Your Presence Is Present Enough…

Third Time Wife, Wedding Planning

Or: Why We Don’t Have a Wedding Registry

As a general rule, I’m a fan of wedding registries. I think they can be invaluable for guests who truly want to gift the bride and groom items the couple want or need. I’m happy to shop from them. I have nothing against the concept of wedding registries.

But I did not want to make one for our upcoming wedding.

Part of this is that, as an older couple, we have many years of accumulated stuff. We have a 2,000+ square foot home’s worth of stuff, to be exact, already creatively crammed into not quite enough space such that our 2-car garage will never hold even one of our cars. Stuff that, when we first moved in together, took more than a single 24′ moving truck to consolidate more than 3 years ago, and we’ve only added more stuff since then! I have a Kitchen Aid, more knives and kitchen appliances than we’ve got space for, and we’re inheriting my grandmother’s china and silver in a year or two from Dr. Aunt (she’s passing down things to the next generation early, not planning on passing away, and let us have our pick several years back).

We’ve got enough stuff, we don’t need any more. And even the idea of asking folks to help us “upgrade” some of that current stuff makes me uncomfortable.

Because that’s the other part of the no-registry coin: I dislike (almost to the level of hate) asking others for things.

The hows and whys of that particular quirk probably go back to growing up without much of anything to speak of and the dual lessons of necessary independence and the pain of being told disappointment. Mama Leadfoot was (technically still is, even though we’re now grown) the single mother of three with no family nearby and barely a high school education. I have tremendous respect for the sacrifices she made for us and the way she raised us. And while she did her best to make sure that we had everything that we absolutely needed plus what little extras when she could, I grew up knowing that it was better not to ask for some things. Because it wasn’t just the ‘no’ that stung, but the understanding of how frustrating it must have been for her to have to tell us that she just couldn’t give us what we wanted or what she wanted us to have.

Even now, decades after all of our situations have improved, when she asks for Christmas or birthday lists I still freeze up, shrug my shoulders, and have a hard time actually making requests.

Sure, we’ve been tempted a few times to start a registry just for the sake of having one, but we never pull the scanner’s trigger because it just doesn’t sit well with us. (Mr. Road Trip does have quite the aversion to ‘the ask’ that I do, but he agrees that we certainly don’t need anything enough to request it from our guests.)

So if any guests ask about it, we’ll just say that we’re happy to have them celebrating with us, and that’s gift enough.

Nice and diplomatic, right?

Of course, some guests may choose to gift us with something anyway, and we’ll happily accept it and send them a heartfelt thank-you note afterwards. We won’t be putting “no gifts” or anything like that on the invitations, because that implies we expected people to send us something in the first place (and, yes, I’m firmly on the side of NOT including registry cards or anything else of that sort in the wedding invitation), which we don’t.

For us, at this point in our lives, it’s enough that our friends and family are willing to give up a good chunk of their Saturday to spend time with us and celebrate.

How do you feel about registries? Does you opinion change if it’s not either the bride or groom’s first marriage?

Do’s and Don’ts for the Road Trip Reception

Third Time Wife, Wedding Planning

(Which totally makes it sound like our reception is being held on a bus, even though it’s not. Though we did consider, early on, renting a double-decker bus and having the entire wedding there as we drove around Tallahassee and the surrounding areas. Wouldn’t that have been a trip! *ba dum ching*)

If we could give our guests an expectation list for the reception, I think it’d go something like this…

  • DO find your seat, make yourself comfortable, and get to know your neighbors.

We’ll be putting together a seating chart and giving the yet-to-be-discussed favors a dual purpose as place cards. Slightly less for me to obsess about than escort cards and their many and varied display options.

  • DON’T worry about bringing cash, the bar is open.

Granted, we’re not doing a full bar, just beer, wine, and the signature cocktail (which will be transferred from the cocktail hour to the reception during the ceremony), but I just have never been comfortable with cash bars at weddings. I understand that it’s the usual for some areas and in some cultures, but I’d rather serve a limited selection and be able to cover it than expect our guests to pay for anything.

  • DO feel free to dance if you’d like.

There will be music, but we’re not having a DJ or planning on having a raucous dance party. Most of it is timing: early afternoon does not seem to lend itself to shaking one’s groove thang (inhibitions seems to fall with the light levels, don’t they?) and we Road Trips just aren’t dance party types. To that end, the music choices during dinner and afterwards seem to be leaning in the slower, ballads, and big band direction.

  • DON’T expect to see the bouquet or garters tosses, or a Dollar Dance for that matter.

Like many bees before me, I don’t feel the need to pitch projectiles at the few single ladies in our group and there’s no good reason I can think of to have Mr. Road Trip fumbling under my skirt for all the world to see. The Dollar Dance, though, that’s actually pretty common at weddings on my mother’s side of the family, but it’s another thing I’ve just never been all that fond of. Especially when they don’t just collect the money, they hand out stick-pins to attach the bills to the bride and groom’s clothing. I’m not sure I want drunken guests with sharp pointy objects anywhere near me, right?

  • DO feel free to make a toast if you feel so moved.

Without a wedding party, and since we’re hosting the wedding ourselves instead of our parents, who toasts is somewhat of a fuzzy area. We’re not going to ask anyone to do this, but we’re also not going to stop anyone who wants to say something nice about us! We’ll make our public thank-yous after we do the (cup)cake cutting, I presume.

  • DON’T bring the drama.

Part of crafting our guest list as we did means that a lot of the drama that comes with big family gatherings is nixed from the get-go. Still, schtuff happens, and there’s still the matter of how Mr. RT’s divorced-and-don’t-really-get-along parents will make it through with so few people to buffer. That’s the downside to a small guest list, I suppose–we’ll just have to be careful who we sit where, I guess!

  • DO enjoy yourselves!

We certainly can’t guarantee a good time for all, but we can do our best to provide a setting that promotes it! Our U-shaped table will, I hope, help the conversation flow through and around the assembled guests during brunch. The desserts will be self-served, however, giving our guests the opportunity to stretch their legs and move around a bit if they so choose. We find, at most of the gatherings we arrange or attend, that people pretty much hang out and talk until the food or drinks run out, so our reception may not run the full 4 hours we’re allotted, but I’d rather exit early than have things dwindle awkwardly.

What Do or Don’t did you wish you could tell your guests?

Cupcakes Galore!

Third Time Wife, Wedding Planning

Once we discovered wheat was ingredient-non-grata for me, the chances that whatever we served during dessert would be made my me increased exponentially. While I’m more than capable enough to attempt such a thing, and ambitious enough to seriously consider it, I also realized that if I’m this busy three months out from the wedding, the week before is probably not going to be ideal baking time.

While I’ll still be making a few things for the dessert buffet, the bulk of the responsibility will be on the capable shoulders of Lucy & Leo’s Cupcakery.

Lucy & Leo’s has been a Tallahassee favorite for several years, and has added gluten-free flavors to their Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday line-ups. Since they don’t make all the flavors all the time, they were willing to set aside the gluten-free flavors they made for a given week (and let me request certain flavors, too) for me to pick up the following Monday so we could get a good idea of the flavors we might want. I also picked up a couple of regular cupcakes so that Mr. Road Trip could test the Cupcakery’s claims that their gluten-free cupcakes are actually better than the regular!

Our Tasting Assortment

Our Tasting Assortment–don’t they look delicious?!

Hive, I exhibited amazing restraint by having these cupcakes in my office for the entire afternoon and then waited for Mr. Road Trip to get home from work and have supper together before tasting any of them. Even the chocolate peanut butter one that T had absolutely no interest in. Supreme. Restraint.

The cupcakes before the tasting...

The cupcakes before the tasting…

I split all the gluten-free cupcakes in half so we could each take a taste, but T got the regulars all to himself, and was able to confirm that the vanilla gluten free really was better than the regular recipe, and that the chocolate was a very close second (the chocolate cookies & cream was a bit dense, but still delicious).

...and what was left after we decided to just try a "taste" of a few after dinner.

…and what was left after we decided to just try a “taste” of a few after dinner.

Based on this delectable sampling, we decided on a dozen each of the chocolate peanut butter, the key lime, the strawberry (after confirming it would still be available in November), and something else. We were debating one of the other chocolate flavors, but decided to go with one of their fall flavors–gingered pumpkin–to round things out.

This was, by far, one of the tastiest decisions we’ve had to make for the upcoming wedding. And while I still plan on making a couple of small, simple cakes, some brownies, and some cookies to accompany the cupcakes, I’m now looking forward to a little relaxing baking time before the out of town guests arrive.

Our Tasty Brunch Tasting!

Third Time Wife, Wedding Planning

Going into this wedding planning adventure, we knew that food was pretty high up there on the priorities list. Perhaps even the most important. So it might surprise you to know that we had never tried our venues food before our tasting last night.

And yes, I was a smidgen apprehensive over that point.

But Honey Lake Plantation fit everything else we needed so we took a leap of faith and signed the contract, hoping that our faith would be rewarded.

As of last night, I say we’re golden.

When we arrived we were shown to our table in the Gathering Hall’s main room with two places set and a printed menu in a clear stand so we could follow along. Of course, since we were so familiar with the menu already (having created it ourselves), we didn’t really need it but it’s nice to know they do that for their tastings.

Our menu for the evening (all photos personal)

Our menu for the evening (all photos personal)

During the tasting we would also be having our second planning meeting, so our DoC was present to chat with between courses (which gave us the opportunity to update her on things like the napkin change and verify some details we’d previously left vague). As soon as Chef Bill came out, though, it was his show.

the wonderfully accommodating Chef Bill

the wonderfully accommodating Chef Bill

Our first course was the soup and I was so glad to see it was a small portion. I was a little nervous we’d be serving ridonculous portion sizes and definitely didn’t want that, and a soup bowl or plate would have just been too much of a good thing.

Just the perfect amount of rich, creamy soup to start off brunch!

Just the perfect amount of rich, creamy soup to start off brunch!

The first try of the soup—a blend of butternut squash and sweet potatoes with coconut milk, cinnamon, sea salt, and pepper—was nice and velvety smooth, but missing something. We talked it over, I suggested adding cumin, and Chef Bill went and doctored up another two bowls for us with cumin, coriander, and Chinese 5-spice powder. It was perfect, and it turns out it was his preferred method of preparing that soup, he just didn’t know how comfortable we were with spices. To which I say: flavors, we wants them!

This quiche was possibly the best I've tasted. The smoked Gouda really makes a difference!

This quiche was possibly the best I’ve tasted. The smoked Gouda really makes a difference!

Moving on to the second course, the crust-less quiche featured both ham and apple wood-smoked bacon and a hearty amount of smoked Gouda. It, too, was very smooth and rich, so the accompanying salad of mixed greens with fruit and berry vinaigrette was the perfect foil to all the richness. The salad was also topped with some toasted sunflower seeds, something I’d suggested instead of nuts just to avoid other people’s potential allergies while still adding another layer of texture to the meal.

Oh, and did I mention that Honey Lake has their own chickens? These are super-fresh eggs Chef Bill gets to work with!

Country-fried steak, Tomato and Squash Terrine, and Biscuits with Gravy (it's the eggs in the gf biscuits that make them so golden yellow)

Country-fried steak, Tomato and Squash Terrine, and Biscuits with Gravy (it’s the eggs in the gf biscuits that make them so golden yellow)

Finally it was time for the third course—Chef Bill’s challenge: wheat free, lactose-free, onion & garlic free country-fried steak, biscuits and gravy. I think he met the challenge well! The steak was dredged in a mixture of arrowroot and rice flour, then pan-fried in bacon fat. No, it doesn’t have the characteristic coating we’re used to, but that actually worked in it’s favor since I think (I didn’t ask at the time) he used something other than the traditional cube steak, so the quality of the meat was highlighted instead of masked by breading.

For our tasting we both had the gluten-free biscuits (made from GF Bisquick per the package recipe—might sound chintzy, but it’s the best option I’ve found so far, especially when you only need to make a couple at a time) but at the wedding the guests will have traditional buttermilk biscuits and only I’ll have the gf ones. The gravy was Andouille-sausage gravy made with a safe-for-RT-tummies stock instead of cream (velouté vs. béchamel, for the foodies of the Hive), though again, guests will have the regular. According to both Mr. Road Trip and Chef Bill, they actually taste about the same; it’s just that one looks a little different.

Since those dishes alone would have made for a very beige plate, Chef Bill suggested and I accepted a terrine of tomatoes and squash topped with a bit of cheese. You also see bacon on top—I mentioned that our goal was to have bacon as many places as possible and he definitely took that to heart!

In fact, the only item we didn’t get a chance to try—the most popular if the comments on the last post are anything to go by—was the bacon-wrapped breadstick. We’re still working on that one but I did bring him a pizza dough recipe I thought might work so we’ll see if he’s able to experiment. Most guests will receive a conventional breadstick wrapped in bacon (I’m envisioning barber pole-style, but we’ll have to wait and see) and I’ve opted to skip that if he cannot find something that meets his standards and is safe for me, too.

Because while he wants to do the best he can to please me and my palate, he also wants to make sure our guests walk away with a good impression of Honey Lake, and it does take some time to adjust to certain food substitutions, especially the non-wheat variety. And as a fellow chef I can totally get behind that.

We Road Trips trundled on home with full bellies and quite a lot to look forward to for our reception.

What was your menu tasting experience like?

Brunch: Because Breakfast is Good Anytime!

Third Time Wife, Wedding Planning

In the Road Trip home the rule of thumb is: when in doubt, breakfast–at least when we need one more dinner plan for the upcoming week.

There’s just so many options with breakfast, be it for lunch, dinner, or at it’s regularly scheduled hour, and they all have one thing in common: they’re delicious! So when we needed to let go of the tapas reception idea, what do we fall back on but brunch, of course.

Before we booked Honey Lake Plantation, I needed to make sure that they were truly going to fit into the budget and that included settling on a price per person for the meal. Since they didn’t have a brunch option as part of their wedding package, we got to come up with our own menu, following the example of one of their sample menus that was at the price point we wanted to be at (just under $20 per person).

1st Course
Spiced Butternut Squash Soup served with a Bacon-Wrapped Breadsticks

2nd Course
Quiche Lorraine with a Salad of Mixed Green and Seasonal Fruit

3rd Course
Country-Fried Steak, Buttermilk Biscuits and Pepper Gravy

The third course was thoroughly Mr. Road Trip’s idea, but I had no objections to it whatsoever. There’s nothing necessarily show-stopping about the menu, but that wasn’t  really the point. Breakfast and brunch always have a cozy, comfort-food vibe to them and I think our menu will really play to that strength and let the quality of ingredients speak for themselves.

And speaking of ingredients…

I’ve mentioned in passing that I have some pesky digestive issues, always have in one form or another–it’s actually a very common issue on my dad’s side, they just call it the “family stomach”–but they’ve usually just been a nuisance more than anything. Just something that you deal with.

Until last summer when on a business trip, aka out of my usual environment, and I got very sick and I realized just how often I felt ill and just how much that affected what I did or didn’t do on a given day. And then I realized that I had been getting progressively worse for a couple of years–hindsight and all that. It should also be noted that I have two specialists I see throughout the year and have full bloodwork done every 6 months, in addition to annual check-ups, and since 2 of my diagnoses fall under the “rare” category, you can believe I’m pretty well monitored. So we still came back to it was just IBS–the catch-all of tummy troubles and not much you can do about it.

What this has to do with the reception menu, is that I heard about some research from Australia on FODMAPs, and that there was a fairly simple diagnostic diet protocol to try to see if it helped. You basically eliminate the known trigger foods for a while to reduce symptoms, then challenge the different groups to see if the symptoms come back. I talked it over with Mr. Road Trip (since he cooks every other week it would affect him, too, so I needed him on board) and right after Thanksgiving I started the Elimination phase, and it worked!  A week and a half in and I was feeling amazing, and my gastro was thrilled I’d taken it upon myself (the research is just starting to take hold here in the US) to try it and that it was working.

Then I started the challenges and failed every. single. one of them.

Which means, that in order to not be sick every day, I need to avoid a really long list of very common (and very tasty!) foods. I already knew I was lactose-intolerant, but now I needed to be stricter about that along with cutting out wheat, onions, garlic, apples, pears, mushrooms, honey, agave nectar, broccoli, asparagus, beans and most legumes, and a whole host of other foods that, in general, are very healthy and, in the case of onion and garlic, in so many things.

Let me tell you, having worked in professional kitchens before, I was not looking forward to telling a chef–any chef!–that he couldn’t use onions or garlic in my food!

Thankfully, my plan of figuring all this out way ahead of time (the main reason I was willing to give up wheat, etc. just before Christmas!) and giving the Plantation a 6-month heads-up has worked out well. They are doing their level best to accommodate my multiple food intolerances and, in fact, I spoke with Chef Bill just the other day about how we were going to handle some items (I’d requested a proposed ingredient list for the menu, just to try to spot any issues ahead of time). After our talk I’m feeling much more confident that it will be safe for me to eat at my own wedding, and am really looking forward to our tasting this week!

Did you find yourself throwing a vendor a curve ball at the last minute?