Miss Coconut, Tallahassee
Age and Occupation: 27, Soon-to-be Lawyer (once I pass the bar!)
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, phD Computer Science
Engagement Date: March 2007
Wedding Date: November 2008
Blogging Since: May 20, 2008
Venue: 1930s Historic Building in Lakeland, FL
About Me: I never thought about weddings until I got engaged. Now, I can't stop thinking about them! Planning the wedding has really opened the floodgates to my DIY side. If there's anything I can do to avoid hiring someone else, I will do it! Mr. Coconut is my financial advisor, he tries to keep me budget-conscious! We've tried to make wedding planning a team effort!

To continue the trend of posting food selections, Mr. Coconut and I met with our caterer earlier this week for a tasting and finalized our wedding menu!
Of course, in all the chaos I forgot to bring my camera. I know, I know. I’m probably going to get fined for that, right? I totally deserve it.
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Mrs. Hydrangea, Dallas
Age and Occupation: 26, Administrative Assistant
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, Network Analyst
Engagement Date: June 2007
Wedding Date: September 2008
Blogging Since: January 14, 2008
Venue: Catholic Church and Reception at The W Hotel
About Me: Mr. H and I come from very different cultures and backgrounds so I'm excited to plan our wedding with a balance of both traditions. My mom has always been a DIY queen, and I'm just now starting to get into it with a new house and a wedding to plan!
Last week we had our tasting for the reception and man, it was G O O D! Mr. H and Mom H attended the tasting with me. We were seated at a round table with the same linens and chairs that we will be using for our reception. As the chef brought out different courses based on the items we had previously sent the hotel that sounded tasty, one of the event hosts made sure to keep our glasses filled with wine.Here’s some of the food that we sampled:
smoked turkey taco with queso fresco and mexican crema
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Mrs. Milkshake, Seattle/Vancouver, BC
Age and Occupation: 23, Pharmacist
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Pharmacist
Engagement Date: May 2007
Wedding Date: August 2008
Blogging Since: December 6, 2007
Venue: Victorian Mansion
About Me: Despite the fact that I’ve invested many long years of my life studying the sciences in college, I’m glad to be out of there and I would never do it again! I’m super artsy at heart - I run an indie craft site, I grew up shooting and developing my own film, doing jazz and ballet, and the whole gamut of art classes. I’ve been called a Jane of all Trades… but I was also told many years ago not to make my passion my career because it’d suck the fun out of it. Hence my choice of day job. We live in Seattle but are having our wedding in Canada to be fair to all our family and friends.
I’m going to turn to the only people that could possible have any fathom of an answer for me. We are having 82 guests, and an hour between the ceremony and the dinner (all at the same location). Right now our hors d’oeuvres menu looks like this, which includes fancy ones and platters, but I’m wondering if it’s overkill. I have no concept of what 82 people could eat in an hour, and afterward we are having a buffet dinner…

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Mr. Avocado, Seattle
Age and Occupation: 23, Student
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Consultant
Engagement Date: July 27, 2008
Wedding Date: October, 2008
Blogging Since: June 30, 2008
Venue: LDS Seattle Temple & Hotel 1000
About Me: Somehow this little farm girl found herself a genuine Pole to fall in love and eventually move away to Poland with. I am an LDS bride attempting to plan a private religious ceremony, ring ceremony, seated reception for 100, and an open house while coordinating for guests flying in from across the United States and as far away as Poland. I try to avoid fads, excess waste, and saturated fat. I strongly endorse photography, DDR, calorie counting, rss feeds, cooking, and utilizing your resources.
After wholesaling and antiquing came my favorite part of the day, menu tasting. We chose four appetizers, two soups, and three entrees to sample. I also brought along a sister who is allergic to gluten/dairy/egg (you know, basically everything), and a mother who is allergic to dairy. This meant a lot of extras left over for me.

Poached lobster with avocado mousse on cucumber rounds, and miniature baked brie with fruit compote.
I wish I could build a menu completely out of appetizers. Not only do I like when food is served in teensy tiny portions, but you are able to get so many flavors in your mouth before you start to feel full. The baked brie rounds were a little hard to eat, so the chef is going to make them even smaller for us. Won’t they look cute?
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Miss Sweet Tea, San Diego/New Orleans
Age and Occupation: 26, Graduate Student
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Web Monkey
Engagement Date: December 1, 2007
Wedding Date: December, 2008
Blogging Since: July 14, 2008
Venue: Small church ceremony, museum reception
About Me: I'm an East Coaster living on the West Coast, planning a wedding in the South. I teach, study and write about pop culture, race, and sexuality for a living- now if only my dream job paid! After Mr. Sweet Tea, my other loves are scuba diving, traveling, being a semi-pretentious foodie, and fighting for social justice. I can't wait to have our best friends and family together in our favorite city to
celebrate with us!
You asked, so I’m delivering. Let’s talk about food, baby!
As a prelude, here’s a hilarious wedding menu-related storyline from one of Mr. St’s favorite comics, Achewood:

(click to enlarge!)
We have that very same question about our wedding menu, too! How to have a great wedding menu that is not too stuffy, but still adventurous, delicious, and local to boot.
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Miss Espresso, Corona/Big Bear
Age and Occupation: 23, Recent Grad & Professional Interviewee
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 22, Maintenance Technician
Engagement Date: December 21, 2007
Wedding Date: October, 2008
Blogging Since: June 25, 2008
Venue: Outside a rustic b&b in Big Bear Lake
About Me: I'm a lover of all things good: coffee, music, travel, rain, and of course- my handsome fiance! I'm a full believer in the "Life is Short," mantra - and therefore, eat lots of dark chocolate. I'm a Geographer by degree and nerd by choice. I cook to the sound of French and Portuguese music even though I speak neither. I love road trips, camping, hiking, and capturing life through the lens of my camera. Take me to Anthropologie and I may never leave. I'm a sucker for pretty packaging, bargain finds, and old movies. Mr. Espresso and I are high school sweethearts and I am so blessed to be this amazing man's future wife.
Off to the side and where our buffet will be, I’d like a setup similar to this. We’re having a local Italian bistro cater our wedding and I would love to have the buffet area set up like a Tuscan farmer’s/flea market. Not that I’ve ever been to Tuscany, but in my mind, this is how their markets are set up.

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Mrs. Pomegranate, Sacramento
Age and Occupation: 27, Technical Specialist
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, Software Engineer
Engagement Date: August 23, 2007
Wedding Date: October, 2008
Blogging Since: June 5, 2008
Venue: R.H. Phillips Winery
About Me: Hi, I'm Miss Pomegranate and I'm a shopaholic. I have a weak spot for the chic cheap - especially anything I can re-create on the DIY. Shoes are my vice, music is my passion in life and technology is the medium by which I live and work. When I'm not scoping out a sale, I'm spending my quality time training for a marathon, playing Wii with my fiance and snuggling with my Silver Labrador and Teacup Panther - and oh yeah, planning my wedding!
Mr. Pomegranate and I love our food - and we like it to be fresh (Mr. Pom’s BeeTV Cooking Show aside). We’re big supporters of finding food locally - be it through farmer’s markets or our CSA subscription - as it is not only an eco-friendly way of consuming, but it is also pretty darn tasty! You’ll always get what’s in season and that makes it extremely fresh. This is one of the reasons why we love our caterer so much - he gets all of his restaurant’s produce from the same organic CSA that we belong to.
Not expecting a true “tasting” per se, we jetted over to Mulvaney’s Building & Loan (the fruits of the Culinary Specialists catering labor) right after work and dove into a glass of wine at the bar while waiting for the catering manager to appear. Margo was a delight with her warm, friendly demeanor - even more appreciated was the very professional air about her. We had just sat down at a table for four, when a waiter plunked a very large plate of my (now) favorite appetizer displayed on the menu: In-House Irish Smoked Salmon with Accompaniments.
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Mrs. Gingerbread, Vancouver
Age and Occupation: 32, Psychologist
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 33, Software Engineer
Engagement Date: Sometime in the fall of 2004
Wedding Date: July, 2008
Blogging Since: March 24, 2008
Venue: Rainforest wedding, beachfront restaurant reception
About Me: I recently moved to Canada from Southern California. Trying to plan a wedding in a new city, not to mention a new country, is tough, but the fact that we can get legally married here more than makes up for it! The wedding will be an opportunity for most of our family and friends to see our new city for the first time so it will be both a wedding and a reunion. Besides my future wife, I am also madly in love with a good bargain, Swedish pastries, Tivo, and my two dogs and calico cat (in no particular order).
Obviously, I cannot stop talking about food, so you can see why most of our budget is going towards edibles. On Friday, I talked about the reception menu. Today it’s time to drool over our Dim Sum brunch!

(image source)
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Mrs. Daffodil, San Francisco/Los Angeles
Age and Occupation: 26, Nonprofit Strategy Consultant
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Resident Physician
Engagement Date: December 29, 2006
Wedding Date: May, 2008
Blogging Since: August, 2007
Venue: Church w/ floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Valley; Westin in downtown LA
About Me: I moved around a lot growing up, but consider myself a Southerner at heart. I love scrapbooking, dancing, doggies, and diet coke. I am all about personalizing everything and hence, I'm a DIY bride who is just loving the entire wedding planning process! Mr. Daffodil and I met in our college fellowship group and were "just friends" for three years before we started dating. We've been together for four years now and can't wait to get married in sunny SoCal, Mr. Daffodil's hometown.

These are snapshots of some of the yummy dishes we served at our big fat Chinese wedding!
You are what you eat… or at least that seems to be the hope in some circles! When it comes to Chinese wedding banquets, every course served is symbolic of some kind of special wish for the couple. Though I originally envisioned a Southern-style yet modern glam reception and having a Chinese banquet separately, we melded the two visions due to parental preferences (and budget constraints too
) . This meant we would have quite an eclectic group of guests in attendance. For some of our colleagues and friends, it would be their first Chinese wedding! So I thought it would be helpful to create menus, to orient them to the symbolism and also to help them enjoy the full experience! Read more…
Mrs. Cupcake, Philadelphia
Age and Occupation: 27, Graphic Designer
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Construction Project Manager
Engagement Date: February 10, 2007
Wedding Date: September, 2008
Blogging Since: December 7, 2007
Venue: The Desmond Hotel in Malvern, PA
About Me: Mr. Cupcake and I hit it off at a Halloween party and immediately began a long-distance relationship. After two years, he moved to my neck of the woods, and a year and a half after that, he proposed at the “place we fell in love.” I am a true perfectionist who enjoys designing and creating more work for myself, so wedding planning is my perfect outlet. Mr. Cupcake and I are both old souls, and we hope to weave that aspect of our personalities into our wedding day.
Most people like to brag about their hometown and its unique delicacies or traditions that make it stand out from the rest. Here in Philly (no one from here actually calls it “Philadelphia”
), we’ve got Rocky, the Art Museum, the Iggles (that’s “Eagles” to you non-Philadelphians), soft pretzels, The Declaration of Independence, the Mummers Parade (a strange but absolutely fabulous New Year’s day tradition), the Liberty Bell, Tastykakes, da Phightin’ Phils (the baseball wielding Phillies), and, of course, the mouth-watering Philly cheese steak (I like to call it a “heart attack on a roll”).
While our wedding isn’t actually in the city of Philadelphia, I have lived in the area my entire life, and it’s just, well, home. The city is also where Mr. Cupcake and I met, it’s where we fell in love, and it’s where we got engaged…so it’s only natural that we would try to incorporate some aspects of Philly culture into our wedding, particularly with a little tasty late-night treat for our guests. Read more…