My Baby Sister is Married!

I have been very busy over the last 4 weeks helping my sister Emily prepare for her October 2nd wedding to Michael Duckum.  The wedding was in a beautiful setting (my parent's back yard).  At first the weather was "iffy", but then when time for the wedding came (3pm), the sun came with it!  It was awesome.  Doesn't my sister make a beautiful bride?

I was priviledged to be her Matron of Honor, while her 18 year old son, Taylor, was the Best Man.  I wish I had more pictures to show you, but I am still waiting for more to trickle in....

The decorations were beautiful, the weather cooperated, and the day was a complete success!

My Mom and I and an army of helpers did all the food.  We had a very ambitious hors d'oeuvres menu which consisted of hot and cold items.  On the hot side we served: teriyaki chicken skewers, bleu cheese tarts, jalapeno poppers, bacon wrapped chicken packages, lumpia, mini crabcakes with roasted red pepper aoli, oysters on the half shell, and steamed clams.  On the cold side we served shrimp coctail shooters, smoked salmon canapes, roast beef and artichoke canapes, pinwheel sandwiches, bleu cheese stuffed grapes, and sweet cream cheese stuffed strawberries.  Everything was so yummy!  If I get any pictures, I'll post them later, because it all looked beautiful, too.

Since Emily and Michael were on a tight budget, my Mom offered to pay for the food as part of her wedding gift, and I offered to make the cake as part of my gift.  I'm not sure what I was thinking, as I've never attempted to make a wedding cake before, except that I knew that she couldn't really afford to buy one, and that cupcakes were a popular option right now.  Armed with that knowledge, I supposed I could figure it out and talked her into trusting me....Then here's what I decided to do:

I went to the hardware store and bought a 4X8 piece of 1/4" maple plywood and paid them to cut it to my specifications (they were not happy with me!).  Then I drilled and nailed together 5 boxes that rest on top of each other like this.

Emily wanted chocolate cake, so I made chocolate devil's food cupcakes, and a small cake for the top (they wanted to be able to "cut the cake").  My Mom begged me not to use buttercream icing, because she hates how sweet it is, so I spent 2 weeks developing a recipe that tasted light and creamy, but not too sweet, and that was stable enough to hold up during the festivities.  I was happy with the result, until the sun came out and smiled on the cake, at which time I started panicking because I really thought it would melt the icing off, but to my surprise it didn't, and everyone said it was delicious.  Whew!  What a relief!  Here's the finished cake:

There were 94 cupcakes and about 60 guests.  At the end of the day, we only had about 20 cupcakes left, so somebody must have liked them!  You can't see it in this picture, but since she had a "sea" theme, I made little seashell candies out of white chocolate and put a purple one on top of each cupcake, and I made white ones to put on the top cake.  You can see them better in this picture:

As part of my gift, I ordered the cake topper and presented it to the couple before the ceremony.  I had planned to put it on top of the tower, but the top cake was too soft and it started to sink, so I had to place it on the second tier.  Here's a picture of the topper:

Here are a few more pictures from the wedding:

Mom, Emily, and Me.  What a team!

First dance as man and wife.

 Into the sunset.

Pure happiness.

"The four Emilys"

Lastly, there is this picture of the four Emilys.  As it turns out, there were 4 Emilys at the wedding.  Left to right:  (1) the daughter of a friend, (2) cousin Laleania's daughter, (3) the Bride, (4) my daughter Emily.  Both Emilys flanking the bride are actually named after her!  If you think it's funny that there were 4 Emilys at this wedding, imagine how confusing it was to also have 5 Michaels!  :)

Pulling this wedding together in 4 weeks was hard work, and I want to thank all the people who helped out, because we wouldn't have been able to do it without you!  Glad to be a part of it, and glad to have it done, I came home afterward and slept like the dead most of the next 2 days!

Next up: figuring out Halloween costumes for 4 kids......