Have any of you hit the point where you start to doubt or second guess everything you've planned for your wedding? That was me several weeks ago. Maybe it's the fact that we're most likely going to exceed our budget, or that I feel like we're just working our butts to the bone planning and stressing, or maybe it's just run of the mill general second guessing that comes from contractually agreeing to many different people that it's hard to see the big picture! Anyway, I hit the wedding wall. My "over-it level" was at about 90%.
One thing that helped me get exciting again was a visit to our wedding venue -
Cass House Inn. A few weeks ago Rebecca and I drove up the California coast to our wedding venue for the day. We needed to see our reception area for some measurements, have a food tasting, and look for rental vendors (for tables, chairs, linens, etc). Over-it level 92%.
When we got to the small town where we're getting married it immediately made me feel like we'd made the right choice in venue. The town is so peaceful and it just helped mellow me out. I could hear myself think. I could hear the ocean. It was so nice. Over-it level 76%.
Even though I'm on a diet (probably something else that's contributing to my hostility and irritation) we walked over to the
Brown Butter Cookie Company. We've decided that we're not having a cake at our wedding for dessert. If you actively follow the blog, that won't be a surprise to you, but if you don't - let me fill you in quickly about my decision - cake is completely overrated, the end. So our venue is going to make small bite size desserts. You go over, you pop a truffle in your mouth, you have a glug of wine, and you get back to dancing. Sounds awesome. Well, Rebecca and I found this cookie company next to our wedding venue that makes some of the best cookies I've ever had in my life. They're made with brown butter, and sea salt. They're awesome. We decided to work with the 2 sisters that own the cookie shop, and in addition to the desserts our venue will make, we're also giving out cookies. I like sweets, sure, maybe not as much as people that would call themselves chocoholics or people that need a sweet fix, but I'm telling you, these cookies kind of make my knees buckle they're so good. Over-it level 53%.
Rebecca and I met with the owners of our venue, and they are just so easy going and cool. The chef (one of the owners) came out and talked to us quickly about our wedding dinner menu. He can basically do anything we want. He just needs a few keywords to go by, or needs to know what we like/dislike - needed to know who we are, etc. SO, we just told him that we've been going to the farmer's markets lately. So we're kind of on this whole eat fresh, eat local kick. He and his wife smiled and let us know that that's exactly what they're about. We told him we're also adventurous and while we will have many people at our venue that aren't we do want to introduce unconventional wedding ingredients to the menu. We were talking about small passed appetizers and the chef said "Pizza from our wood fire oven, but how about we do a duck and caramelized onion with brie and a balsamic reduction?" Um... Over-it level 39%.
After our meeting we had to drive about 25 minutes to the rental company that our venue suggested. Before we hit the road though we swung by our favorite sandwich spot in town. We ordered some sandwiches for the road.
Ruddell's Smokehouse is a small sandwich shack that makes the most amazing smoked fish sandwiches I've ever had. I desperately want to buy sandwiches or tacos for everyone coming to the wedding the night before the big day, it just unfortunately doesn't fit into the budget. Sad. The sandwiches are awesome. I had to pull over to shove mine down my throat because the windy mountain roads weren't easy to navigate while trying to eat a Smoked Albacore sandwich. Plus I wanted to savor the sandwich. Delicious. Over-it level 22%.
We had our meeting at the rental company. It went well, but I quickly realized this is going to slam our budget. Damn it; over-it level 28%. The woman at the company couldn't have been nicer. I think I just underestimated how much goes into weddings. I think I just underestimated how much this stuff costs. Stuff sounds so cheap when you say it's only 45 cents per plate, but then when you multiply it in your head and then add it to the list of other stuff you need... damn it. Over-it level 31%. Again I want to reiterate that the company we may use couldn't be nicer. She's working with us... it's just AHHHHHH!!!!!!! FUUUUUUUUCK!!!!! (sorry, I really try not to curse on the blog because I don't know how you guys feel about it... but seriously... fuck... ) That felt pretty good. COME ON though... lights are so much more expensive than I thought they were. We're not having flowers.... lights are cheaper... right?! Yes, but still super expensive?!?!? DAMN it. This fork vs. that fork... round table vs. straight. It's so much to think about. The company couldn't have made it easier, but I just realized that there's so much to planning that I hadn't even thought of. Over-it level 34%.
I got back in the car... over-it level still relatively low compared to where I had been at the beginning of the day! Immediately I ate a cookie. Over-it level 30%. Lights and forks? What lights and forks. Me want cookie.
To cap off the day Rebecca and I headed back to our venue to do a dinner/tasting. Since the chef doesn't have a set wedding menu and will really work with us to make whatever we want, our venue doesn't do a conventional wedding tasting. IE here's your meat option, here's your chicken option, here's are your appetizer options. So we did dinner, and they also hooked us up with wine pairings so we can see how they roll w/ their food & beverage smarts.
GOOD GOD the food was awesome. I won't completely bore you with course by course details, but holy eff the food was good. They started us with an amuse bouche (amuse the mouth, a small little bite to start the meal) that was a king crab fritter on some type of aoli sauce with a piece of parsley on top. WOW. So that's how you do things here, huh? Over-it level 22%. Then we had about 5 courses, each one better than the last. My steak was unbelievable. Perhaps one of the best steak dishes I've ever had. It was perfection. I can easily be a self proclaimed foodie snob when it comes to food so I'm not just giving props to our venue because we've put a non-refundable deposit down. Over-it level 12%. The wine pairings... oh man... all of these wines were very very good but then once you began eating the dish the wine was paired with its flavor transformed. It made them GREAT. The food and beverage just worked so harmoniously together. 5 glasses later: over-it level 3%. I decided that it was probably smart to have some coffee for the trip home. French press (
see post below) awesomeness.... over-it level 1%.
As I walked to the car to head back to Los Angeles, I really felt so great about every decision we've made so far. What a great feeling. You know what? Before we hit the road, let me go back into our venue and go to the bathroom real quickly.... oh man, even their SOAP is awesome.
Over-it level 0%.
