This month has been crazy! Frank is in town doing a rotation at GW, so we’ve taken advantage of his time here to do a ton of wedding stuff. I’m so proud of how much we’ve accomplished!
1.) We did our premarital counseling with my pastor. He said the more problems you have to work out, the more counseling sessions you need. Well, we were able to finish in 3 sessions since Frank is always so darn agreeable, and then one more closer to the wedding where we talk about our vows and the passage we want read at the ceremony. We also led bible study at the request of our pastor so that we could be thinking about how we can serve in the church together.
People ask, “what do you do during premarital counseling?” We took a personality test to gauge our emotional maturity and talked about our strengths and weaknesses. We also talked about the Five Love Languages and how we show our lover for each other, which we had read in bible study (last summer?). We also talked about our upbringings (since childhood baggage could be brought into the relationship) and financial backgrounds/habits. Frank and I are both Taiwanese-American and come from very similar households, we didn’t have much contrast, but I’d imagine if people come from different socio-economic backgrounds, race, religion, or financial habits that could be a source of potential conflict, that would be discussed. There’s also a conflict resolution session that we had to skip because we still have yet to have a major fight. Our pastor said that we can come back to that after we’ve had a big fight. Apparently leaving the toilet seat up is not a big enough fight (which he remembered to do the entire time he’s been here! Whoo!).
2.) Wedding cakes are crazy expensive (and not well appreciated after you’ve stuff yourself on a 10 course Chinese banquet)! I was about to give up my dream cake, but even the cheaper cakes just wasn’t satisfying either because the whipped cream cakes have a tendency to melt. So I’ve asked my friend Sally to do my cake so I can afford fondant! It’s so pretty but not that good to eat–guests can just throw away the fondant if they want to. I just like it for the smooth look..plus it makes the cake more stable.
So we had a cake tasting with Sally a few weeks ago. Frank doesn’t care about the cake (he also knows he doesn’t get a say in the cake flavor..ha!) but I dragged him anyway. I had a bunch of her cakes already, so I know they’re all fabulous, but she said we should have a cake tasting anyway to pick out the filling flavor. How could I say no?! Here’s a pic of our cake tasting–Sally made 2 different kinds of vanilla, one white (without egg yolk) and one yellow (with egg yolk), 4 different types of buttercream – chocolate, caramel, raspberry, and strawberry, 2 fruit fillings – raspberry and strawberry (I told her those are my favorite!), and Nutella. I’m glad we had the tasting because it was so much fun and an excuse to pig out on cake!
For now, we’ve decided on white cake vanilla bean with strawberry buttercream filling. I’m really digging a modern polka dot fondant cake right now.
Cake: Collette Foley Specialty Baking
Photo By: Photography by Mary Ellen Bartley
Part II to come…
