We've finally set our engagement photo session date for February 21st! It'll be earlier on the same day as our engagement party so we can just bask in a whole day of engagement festivities. As I've mentioned before, our session will take place in Athens, GA, aka the Classic City. We met here, attend college here, live together here, and share in our favorite past time here: Georgia football! If it weren't for growing up dreaming of a wedding in Savannah and living here for six years, I would have easily chosen Athens as the site for our wedding. But we'll still have plenty of parties and showers here and our engagement photos will be in our guest book, so I think I've covered Athens pretty well.

I wanted to share with everyone some of the places I would love to have as a backdrop of our photos (especially those of you who have been unfortunate enough to never visit this amazing city).

Easily one of the most recognizable icons in Athens is the Arch that separates downtown from the University of Georgia campus. A lot of people don't realize that the campus was the first thing built in Athens and the surrounding city (namely downtown) was then built around it. It is said that any underclassman that walk under the Arch will never graduate. Needless to say, I've steered clear (Even though I already have one degree, I don't want my other one compromised!).

Just across the street from the Arch is historic downtown Athens. It's full of so many landmarks that anyone who's ever been to Athens would recognize in an instant. One of the more famous buildings is the Georgia Theatre. Some of you may remember it from the music video of some singer/songwriter guy named John Mayer (who is that guy? :P). He shot "No Such Thing" in the GA Theatre. Athens music scene is insanely full of crazy good talent. R.E.M. and the B-52's of just a few other names to come out of this city.

I love all of the historic buildings in Athens. Here's a photo of the Tanner Building (now used for art classes) that is just gorgeous.

The Chapel on North Campus has been the sight for many many many weddings over the years. It would be just plain romantic to have a picture in front of this building.

Last but absolutely not least is Sanford Stadium. There's no way we'd have an e-session without including shots of the stadium in the background. But our photographer Lindsi had an even better idea: how about INSIDE it? We've spent countless Saturdays in the fall inside the stadium, so why not capture some of that in our photos? So we called around and got permission to shoot inside! This is the part of the session I'm most excited about (for obvious reasons!). I cannot wait to see how these shots turn out!

February 21st can't get here soon enough! Now I just need to find an outfit for the session...

"There's a saying in Georgia:
If you lead a good life and say your prayers,
when you die you'll go to Athens."
-The Princeton Review-