Nick & Allie’s Wedding ~ June 6, 2009

I am so excited about our rehearsal dinner! It will be the night before the wedding at Maggiano’s Little Italy. I just love their food and their service is amazing. We have been to two rehearsal dinners there in the past and the service is so great. The food is endless, so I don’t doubt that I will be gaining 5-10 pounds that night. I better watch it if I want to fit into my dress the next day!

YUM!

The dress I selected for the rehearsal dinner is much dressier that the tone of our overall wedding weekend. I wanted one opportunity to dress  up in a cocktail dress and satin shoes and this is the perfect chance for that.

My dress is a Maggie London mesh tiered dress from Macy’s.

How cute!

And the shoe, which I haven’t decided if I am going to wear this or keep looking, is a bright purple satin shoe from Dillards:

Kind of sassy, right?

The food for the evening is going to be AMAZING. We are going with the following menu:

Appetizers: Calamari Fritte & Stuffed Mushrooms

Salads: Maggiano & my favorite- Tomato Caprese

Pastas: Fettuccine Alfredo with Broccoli & Penne with Marinara

Entrees: Pork Tenderloin & Lemon Herb Salmon

Desserts: I cant remember which ones we got but OH MY they all sound so good. Take a look at this listing:

Chocolate Zuccotto Cake
Chocolate cake layered with Sambucca chocolate mousse; iced with chocolate frosting and dusted with cocoa powder.

Creme Brulee
Rich and creamy vanilla custard with a hint of citrus, caramelized sugar crust, topped with fresh strawberries.

Homemade Profiteroles
Pastry shell filled with vanilla bean ice cream and topped with our own hot fudge and fresh whipped cream; dusted with cocoa powder and powdered sugar.

Maggiano’s Signature Spumoni
Maggiano’s signature spumoni made especially for us. A blend of pistachio, chocolate and cherry ice cream.

N.Y. Style Cheesecake, Seasonal Fruit
New York style ricotta cheesecake topped with fresh berries and whipped cream.

Nonna’s Pound Cake, Caramelized Bananas
Pound cake toasted and served with caramelized bananas and our own hot fudge sauce. Vanilla bean ice cream available upon request.

Tiramisu
Ladyfinger cookies soaked in espresso and coffee liquer layered with mascarpone cheese;dusted with cocoa powder and served with chocolate

Vera’s Lemon Cookies
Crescent shaped lemon cookies glazed with lemon frosting.

Apple Crostada, Caramel Sauce
Warm apple filling of Granny Smith apples, sugar, butter, nutmeg, cinnamon, baked in a pastry crust dipped in cream and crystallized sugar. Served with caramel sauce and a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. Garnished with mint.

Since Nick and I are having a casual outdoor affair, we thought it would be fun to reflect that in our choice of food, so we decided to go with my long time favorite place that I always said would cater my wedding one day…San Antonio Taco Company, the best Tex-Mex in Nashville. It’s been around forever. I used to go as a kid and have always loved it.

You can’t beat the price and its an all-you-can-eat deal. We will be having chips, salsa, the best cheese dip in town, chicken & steak fajitas, and all the fixin’s! YUM! I can’t wait. SATCO brings in a giant grill on a trailer and makes the fajitas right there so everything is piping hot and fresh. I am SO excited!

I almost forgot to tell you WHO is doing the cake….

I started researching prices for cakes early in the planning process and was very surprised at how much a cake actually costs! After calling around to many different bakeries and finding out price points, I found that most bakeries were way out of my price range….sometimes up to $5.00 per serving not to mention delivery fees and any additional design fees.  Since we are have a pretty big guest list (we are expecting around 300 people) we had to keep the cost of the cake down. A good friend of my mom’s told me about a  small mom-and-pop bakery in Brentwood called the Flour Shop and  said they do great cakes for a very affordable price and boy was she right! For $2.50 per serving and NO delivery charges, I can get a fantastic wedding cake. Its a basic white cake with ivory butter cream frosting and white butter cream detailing. I didn’t want to get to fancy with all the fillings and flavors…sometimes it over-powers to the goodness of a plain white cake. So, Iris, owner of the Flour Shop in Brentwood is taking care of me! I am so excited to see and TASTE the final product!

For the grooms cake, Nick is planning of having some good old-fashioned peach cobbler! YUM!!!!!!!!!! I am not sure who will be making it at this point but I think he and  his family have some ideas.

I finally stumbled across the inspiration for our wedding cake the other day! I was looking through Google Images of wedding cakes and found this one. I like that it has different designs on each layer giving it unique interest and that it incorporates a little bit of color with the ribbons. Disregard the tulle all around it- I’m not a big fan of tulle.The cake will be sitting on a really cool whiskey barrel table under the tent.

For a long time, Nick has had his own brand….you know….cowboy brand….like the kind you would brand a horse or cow with. Its this really cool G that he designed and puts on lots of things…like his belt buckle, see below. I had him create a monogram for us, incorporating his G brand and this is what he came up with:

Isn’t it so cool? I love it! We planned on using it on our invitations but we couldn’t get the resolution of the image high enough for it to fit with our invites. The bakery is going to mimic it the top of our cake and we hope to use it on our programs and hopefully in other ares of the wedding as well.

Here is the belt buckle I was talking about.

Yep, he made it. How talented is he??!! Take a look at his website for more custom jewelery, art, and woodworking. If anyone needs a special gift for someone, Nick would be a great person to call.