Megan's Fairytale Wedding Pt. 2

 Megan and Shane's Fairytale Wedding Part Two: The Reception!

Here are Allie and Eleanor at Allie's house right before we left for the reception at Wadley Farms, which if you can- you should have your reception there. It's unbelievably gorgeous.

 Megan and Jenni (and Shane?) had such great ideas for how the reception should look, the food, the cake, the flowers etc... It all turned out so beautifully! And boy do we know weddings now, give us a call! Here are Hank, Eleanor and Rhett playing Bocce on the lawn. So charming!

 I mentioned those boys are cute. The little boy attendants are Shane's nephews Hank and Rhett (Jordan & Sarah) Abe, Shane's other nephew (Chase & Jessica) Jed (Megan's little cousin) and Winston.

 

 Holy crap, I love this picture. There wasn't an ugly corner to be had there. Everywhere is photo magic. It's kind of like a condensed versions of the gardens at Thanksgiving Point.

 Our little family all dressed up!

 The ladies. So so pretty.

 All the kids!

 And Shane and the little boys. I love how baby Abe is looking up at Shane as he sportingly eats grass fed to him by Jed and Win.

 Winston pointing out the Bocce and Croquet balls all over the lawn. Winston lives for anything to do with balls.

 Tom, Jenni, Shagan, Allie and a special guest appearance by Elder Tommy Howell! They pasted his head to a Mitt Romney cutout. It looks surprisingly real in this shot. Too funny. I also saw some girls taking their picture with his cutout later in the evening. Go Tommy!

 The cake! I originally planned to make the cake, but bowed out after I made one for someone else and it didn't quite turn out like I wanted. I didn't want to ruin Megan's, or be stressed about it the week of the wedding so Jenni hired a gal. She did a wonderful job, but it began to tilt at the reception and so there was some last minute patching and rigging. I did make the cake topper though!

 

 I had so much fun making these for Shagan! I've made quite a few clothespin dolls before, so I just amped these up a bit for the occasion. I made the dress, bouquet, suit etc... to match as closely as possible. I also repainted her hair quite a few times to make it the right mix of highlights. They turned out pretty cute.

 

 Happy couple!

 

 Here are some of the Howell folk at the reception. Abby and Jennifer are seated and standing from left are Josh, Hannah, Kirsten, Rosaline and Cassie.

 My great aunt Kathleen (Megan's great, great aunt and Rosaline's great, great, great aunt!) holding my cousin Stefanie's daughter Sophia.

 Sophie giving an exuberant Eleanor a squeeze.

 Allie with her best neighbor friends Kate and Claire.

 Shagan cutting the cake! Yeah, I don't know how to take night time pictures on my camera. Oh well, that's why you pay someone else to take the real ones.

 

 Throwing the bouquet!

Megan's cousins Abby and Anna manning the cookie decorating table. This is a bit post clean up, before there were the most adorable containers of candy and sprinkles I wish I had taken more pictures of all of the magical touches. Cute Scrabble pieces in bowls for guests to try and spell out Megan's new last name: Van Oostendorp, Amazing food, and assorted cakes to try throughout the night, a sign in book of all of their bridal shots they took in San Diego, games, flowers, candy stick favors in hand stamped little bags... oh man. There were a billion adorable details that added up to one perfect night. All night I kept thinking: "Man, I am so glad I got married 6 years ago, or I would be dying inside!" It was all so perfect.

 The proud parents: Tom & Jenni Howell and Dana & Allen Van Oostendorp.

 

 The getaway car! Off to a honeymoon in St. Thomas.

Megan's Fairytale Wedding Pt. 1

 Part One: The Temple

Megan and Shane got married at the Mt. Timpanogos Temple on August 8th 2012. The day was lovely and clear. A bit hot, but hey- it's August in Utah. The ceremony was lovely and Megan looked happier than I had ever seen her. Shane's a lucky guy. 

Here is Grandpa Tom attending to Winston, which is his full time job most days. Winston is obsessed with Grandpa Tom.

 

 Little flower girls playing on the hand rail while we all waited for the couple to come out.

 I got to make Eleanor, Allie and Rozzie's flower-girl dresses. Pictured here from left: Millie, Eleanor, Sophie and Allie. And behind them seated is Morgan, Shane's little sister.

 

And a few hugs squeezed in too.

 Cute people I like.

 Awww, Uncle Adam is always the best.

 And there they are! Funny story, Clayton was holding Eleanor about where I took this picture and while everyone is clapping and cheering, Eleanor is hollering at them as loud as she can: "Mayden! Mayden! I'm over here! MAYDEN! I'M OVER HERE!" Yes, she thought that Megan's first concern was, "Where is Eleanor?" Ah, to be 3 and not know the universe isn't spinning around you.

 Some people are prettier than others, folks. And these two are prettier than pretty much everyone.

 Eleanor finally getting "Mayden's" attention.

 Oh, and there is Hank. Eleanor's boyfriend for the day. He's Shane's adorable nephew and I am adding him to the list of suitors that may date her after his mission.

 I adore this picture. Megan leaning over to Shane, his sister holding his arm and Eleanor hugging his leg while all the girls look up at them. Couldn't pose it if you tried.

 Cute!

 Megan and all of her attendants. Her bridesmaids were all so pretty. Note the weak link in the picture, yeah- Winston. Eh.

 Tom used the light reflector as a giant fan during the group shots. What a team player.

 Abby holding Winston (who was in dire need of a nap) under the shade.

 Did you know the Mt. Timpanogos Temple was getting some major exterior work done this summer? Neither did any of them when they booked the wedding. Who knew it would have these glaring orange scaffolding all around the top and most of the sides? Oh well, I know it's not what matters, at all! But it's still an "aw shucks" type of deal. Luckily they did their bridals together as a couple in San Diego at Balboa park which is so lovely, so they had lots of gorgeous shots.

 Abby and Eleanor.

 And up close. Those two spent nearly every day together all summer long.

 

 One of the "mandatory" shots. But man, if they don't sell it!

 Winston "helping" baby Rozzie in the shade.

 Or you know, pretending to feed her, then yanking the bottle away over and over. Yeah, really funny buddy. Look at her poor little arm reaching out to him. Awww, sorry Rosaline.

Part Two: The Reception to come!

Cakity Cake Cake Cake!

Did you want to hear me talk about cakes a lot? Yes?! Then read on! No? Well, that's all we have here today.

If you've read my blog even twice, you probably know about my love affair with cakes. Frosting to be exact, but cake is my favorite vehicle for frosting. My all time favorite frosting is my dad's Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting. Second place would be my crappy version of it, then third place goes to the magical stuff called But-R-Creme from good old Sam's Club. It is so called due to there being no real butter in it. It's shortening based- which is brilliant as you don't even have to refrigerate the stuff! I may have just grossed out a bunch of you, but if you have no problems with shortening, like me, then let's celebrate! In case you are curious, Costco's cakes don't even come close to Sam's club. Now, did you know that you can buy the frosting directly from Sam's bakery? I bought a smallish bucket of it from them years ago when I made a cake for my niece Caitlin's bridal shower. And I recently purchased a 5 Gallon drum of it to make a wedding cake.

5 gallons drum? Wedding cake? Yep. Sometime in May I was asked to make a wedding cake for some people in our ward. Even though the wedding would take place just a few weeks after Winston's due date I quickly said "YES!", because if anyone is going to be playing bakery, I want it to be me. And the beauty of making someone a free wedding cake is that they can't be mad if it sucks. So all fun fun fun! But back to Sam's Club. The tedium of making wedding cakes is all the baking part. My awesome friend Kristy informed me that you could not only buy frosting there, but also ready-baked cakes that you can decorate yourself. Hello awesome! So the day before the wedding I went to Sam's club and bought a 5 gallon drum of white But-R-Creme and also a box of sheet cakes. The cakes were $18 and change for four sheet cakes and the bucket of frosting was, get this, $10.68. I asked the gal there a few times if that was right, but after clicking on her computer for about ten minutes I finally figured "Oh well. Ten bucks it is!" So for under $30 I had everything to make a big mamma-jamma wedding cake. If you want a 5 gallon drum and it costs more, sorry. Those are the breaks.

Now, I hadn't met the bridal couple, and I was kind of given carte blanche as to design so I thought it could be a perfect time to try out this idea that I had bookmarked months earlier.(P.S. Are you still bookmarking? that's sooo early 2011. Pinterest is totally where it's at. Let me know if you need an invite!) I had heard that the announcements were purple, so I made that my palette, but then I heard the bride loved cows and wanted a cow cake. Ummm, I just pretended to not hear that part, and in my defense, I only got that tidbit the day before I made it. I wanted pretty, so I stuck with my original plan, although I did make a tiny concession at the end.

So I got to cutting, filling, stacking and crumb-coating. Here is the beginning! The purples all read a touch blue in these photos because (like every project I do) it was night time and I am just using a regular camera instead of a dslr camera.
I may be the last person who blogs that doesn't have one.

Ummm, it's a little tilty at the top, but more frosting will help that. I wish I had lightened the third shade of purple as the contrast isn't strong enough. Alas.

Here she is! Would you believe that it used half of my bucket of frosting to make this bad boy?

And here it is with a clean board. I used a box I had gotten in the mail (*Hoarding always pays off! Thanks for the box, Allison H!) that I covered with poster-board and ribbon. I was really pleased, isn't it pretty?

Around 2:30 AM I was hot-gluing tulle and ribbon millinery to plastic cows. Why is it always crazy-town at that time of night? So that was my concession, cow wedding toppers. I left them off in case they didn't want to be represented by heifers. I was told they used them, so that was a relief. I would've felt bad if I offended anyone. But the bride really does love cows. The plastic cows I used had both horns and udders so I cut the horns off one and the udder off the other, is that right? Firths?

I had almost 2 whole cakes left over so I strong-armed my neighbor into letting me make her son's birthday cake. Here it is. Each letter represents a different sport.

Being a super-pushy kind of neighbor, I made her let me do his last year too. In trying to find the pictures I realized I had never blogged it. So here are the pictures from last year. He's into sports and balls if you can't tell. I loved the tennis ball I made, even though the fancy pants butter-cream I made tasted like eggs to me. Real butter-cream is cooked and I wanted to master it. No longer! Not when you can buy fake happiness in 5 gallon buckets. Sadly, his basketball turned out a touch more spaceship, saucer shaped.
Say that 3 times fast. No don't.But back to this year, look how sweet he is!
For a non-relative, I kind of love Grant more than most kids.

Luckily he likes me too.

Post Script- I have no idea if they even liked their wedding cake. I'll just assume that it was acceptable. And I am almost out of frosting. Gross, huh. I've given some away and made a few more projects and now have one container left. It makes me a bit nervous to be so low, but I also realize the need to remove this "staple" from my diet if I want to lose any baby weight. It does make really good cookie-cups, just like the ones they sell at Mrs. Fields stores. Which are awesome, in case you were wondering. P.S.#2- *Hoarding rarely pays off. The original statement was misleading. Don't end up on TLC for the wrong reasons. Also- I know I say "also" and use parenthesis about twenty times too many in this post. I blame baby sleeping schedules.