The First Wedding Wednesday

Helloooo Lovelies :)

I hope everyone's week is off to a great start! This week for me has been a nice break opposed to the past few weeks, where I have wanted to pull my hair out, drive to the beach and take a week to just be a bum and not do much of anything. Luckily, within all this madness, I have gotten a few things established for the wedding. So here's a better idea of what's in store for our big day!

Some big news, my wedding dress came in last week! I was unfortunately sick when I got the phone call it was here, so I didn't go try it on until this past weekend. I still love it which is great! It's a little large through the waist and the hips, but nothing my tailoring skills can't fix! Now just to order fabric to make my veil! I'm pretty sure I'm going to make a raw edge elbow length veil, simple and easy since its an outdoor wedding!

A long while ago, after we got engaged, we booked the venues. We have decided to have the ceremony at the very same place that we got engaged. It's such a beautiful place, and it doesn't need much decor, which is a great plus!

We're thinking about adding a little tulle and lighting to make it more "wedding". Also, instead of chairs, I envision backless benches, to feel more easy going and also to fit a few more people. Chairs tend to take up a good amount of extra room. Plus, it would be a fun alternative to the regular chairs you always see at weddings.

Our reception venue is a wonderful historic house, with an excellent ballroom, which I'm mildly obsessed with! I love all the black, white & gold it has going on. It's an easy color palette, and it really doesn't need much decor either which saves us with time, and my piece of mind, since I most likely will not get to see any of this until the week of the wedding!

One thing we have gotten established is the color story and the bridesmaid dresses. I found these great convertible dresses on Etsy that the girls can style however they would like, to make it the most flattering to their bodies. I worked a wedding last summer that had peacock blue dresses, with ivory, deep orange, mustard yellow and wine colored florals. Needless to say, the wedding was gorgeous, and at my absolute favorite venue here in the south. A part of me is really sad we are not getting married here, because its so beautiful year round, but another part is glad we are going home so that our closest family and friends can be there on our special day.

For the guys, we have yet to go anywhere and look for suits or tuxes. We think for a fall wedding, a darker charcoal would look great with the peacock blue the girls are doing. I've also heard that charcoal photographs a little nicer than black does, especially since we are having an evening ceremony.

The other big item we have semi-crossed off our list is the cake and finding someone to bake it for us! We know we would like a chocolate cake (since both of us have a mad chocolate sweet tooth). I keep seeing these great fruity, naked cakes float across my Pinterest feed, which makes me think that would go along perfect with the reception idea I have in my head. We're thinking of also having pies at the wedding, baked by our grandmothers! I'm super excited for it! For the kiddos we thought we would do a caramel apple bar, where they can create their own and have a little something to occupy them. Following the ceremony we are planning on having a cocktail hour, but we are still figuring out the logistics, and I will have that for you in a later post!

The other idea we have is just a simple, butter cream frosted cake. I like the idea of the frosting not being perfect, because whenever you cut into a cake it usually gets all weird anyways. It has a more relaxed feel to it as well, which is great! I also like the lettering they chose to go along with this, I think it adds a nice touch and is more about each person of the couple, rather than just putting one letter as the cake topper.

Well that's all I've got for you all this week! I'll try to be better about the wedding updates as the time goes by, and I get more planned! Thanks for reading along!
-A

Mustard Butter Pierogies

Hey All!

Since September, the fiance and I have had a mad obsession with German food since we visited Helen, Georgia for Oktoberfest. It's this adorable little German tourist town tucked in the Appalachian Mountains, and they seriously have the best food I have ever tasted. Everyone in town will tell you as well, that you cannot get a bad meal, and they are not lying. The food is absolutely delicious!

When we came back from Helen, we still were having cravings for German food, but we could not find a place nearby that served it. Until one day, one of the regular customers that comes into my work was talking about a new biergarten they were putting in downtown, close to my work. We were so stoked we decided one night after work we would go and check it out! The food and atmosphere did not fail us. We ordered these amazing perogies, with mustard butter sauce and scallions on top...Oh. My. Gosh. My mouth waters just mentioning them! Pierogies are a childhood favorite food of mine, and the fact they are drenched in this fabulous German sauce? Day. Made. We also ordered wiener schnitzel, and the Bavarian pork dip sandwich, and man oh man, they were delightful! Did I mention they have a wonderful beer and wine list?

Needless to say I scoured the internet to find a recipe for the mustard butter sauce, and I came across one the other day that I thought would be a good fit to go along with my pierogies. I was pretty amazed at how well it turned out, so here goes how to make them!

 First step: Boil your pierogies according to your package directions. The ones I got needed about 5-7 minutes.

Melt 2 TBSP butter, add in 2 TBSP chopped shallots on medium high heat. Saute until just before they start browning, about 3 minutes.

 Add in 2 TBSP flour, making a rue! Now, you want to make a medium rue for this, so cook your butter and flour for about 1-2 minutes, or until the mixture starts to darken. Keep whisking/stirring. Don't worry, it won't dry up on you. You want it to darken so your sauce is the right color!

Add in  1/2 cup white dry wine. I did not have dry wine, I had fruity.  I will say this probably would have a stronger taste if you added dry wine. It still tasted amazing even with the fruity wine! Add what you have in your house! Keep stirring until it has thickened.

 Then, add in one cup of chicken stock, 2 TBSP whole grain mustard, and a good squeeze of lemon juice. Stir until combined, scraping the pan to get all the yummy flavoring that has baked onto the bottom.

 Bring mixture to a boil, then reduce heat and let it thicken until it coats the back of your spoon. I left out the heavy cream that the recipe called for.

 

Once thickened, your sauce is ready to pour over the pierogies!

 Voila! Add some chopped scallions if you so desire to add some freshness to the dish. I spaced out while I was at the store last and completely forgot them! This recipe makes enough sauce to coat about 10-12 pierogies generously. I had leftover sauce and no more pierogies, so I just stuck the rest in the freezer for next time! 

I hope you all enjoyed this recipe! Leave me some comments below if you decide to try this and tell me what you think! 

I hope everyone had a great weekend and I'll see you later this week! 

-A

Stocking The Freezer

Hello Lovelies!

Today is my 25th birthday! I don't know quite how I feel about this birthday, but its a milestone I guess. We are not much of anything, just going out with some friends for some mini golf, and go kart racing! It should be fun, and I'm looking forward to it!

I'm thinking about making a dark chocolate cake, with dark chocolate frosting with thin mints crumbled in between layers, and on top. It's making my mouth water just thinking about it! I have a slight obsession with Thin Mints this time of year, and I finally got my hands on a box yesterday for the first time. I'm not going to lie, or feel guilty, but the box is already gone! Between my fiance and his cousin, we demolished them! I'll post the recipe I'm using soon, I promise. 

I have had a highly productive day today, and I'm pretty impressed with myself. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, sunny and 75 degrees! I spent some time outside weeding my garden beds out front, and trying to decide what I want to plant. My daisies from last year finally are coming back again, and one of my hydrangea plants is coming back as well! I'm not sure the other one made it through last year, so I may have to dig him up and find something else to put back in its spot.

I also managed to get some stocking up of the freezer done today too, which I have been meaning to do forever, and finally got to it! Here's a list of the things I put together and am going to finish up doing tomorrow:

I recently found a great post on Pinterest explaining how to put together freezer meals you can prepare ahead of time, and when your ready, take them out to thaw, and then go straight to your crock pot all day. I thought I would try this with my favorite chili recipe to see how it would turn out! I just combined all the ingredients, and put them in a Ziploc freezer bag and into my freezer they went! One bag still needs hamburger meat to go into it, but I thought I would try it both ways to see which turns out best.

Last summer I whipped up some hamburger patties and tried freezing them, and they turned out working great! I decided this year I would try to make this a staple in the freezer, and try doing different kinds of patties so we have a variety to choose from! Since I had a large amount of hamburger, that's what got made this time. I also plan to try turkey and chicken burgers in a few weeks as well!

Some other great things I like to buy in bulk and keep in the freezer wrapped individually are:

* Chicken breasts, thighs and wings. I buy a few large packages of each of these, and individually wrap each of them in saran wrap so however much I need, I can just grab and go! Some other great meats to do as well are steaks, cooked ground hamburger and turkey. They all freeze great, and are good for those nights you come home from work and really don't want to cook.

* I also make my own garlic bread as well. I just buy a french loaf, or whatever kind of bread is on sale, or sounds good. I throw some butter on both sides, and top it with a variety of different toppings, depending on what I have readily available in the cabinets. Put them in a large Ziploc bag and freeze them! Super easy, and much better for you than buying the pre-made garlic breads that tend to have a good amount of bad things for you in them.

* One of my fiance's favorite things to have in the fridge or freezer is peanut butter and honey or jelly sandwiches he can grab on his way to work to have as a snack or for lunch. This is probably the one thing we always have in the house.

* When all of the good fruits and vegetables are in season I like to buy them in bulk, blanch and freeze them. Especially towards the end of the summer, that way we can have great produce that lasts us through the winter that we usually can't find again until spring.

I hope this gave you all some inspiration if you like to make freezer meals as well! Have a great day!
-A

Bathroom Makeover

It has been a busy home renovation weekend at our house! Three trips to Lowe's and one to Target and we tackled a couple projects we've been meaning to get done for a very long while! The first room we got started on is our spare room, since we have a guest coming this weekend! I originally went to Target to get a shower curtain. I ended up coming home with a curtain and shelves, and I completely spaced and forgot the shower curtain! Here's how our spare room turned out:

Our sweet Lexi Lou approves of the new curtain! Isn't she a cutie pie? I've come to the decision, I'm obsessed with this print on this curtain, I also bought our bedding in a similar print!

I really love how the curtain made the room so much more cozy and comfortable! I found it at Target, for $24.99. The mirror I found I believe at Marshall's a few years ago, and I think it was only $15! 

The next project we tackled was our guest bathroom, which we have been using ourselves, because the master bath is very small. At first I was really liking a light grey, tan color for the walls. I brought home the sample and threw it on the wall, and it almost blended in with the eggshell color that was previously on the wall! Back to Lowe's I went to find a darker swatch. I ended up finding the perfect color, which wasn't too dark and wasn't too light either. 

It looks really dark in this picture, but it dried really nicely! Here's a few before pictures. 

The view looking in the bathroom from the door. The vanity is terribly awkward. We would eventually like to get a new one, maybe for now it just needs another door to make it less awkward?

 This wall is the wall the door is on. A couple months ago, we replaced the towel rack that was previously here, and found this one at Lowe's. I love it. 

Here it is after a fresh coat of paint! It looks so much more relaxing and comfortable. I'm absolutely in love with this bathroom now! We added this towel holder, which I love as well!

The other side of the vanity. Above the toilet we added these shelves. It was a three pack of assorted sizes from Target for $24.99. We decided not to do the third tiny shelf, it was only about 8" long. I found this idea on Pinterest, and I'm still deciding what to put on the shelves. I have these awesome bath salts from Freed Soul that a friend of mine gave me for my birthday on them now, and I plan to leave them. I'm still searching for the perfect pieces to go along with them!

The other side! As you can tell, the shower curtain rod didn't stick out like a sore thumb before, but it sure does now! That's the next thing on my list to replace. 

The last thing we replaced was the toilet paper holder. It also matches the towel holders. It was a much needed change, the old one was just a seriously cheap one they put in when they built the house 12-13 years ago. It was time for an update! 

Here's whats left on our list of things to replace/revamp:

-Mirror

-Light fixture

-Faucet

-Shower Head

-Vanity down the road

-Curtain Rod

-Possibly long down the road, tile the floor

 I hope our guest enjoys our newly changed bathroom! I can't wait to finish this project, hopefully soon!

Have a great day all! 

-A