DIY & DIT

Jan 2011

When we re-launched the APW How-To series, one of the first things on the menu (pun intended, I am totally hilarious) was to get a How-To bake a wedding cake post. It couldn’t come from me, since my version of how to bake a wedding cake is “Find local bakeshop that will quote you something under $500. Order.” So we turned to the lovely wedding grad Vilija of Love, V. Her husband baked their (stunningly and simple) cake, and her Lazy Girls How-To is excellent (and never boring).

Baking a wedding cake is not something that we undertook lightly. When my husband told me he wanted to bake our cake I was skeptical at first, but he had the time, the baking skills, the desire and was convincing. If you are contemplating baking your own wedding cake here are some things we learned and some tips we have to make it through the process.

Start early! We cannot stress this enough. This will give you enough time to get your equipment, find a good recipe, to bake test cakes and to practice your frosting skills.

Get a good recipe – baking is science and other people have already figured it out. It is just a matter of finding a recipe you like. We highly recommend the

Having the proper equipment is key. Knowing that we were undertaking a wedding cake, my mother gifted us with a stand mixer. We wouldn’t have succeeded without it. Even considering in the cost of buying a stand mixer, we calculated that we still saved money by baking our own cake. Make sure to purchase and practice using your equipment. Most of our aluminum baking pans came from restaurant supply stores and were fairly inexpensive, yet high quality.

Here is a short list of supplies we found invaluable: Continue reading How To: Bake A Wedding Cake

Posted in: DIY & DIT, How To | 96 Comments »

Jul 2010

Cara & Andy’s Do-It-Together Self-Catered Wedding

Today seemed like a great time to continue the ongoing Team Practical discussion of self-catered weddings. For those of you new to the discussion, a review. First, food safety. I’m absolutely sure that you can serve food to all your wedding guests without causing a, um, barf-fest, but I’m telling you now – it’s your job to concentrate on it. Capish? Second, choose your battles. I was not a DIY food kind of girl, no way. But I was a DIY flower kind of girl, and I made that a PRO-JECT. So, you might want to stay away from overloading yourself with too many last-few-days projects, unless you are stronger than I. Third, GET HELP. Family, family, family, and friends. You can not do your wedding food alone. I know it sounds good in the inside of your wedding blurred mind maybe, but trust me, BAD IDEA. And finally, please ignore all of the things the wedding industry has to say on the subject. Is your family the cooking kind? Can you throw a big dinner party? Yeah, then I’m pretty sure you’ll survive, enjoy your wedding, and not kill your guests.

So. With that pre-amble, I bring you the amazing Cara, and her kebab and cupcake fest wedding.

Andy and I were married on August 22, 2009. Here’s a quick account of our DIY/DITogether wedding food preparations. After mulling over different catering options and hitting more than one roadblock (money, availability, & quality), and taking heed to the many offers for assistance in preparation, we decided to DIY everything food-wise. We knew this would be a huge endeavor, but knew we would have the support and control over we needed and wanted. About two months before the wedding, we gathered for a meal with our parents and a few wedding party attendants to discuss meal planning and delegating jobs. Our overall theme was summer foods (kebabs, salads, cupcakes, kids food, and local beer), and we were able to decide on a wide range of options for all.

We had a team of 12 people preparing food, which included skewering kebabs, preparing cold salads, baking cupcakes, fetching kegs of beer, and assembling food for the kids table. The cupcakes were made a few weeks in advance, frozen, and then thawed and decorated the day before. Andy and I even got our hands into the mix, working on a few salads and kebabs in the days prior. I was told more than once that I shouldn’t be cooking, working, or lifting a finger the week of the wedding. To me, food and service go hand in hand and have been big components of my life, so making food for our guests seemed like a great gift in return. Plus, it was fun trying out new recipes which provided for a little stress relief.

Chaffing dishes were rented from a local party supply company to keep the hot foods hot, and we used family dishware for salads and kids food. The cupcakes were placed on vintage china plates borrowed from Andy’s grandma. Drinks were stored in kegs, coolers, and bottles. The napkins, plates, cups and silverware came from Ikea and Party City. Set up took place by the wedding party and friends of the family prior to the reception, while we were off having photos taken. Tear down took place after the band quit playing by family, friends, and the wedding party. Continue reading Cara & Andy’s Do-It-Together Self-Catered Wedding

Posted in: DIY & DIT, Uncategorized | 52 Comments »

Jul 2010

Wedding Graduates: Ali & Joshua

I was thrilled when Ali’s wedding landed in my inbox. Her email was such a lovely, pay it forward testiment to the APW community. She said, “I’ve wanted to write a wedding graduate post ever since I began reading APW. The posts written by brides have stuck with me so much more strongly than any detail photos I have ever seen. Even if my story doesn’t make it to the website, I still wanted to share it with you. APW has acted as wedding planning therapy for me, so I want to give something back.” And YES! That, for me is what wedding graduate posts are about.

But her wedding…. sigh. Ali’s wedding is a testiment to what DIY & DIT is really about for me. I’m a creative person, but I’m only marginally crafty. So for us, for our wedding DIY & DIT was about necessity. It was as simple as making our wedding happen. But from that necessity emerged a real pride of creation. And that is so exactly what Ali’s simple, lovely, backyard wedding is about. Creation, pride, and love, love, love, love.

…

My backyard wedding was almost entirely DIY. I cooked for 80 people, I decorated, I arranged flowers, I cut and hemmed table cloths, landscaped my backyard, etc. This was not driven by a desire to be crafty, but rather it was the only way to have the party that I wanted on our very modest budget. When I told people that my husband and I were taking all of this on, I received pitying looks. No one thought I was going to be able to pull it off. I myself doubted that I would come out on the other side of the wedding with my sanity. This was partly because I have struggled with health complications through out my entire adult life. I have a syncope disorder and when ever I am under stress I fall into a dead faint. It’s dangerous, frustrating, and makes it very difficult for me to take on anything challenging. This seemed like an impassable hurtle to our wedding day. But I looked our beast of a wedding to-do list right in the eye, and tackled it.

We didn’t do it all alone though. We had a great team of helpers. My husband and I were speaking about our wedding day and we both described the same feeling. We were told that our wedding day would validate and confirm how much we love each other, but we already knew all about our love for each other. It was the love that we were receiving from our friends and family that really blew us away.

I had friends come to stay with me 2 weeks prior to our wedding day. They worked as hard as I did and were just as invested in my wedding as I was. The night before the wedding they stayed up with me until 5 in the morning helping to tie up lose ends. I was astounded by how ready and willing they were to do anything that I needed. I was brought to tears when my exhausted best friend, who had been cooking since 8 AM, insisted on giving me a pedicure at 4:30 in the morning the day of the wedding because she wanted me to feel pampered for at least 30 minutes.

There were times that I thought that everything was going to fall apart, but there was always someone there to hold it all together. My dress was altered and pressed by a friend, the photography was done by a friend, our officiant was a friend. So, although our wedding day was meant to be about the relationship between my husband and I, it was the relationships with my friends and family that stood out to me. To the DIY brides out there: ask for help! There are probably people who will surprise you with their skills and love.

Continue reading Wedding Graduates: Ali & Joshua

Posted in: DIY & DIT, Wedding Graduates | 32 Comments »

Apr 2010

Self Catering Your Wedding: The Dessert Reception

When Liz offered to write a guest post on self catering her DIY reception, I had a feeling it was going to be great (if you don’t remember Liz’s wedding, go back and refresh, because seriously, I have such a soft spot for other a-typical traditionalists), But it turned out to be even better than I’d been expecting. I know if you’re not self-catering, you’re probably tuning out these posts by now, but seriously, don’t tune out this one. Because this list of tips is the list of tips I’d write for any DIY-ish wedding. We spent most of our wad on catering, but these rules held true for us 110%. So here is Liz, reinforcing that Team Practical motto, “If you set your mind to it, it can be done.”

Meg called my version “Self-catering Lite” and I guess I kinda like that title. This is self-catering for beginners- for folks who aren’t used to spending hours in the kitchen for a party of 40. I’m gonna point out the obvious- if you’re not good at or used to doing something, your wedding is NOT the time to try. Whether that means sew your own dress or find a great deal on flowers- if your wedding is your first foray into some project, you’ll be far more stressed than you need to. Just cough up the cash.

For me, self-catering is all about finding your boundaries- which includes the “can’ts” as well as the “musts.” For some people, having a reception for 25 works. Not for moi, with “immediate” family alone totaling over 70 (FYI- “immediate” for a big Italian family includes aunts, uncles, and anyone else you called “aunt” or “uncle”). Having 150 guests was in the list of “musts” for me. Which meant having a sit-down dinner of filet and lobster was in the list of “cants.”

Believe it or not, Josh and I had toyed with the idea of a snacky reception long before butting against the budget wall. Something about sit-down dinners sounds so boring and promy to me. (not always the case, but definitely rooted in my own personal wedding experiences) My favorite parties involve lots of walking around, mingling, and serving yourself piles of food where no snooty waiter is judging your portions. Thus, the idea of the dessert reception was born. Continue reading Self Catering Your Wedding: The Dessert Reception

Posted in: DIY & DIT | 69 Comments »

Apr 2010

Self Catering Your Wedding: The Cocktail Party Edition

When the ever-fantastic Marie Eve (how *do* I get an accent grave over my E?) offered to write a post about self catering her wedding she told me, “But if you think APW has had enough of me, I totally understand.” Since, as a sensible person, I find it impossible to have too much of Marie-Eve on the blog, I insisted that she write the post immediately. Again, let me say, you should not EVER EVER EVER feel indie-pressure to self cater your wedding (because I felt that pressure when it wasn’t right for us, and it made me NUTS). But, when Marie-Eve was writing this, I asked her to use her special brand of magic to make any of you who were interested in self catering feel like it was totally possible. Do-able. Not scary. And that’s what Marie-Eve does, always:

I didn’t envision self-catering our wedding from the start. It was more of a last-minute impulse, actually. When we visited the place that ended up being our venue (an ice cider orchard), they told us they were set up to serve alcohol, but not food. They were fine with us bringing in a caterer and even suggested a few, but they wanted us to let them know it wouldn’t be an easy job: there was no equipment on the premises, so everything would need to be brought in (including serving tables and trays, burners, possibly ovens), and very little space for them to work.

Realistically, that meant a full sit-down meal was out of the window. We were fine with and even charmed by the idea of a cocktail party, and it seemed well suited for the place, which during the reception would offer a tasting of all their products. They were really passionate and enthusiastic about their cider, and had already come with a number of perfect food pairings and recipe ideas. So the next logical step was to serve different platters or finger foods and hors d’oeuvres that went along with our tasting, both to complement the cider and to keep things simple logistically, given their limitations.

During the ride back home, I called my mom: “Do you think we could handle this ourselves?” She hesitated for a second, probably thinking “you and your crazy ideas”… All through our planning process, I could sense that my doing-things-differently was always taking her aback for a second, but then she always accepted it and started thinking that it made sense. This was no different. “Of course we can. We’ve done it before!” Continue reading Self Catering Your Wedding: The Cocktail Party Edition

Posted in: DIY & DIT, Uncategorized | 23 Comments »

Nov 2009

On DIY Opression

Did you guys see that Jessica Valenti of Feministing was the subject of ‘Questions’ in the New York Times Magazine yesterday? She wasssss, and it might or might not be on our fridge now. And we’re just going to ignore the stupidity of the title of the article: Fourth-Wave Feminism. But. Anyway. I needed to quote her here, for all of you who are feeling oppressed by the DIY aspect of non-mainstream weddings, and lets face it, *any* kind of wife-dom:

I’m not a D.I.Y. feminist. I once tried knitting a scarf but threw it away after 15 minutes.

Right? So stop making yourself feel bad about all the DIY you’re not doing, and have a cocktail while you read the interview, and make yourself wiser. Done.

Posted in: DIY & DIT, Gender & Feminism | 14 Comments »