5 Unique Alternatives to Wedding Cake

With my wedding coming up shortly, I've been frantically trying to get things done and so haven't been around here much. I've been very lucky to have George Street Photo & Video offer to write a few guest posts! Below is their first offering, all about delicious treats! I hope you'll come back for more!
-K

Frosting-covered, custard-filled, fruit-topped...I, for one, could dream about wedding cake all day! This sweet staple is clearly a mainstay at so many weddings. But these days, couples have raised the bar on the dessert front. In fact, many are opting for the non-traditional route — for the dessert that appeals to their preferences and showcases their very own wedding vision!

If a traditional wedding cake isn’t your thing, why not treat your guests to something different...something a bit more daring? Take a look at the unique dessert alternatives we’re savoring ‘til the last bite!

Grab & Go Pies: These tiny delights are too cute for words! Not only are they delicious, but guests can easily take one (or three…) on their way to the dance floor. No need for fussy plates or forks! Plus, doesn’t everything taste better in miniature form?

DIY Treat Bar: This option gives your guests the chance to play chef for the night! Set out jars of candy and goody bags so everyone can fill up on their own sweet selections. Or, better yet, channel everyone’s inner camper and set up an interactive s’mores station. Simply round up the key ingredients and let ‘em run with it!

Delectable Donuts: These little guys? Yeah, they’re not just a breakfast treat. They’re sugary, doughy, indulgent masterpieces, and they totally deserve a spot on your dessert menu! Whether you stack them up into a tiered tower or simply serve them up separately, we guarantee they’ll be an instant hit.

Cake Pop Confections: One thing’s for sure — cake pops are the new wedding craze! Offering a variety of tasting toppings and cake fillings, your guests will love toting these around throughout the reception. Extra points for crafting your pops to match your wedding color palette!

Pastry Perfection: Remember those fun trips to grandma’s house as a little kid? Well, I do — and I know that one of the highlights of those trips was diving into the delicious pastry spread she somehow always had waiting for me! Why not share those with your guests? If you’re really looking to get creative, test out fun spins on old recipes, like strawberry shortcake!

Maybe you’ve scoped out all of these options and decided you simply can’t quit that dream wedding cake. And that’s okay! Try combining the best of both worlds by offering cake and a few other alternatives to ensure there’s something for everyone. And yes...we’ll look the other way when you sneak a taste of that cake frosting. After all, it’s your wedding day, right?

For more information on wedding photography and videography, please visit George Street Photo & Video.

Finding Comfortable Shoes

When many people think wedding, one of the things they think of is glamour. The bride will be stunning and the groom dashingly handsome.

Shoes aren't necessarily high on the list of things to think about, but I think it's safe to assume that in general people assume the bride will wear high heels. That's not really practical for many of us spoonies though.

If you still want to aim for heels, consider those with small heels on this list from Barking Dog Shoes.

If flats are more your thing, there is a wide variety to choose from. Are you the type of bride whose silly personality shines through everything you do? You may have fun wearing bright shoes - maybe even sneakers (FYI Sketchers has some really awesome bright selections)!

Bright crazy colors aren't your thing? Consider a comfy pair of Converse. It's becoming quite a trend recently.

Looking for shoes that are a little more traditional yet comfy? Check out Jellypop shoes. These shoes are cute and very supportive. Their sizes are often a half size larger/wider than most companies, allowing me and my giant wide feet to fit into a size 10 shoe. They have everything from heels and wedges to boots and flats. I've gone with the Shakira shoe, which matches my dress well.

There are many people who wear cute flip flops, which I'd advise against. These shoes offer no support, and you have to remember that you'll be standing up a good amount of the night between your ceremony, dancing, and mingling with your guests.

The same issue with support goes for those who choose to marry barefoot. Note that this also can add a level of danger especially for those of us on immune suppressing medications. You never know what's on the floor or the earth - or what might be dragged in with the arrival of your guests.

Not loving the shoe ideas presented here? The Walking Company has a ton of comfortable and supportive dress shoes, both flat and heeled. Kohls also often has very cute and supportive dress shoes.

Feel free to share your favorite supportive shoes in the comments!

The Favor Dilemma: to give or not to give

One of the biggest questions facing brides and groom is what to do for favors for your guests. Favors can also be one of the biggest expenses that creeps up on you, depending on the size of your wedding.

Some people opt to go the fancy way, saying that these guests may have spent over $100 on your present, so you should get a high quality favor. That can run you hundreds of dollars. It's ridiculous.

Others want to go the DIY route, making cake or cookies mixes and packaging them cutely (is that even a word?). This is a cute idea, but depending on dietary restrictions of your guests, this could be an issue. As a bride who is gluten free with multiple food allergies, I probably wouldn't be able to partake in this favor at someone else's wedding.

The route that we are choosing to go is to donate to charity on behalf of our guests. Due to my multiple diseases, we wanted to choose a charity that would be meaningful - and one that we know would really benefit from our money, one that does great things. After taking a look at our options, we're actually going to donate to one of the orgs that I do volunteer and fundraising work with, the Arthritis National Research Foundation. 91 cents on the dollar goes to research - which is basically all they focus on. In the last few years, they have made some great progress for arthritis related diseases, and I'm excited to see what they do next. They also sell bracelets, that we may get to give to our guests as well.

While this type of gift may or may not give your guests concrete favors, it can help to further research or awareness for the disease you or your loved ones might suffer from. There are even companies that you can buy fancy chocolates from to give your guests in addition to the donation in their names. They're expensive, but it works.

What would/did you do?

Spoon Shortage: Tips & Tricks

Happy new year!

We all can admit that having a shortage of spoons does not help whatsoever when you're wedding planning. Your body is already trying to precariously balance the normal stresses associated with your daily tasks - work or school (or both!), relationships, money, etc - and of course your treatments and issues associated with that. Now you want to add in a wedding huh?

When you first get engaged, it's like a rush of excited energy comes over you. You want to plan and go get married right now. Once you actually get into it, things just feel like they drain your energy 10x as much as they did before. But your excitement is still there, so you keep going.

Eventually you hit a wall where the last thing you want to look at is your wedding stuff. And that just feels rotten... especially if you have people around who are excited for you and want to believe that you're excited 24/7 for the rest of your life to begin - to the point of where, if you're not excited, something must be wrong OH MY GOD WHAT HAPPENED??

Yeah, no.

Here are some tips on how to get through wedding planning without permanently losing all your spoons (or marbles):

• Set aside specific times to do wedding planning. A tempting thought is to set aside every Saturday until the day you get married for wedding stuff - please just don't. You won't be able to stick to it, and you'll feel rotten even if you miraculously do.
• Realize that your fiance may or may not care about the same stuff you do when it comes to details. Guys generally have no idea how much detailed planning goes into weddings. You can either try to show them how difficult it is so you can plan things together, or ask him for what things are important to him and have him take over those parts.
• Set up helper days! It's tempting to want to do everything yourself, but recognize that even for the non-chronically-ill that just isn't possible. Have your gals come over for a wine and dine and invite addressing night, or involve your mom in picking out flowers. Just like with most spoonie things, asking for help can be the best choice you ever make.
• Make sure that, even in the midst of planning or the day you get married, you don't lose track of eating or drinking water (or wine!) and taking your meds according to schedule. Make sure you eat breakfast; have snacks with you when you're running around; always carry extra pain pills. A bride is pain is one that won't think clearly, and one without food is just scary.
• Take your time. Unless you need to get married ASAP for reasons (insurance, deployment, severe illness, etc), take your sweet bippy time with planning this thing. It's a huge undertaking, even if you're not inviting many people. 2 year engagements are awesome.
• You can't please everyone. There will be things other people want that you think are dumb, but don't fight too much over it. This is one day - and the wedding, while coming out of your pocket and being your brainchild, is really for your friends and family and not in the end for you.
• Keep the big picture in mind. You're getting married to your best friend - is it really going to matter if the tablecloths are blue or white?

And just remember - stress makes just about every medical condition worse. Try to take things slow :)

Why I hate the term Bride-zilla

The vast majority of women picture what their weddings will be like when they are children watching Disney princess movies and picturing their own Prince Eric or Naveen. Some of them are even aware that they may have to kiss a few frogs to find that prince, but when they get him they'll never let him go.

Side note about me: I didn't grow up really that way because of my illnesses. I've always had self-esteem problems and thought I'd die too early to marry or that no one would want me and then ended up in abusive relationships with guys who wanted to marry me for sex. That's how many chronically ill and/or abused children grow up, often regardless of how supportive parents may be. I'm also incredibly eclectic so if I had planned my wedding in my head from childhood, it would be completely screwed up.

Men don't really go through the same things. Weddings don't carry the same emotional weight with them often as weddings might for women. So if your wondering why your fiance doesn't want to look at 80 different centerpiece ideas on pinterest, it isn't because he is getting cold feet - it's because the party aspect of the wedding often isn't as big of a deal. I know this because I'm living it right now. It is incredibly frustrating and I often feel like I'm planning things alone, but with the help of my girls I am figuring out how to integrate Theron into the ceremony through pointed questions and the like. I also seem to like a lot of different ideas than he does, so when he isn't as emotionally vested in things it makes it really hard for me to figure out what to do so that we don't have decor he hates on our big day.

I also just really, really hate making decisions especially when I'm not really the one forking over the money over this and he is.

No matter how much your fiance plays a role in things, getting married and having a wedding is stressful. There is a reason why wedding planners like David Tutera get paid the big bucks (David, come plan my wedding for free and I will make you all the tasty treats!!! I'd pay you, but I'm kind of in like $80k of debt between student loans and medical bills...). There is also a reason why being the maid of honor is a big fucking deal (I'm so sorry Katy).

For those of you who have been living under a rock, a bride-zilla is basically a woman who goes overboard with demands (and being demanding) with wedding details. Examples can include women getting 'uppity' over b-maid dresses, timing, pictures, hair, etc, etc, etc.

I'm going to throw a statistic at you compiled in my brain from all the damn wedding books and sites I've been looking at - the average wedding in the US costs between 25 and 30 THOUSAND FUCKING DOLLARS.

You read that right. Many many cost less and many cost more, but apparently that is the mean.

We aren't even close to being in the financial position to spend almost what the fiance makes in a year and more than I make in a year and a half on a party. But just ignore that for a minute...

For many, monogamy is still a big issue. I'm not one usually for religious ideals, but I am one for sentimentality. I love my fiance with all my heart. We both have come from very interesting family dynamics, with his parents having divorced when he was young and my single mama raising me and my sister living in the same house as her mother and brother. It is important to us, for ourselves and no one else, to find that person we can and will love until we each die. Theron is my penguin, and I am his. So us getting married and knowing that without a doubt this is the only wedding we each want to be in? That is a big deal. It is a lot of pressure, without planning the wedding entering the picture at all.

I also just think the term bride-zilla is terribly sexist, probably coming from people who do not understand the magnitude of the pressure and stress this event brings.

To recap:

• Many brides plan weddings with very little input from their grooms (I wonder how this works in a same sex situation. Hmmm.)
• Weddings cost a shit-load of money
• You are throwing a gigantic ass party for your nearest and dearest
• And, for some of us, it is the only wedding we will have

So forgive me if I do go a little bonkers, but as a bride I think maybe I might deserve that sometimes. That's just being a bride, not an odd bride-godzilla love child I promise.

Choosing a Venue

When you have the ability - or ants in the pants - to begin planning your wedding roughly 2 years in advance, you figure that the venue situation is one that won't need your attention right away, as the vast majority of to-do checklists are for just about one year. However, I can tell you right now that's wrong!!

Your venue is a HUGE part of what you will do on your wedding day (DUH). Bakers may want to incorporate parts of your venue into your cake(s). Caterers will want to know details about location and size of your event. And you can forget trying to talk to a photographer or a florist about plans when you don't know the size of your space or how easy it is to transport gear there.

Don't forget that there are people who have 5 year long engagements either, so you know they've already nailed down venue stuff leaving less room for you and your desired date! Places just book up very fast, especially for Saturday weddings in the summer.

From just after the time we got engaged, I've pictured a church-y wedding. I'm not religious at all, but having majored in religions I just think that churches are incredibly beautiful and sacred regardless of belief. They're an example of our values, the things we hold most dear, and our fears for the future.The fact that we allow ourselves to be vulnerable enough to show which things have importance and really emphasize them is, in this day and age, growing more and more rare and in its own way sacred.

Picking my dress, I wanted something worthy of a church wedding. I wanted something gorgeous and breath taking, but not enough to distract from my beauty or the details in my surroundings. I wanted a fun dress, but one that was appropriate for a special place. I still can't believe we're spending as much money on it as we are, holy crap.

I had a specific location here in Madison, Wisconsin, picked out. It was a synagogue at one point and was moved, to save it from demolition, to a city park. It is just gorgeous itself and on a sunny day it just lights up something fierce outside. The only problem is that, being a city park structure, we wouldn't be able to reserve it until November of 2013 for our August 2014 wedding. We also would have to decorate Saturday morning (WHAT?) and have everything out by a certain time. City structures and nature parks have an appeal because of their pricing, but clearly some downsides.

There also was no way to set up a reception in the unfinished basement used for storage that not only contained the only bathrooms in the building as well but was not ADA accessible. As a spoonie inviting other spoonies (and secretly worried about my condition that day - helloooo stress!), I couldn't do it. So we began investigating other sites.

Some had the appeal of the outdoors, like a private park not too far out of town run by a family. But then we have no bathroom and need a porta potty trailer. I'm not even kidding, these things exist. Ew. Plus in August, an indoor venue is a better idea if not only for the cakes' sake.

We visited a gorgeous former church last week and as I walked in I knew right away this was where we were getting married. I'm sure it didn't help that the boys had it decorated with flowers along the aisle and music though. And it has everything we want.

The priest rooms to either side of the stage at the front of the church have been turned into the bride's and groom's ready rooms (with the latter having only one entrance and exit bwahahaha). The seats are pews, which will be great for the spoonies I invite and give room for any children to kind of have their own creative space for coloring if they get bored. There is also an elevator. The floor is also kind of squishy so standing however long in any shoes will be easier. And there is a basement complete with a bar and a dance floor, ready to go for the reception. The guys who run this place live on the grounds and will be there to help throughout our time. And we get it for Friday night, all day Saturday and until noon on Sunday. It's really a steal for the price!

DIY for the Fibro Bride: Save-the-Dates

Note: Hi, everyone! I'm so excited to be contributing to this blog! I'm doing a DIY wedding blog series right now on ChickOpinion.com/FibroTips4Chicks and thought I'd throw a few of my posts over to this one because it's the perfect venue. I will, however, definitely write a few specifically for "A Very Spoonie Wedding" in the near future. xoxo Kinsey

Congratulations! You're engaged! Once you've figured out when and where you're getting married, the first thing you need to do is get save-the-dates. I assume that the reason you're reading this is because you want to make them! A lot of fibromyalgia patients have part-time jobs or are unemployed, so this is an easy way that you can get great looking save-the-date postcards without spending a lot of money or having too much stress put on you.

The front of my Save-the-Date postcard.

Materials

• Card stock
• Printer
• Computer
• Powerpoint (or something like it)
• Scissors or paper-cutter
• Postcard stamps
• Pen
• Time

Instructions

• Go to WeddingChicks.com and find their "DIY Printable Wedding Template" section (the previous link is direct to this section).
• Choose a template you like. This can take a long time! I liked most of them and messed around with a lot of them.
• Input your information and your colors to the template.
• Play around with them! Don't print anything without being 100% sure it's exactly what you want. You can be as picky as you want--it's your wedding!
• "Create" your print.
• Download it.
• Save it. Save your work. lol
• Open Powerpoint.
• Review the USPS rules for postcards here to make sure you have the right size. If you don't have the legal size, they won't mail it and you won't be able to reuse it.
• Review the main points of your Save-the-Date. I used mine as an announcement, too, so I told people that we're getting married, I told them the date, what city it would be in, my email address, and that an invitation would follow. There isn't anything else that needs to be on there. There's also not much room for anything else on a postcard.

The back of my Save-the-Date postcard.

• Start with a rectangle that is the size of your postcard. You'll hide this later, but it's important to contain your objects.
• I made the back of the postcard monochromatic (the red lines are from the screenshot, letting me know that our names are misspelled!) because I didn't want to completely deplete my ink supply. Obviously, you'll need to choose your colors according to what you want.
• Try to match the font that you use on the back of your postcard with the one the template uses on the front. 
• You can play with what is in the foreground and background to make any "watermark"-type situations you want. You can also do this by messing around with the transparency of an object.
• Make sure you have your return address on your postcard. Mine is under the grey rectangle--don't need everybody knowing where I live! :-)
• Once the back is exactly how you like it, group it together.
• Save it.
• Copy it and paste the copy next to the original so that you have two postcard backs next do each other.
• Save.
• Get yourself a new slide in the same "presentation."
• Insert your previously downloaded front of the Save-the-Date on the new slide.
• Copy and paste it so you have two postcard fronts next to each other (see below).

Screen shot of the two slides.

• Make sure that they have the same margins, so when you print them they'll end up matching. This part can be tedious and very irritating. Be patient.
• Save. :-)
• Load your printer with card stock.
• Print only one of the slides first. Eg. 30 copies of the front of the postcard.
• Figure out how your printer works: do you need to flip the pages over or around or backwards to get the other side of the postcard to print where it needs to?
• Print the other side.
• Cut them out!
• Get your postcard stamps out and start stamping! Make sure you use postcard stamps and not regular ones; you'll save about 50% of your stamp money!
• Address them.
• Mail them! :-)

You're done! I received a fantastic response to mine--people loved them! They look so professional and, while they do take a few hours to make yourself, it's completely worth it.

When you DIY, Destiny Is Yours!