Engagement Cookies!

Wow! I've been a bit MIA, haven't I? If you've been patiently (or not so patiently?) wondering if I was ever going to write some more posts, I apologize. I'm here now! I My last set of cookies drove me a bit crazy and put me in a bit of a cookie making funk, so I haven't really been making any recently. I still have a couple sets to show you though and will hopefully get back to my cookie making ways soon!

These next cookies were a set of engagement cookies! I've been married myself for almost 2 years and I've been blessed with fantastic in-laws.  Well, my husband's younger brother has been dating an awesome young lady for a while now and in October, he asked her to marry him! On the day he was going to ask her, he planned an engagement party that evening with all their family and friends. I thought it would be fun to make some cookies to give them in honor of the occasion.  Since they aren't actual wedding cookies and I had no colors or anything to go off of, I thought it would be fun to just do simple white, black, and gray colors. I loved how they turned out, simple, but elegant.

 I almost forgot to take pictures of all of these cookies! When I remembered, I had already packaged these ones up. Unfortunatly, I had a couple pieces break off. This was a new dress cookie cutter, that I love, though I've found it to be a bit fragile.

 

I found the idea for these cookies here. I loved the design since the first time I saw them. This was my first time trying any sort of face on a cookie, and even as simple as it is, it wasn't super easy. I laugh at the man in the top right cookie, I feel like his mouth says he is unsure of what his sweetheart's response will be!

Bouquets and Bouts

I was given an opportunity for my MIL's wedding to put together the Groom and Best Man's Boutonnieres as well as the  Bride's and the matron of Honor's bouquets. Putting together flowers aren't really my thing, though I love them and think they are gorgeous. My Sister-in-law (of my immediate family) is the flower one in our family (she put together all the flowers for my wedding and they were beautiful!). Well, she lives in another state and we're talking about my in-laws here, so I got to give it a try :)

The Best Man's Boutineer

The Groom's Boutineer
Photo taken by Marilee Photography

They ended up looking quite nice and it all worked out!

A wedding!

A Couple weekends ago, my MIL got remarried :) She married a great man in a sweet and simple ceremony that fit them perfectly. There were less than 30 guests and many were around the entire weekend for a weekend of fun, laughter, and good food.

My MIL has seen the pictures of cake pops I had previously made and had asked me to make some for the wedding in lieu of the traditional wedding cake. I was thrilled to make them. She gave me no specific colors, just that she wanted bright colors. I took to the candy color options I had and spent time just figuring out how many different colors I could come up with (in the effort of full disclosure, this *may* have been more about me playing around and having fun than about the cake pops themselves). After being torn between 2 color combinations (and I'm still only 90% convinced I chose the right one), I decided upon blue, purple, and pink.

I was asked to make them with white cake, which was fun since I hadn't done it before. At the last minute, I realized I would need an additional cake so I decided to bake a red velvet cake as well. I'm not sure if I will make red velvet again since myself or my husband didn't like it nearly as well as the other flavors I have made. If I do make it again,  I will need my husband around to take pics because it was quite the colorful and messy experience! The white cake tasted really good.

Here are the pics of the final products...

Weddings!

Peter and I had the privilege to attend one of his co-worker's weddings back in August. I have always been one of those girls who liked weddings. I actually didn't have my planned from the time I was 7, but that was mostly because my tastes would change every couple of years and therefore, my ideal wedding changed with it. I can tell you, had I gotten married younger, I most certainly wouldn't have considered a winter wedding (which, for a number of reasons, I'm SUPER happy we did. It was a beautiful day with just a bit of snow on the ground). Had I gotten married before just out of high school or in early college, the main color would have lavender. Mid college till about a year after-it would have been a bright, summery version of blue. As it was, I was torn between a dark eggplant purple and a deep, almost royal but not quite, blue. And truthfully, as unromantic as it sounds, my final decision really was decided based on which venue we choose. Wedding venues often come with a choice of linen colors and therefore, you are sort of limited to what they have. As it was, the venue we chose had a great dark purple linen and therefore, the decision was made! deep purple it was!

As I started to say at the beginning, I've always liked weddings. Since planning my own however, I notice EVERYTHING about weddings! All the little details about a wedding, I pay attention (just think brides, If I'm at your wedding and you are thinking NO one will actually notice all the little details you spend hours putting into your wedding, fear not-at least one person will notice and appreciate!)

Anyways, this co-workers wedding was at the beautiful Stanley Hotel in Estes Park. The hotel was really pretty and neat. see for yourself...

The ceremony was supposed to be outside (which would have been a gorgeous view), but threatening rain kept in inside in a very pretty concert hall. Her main color was also a purple and everything looked beautiful. My favorite aspect of the wedding was her centerpieces, particularly for the head table. They had a very romantic, but kinda woodsy feel to them. I loved them as soon as I saw them. Using floating candles and branches is a pretty popular idea these days. I loved that she used them in a unique way that I haven't seen very often (if ever). (often, branches are used as more of "trees" on a table or put into a vase and frequently there are crystals of some type hanging from them).