note: my goal is to finish all of the wedding and Portland posts this week; good luck to me
As i was working away on flowers the Friday before Francie's wedding, Jake (
groom) was running errands, including picking up the reception rentals while the rest of the girls [Francie (
bride), Nancy (
mother), Elizabeth (
maid of honor), Munevver (
bridesmaid), Amy (
bridesmaid) and Amna (
former roommate)] were busy preparing the food for the reception.
We were able to use the church's kitchen; it is handy when the groom's father is the pastor.
Francie and Jake decided on a French Provincial theme for the food, including mushroom poofs, baguettes with brie, sugared grapes, sliced strawberries, roasted olives, spinach salad, a chicken/onion/apple dish that i don't know the name of, rosemary roasted potatoes, curry carrot puree and ratatouille with both red and white wine.
To start with, they needed a few carrots:
Have you ever seen so many carrots?
Amna peeled carrots,
Francie peeled carrots,
I think Jake even peeled some carrots between errands.
There were a LOT of carrots.
Then there was a lot of potato dicing and vegetable chopping for the ratatouille, but i was elbow deep in roses by that point so there are no action shots.
Just down the table from me, however, Nancy and Munevver were working on the cake decorations.
This shot of them both looking concerned captured the moment when they realized that not only did the not have an upright mixer, they didn't even have a hand mixer. In fact, the only type of blender was the immersion stick that was brought for the carrots. So, they mixed, whipped and colored the frosting by hand.
There were 2 layers of white cake with marionberry (
teehee) filling and butter cream icing that had been baked and iced by a professional, but were naked and waiting.
It had been decided that the cakes would not be tiered and that they would have decorative vines and grapes to keep with the theme.
Make that happen, ladies.
Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, Amy was starting the chicken.
Wow; that is quite a bit of chicken.
Amy looks very cheerful in this picture
which is amazing when you consider that she had brown ALL of that chicken in butter in the one, itsy, weensie cast iron skillet. Good job, Amy. After it was browned, the chicken was layered with sliced apples and onions, soaked with Apple Jack apple brandy and then baked.
Elizabeth was hard at work sugaring clusters of dark purple grapes.
They were delicious.
Once all of the food was being cooked, Elizabeth and Francie got to work on folding, collating (
coalating?, colating?, - you know what i mean), stapling, hole punching and beribboning the programs.
There was some frenzied clean-up when everyone in the wedding party had to go over to the sanctuary for the rehearsal. I continued to work on flowers, managing to finish everything except Francie's bouquet and the ribbons (
but you know that already) while Amna pureed carrots and kept an eye on the chicken.
The rehearsal dinner was at Jake's parent's condo building. It was a nice, low pressure gathering with lasagna, but i only got one picture
adorable, but exhausted
before i went back to the hotel to get ready for the bridal shower. Elizabeth had bought decorations and she and Amy had gotten refreshments, but neither could really scoot out of the rehearsal dinner to set up, so i volunteered.
Molly, a college friend of Francie's, was already at the hotel with her family so i invited her up to my room and she was on balloons and streamers while i moved furniture and finished wrapping presents.
very pretty, Molly 
I love this picture of Francie and her mom because you can see how tired everyone was by that point.
Poor Francie was pretty much
done,
(
compare that picture of her on a couch to this picture of her on a couch taken earlier)
Hi Jake; you finally get a pic of you on this blog
but i am proud of how well she rallied
for opening presents,
most of which were either black or red and didn't need to be pictured on this PG-rated blog.
The party broke up around, well, sometime that felt really late and everyone scattered to their respective rooms to catch some sleep (
or finish flowers) before meeting for beauty patrol and dress corsetting and of course getting married the next day.
We were able to use the church's kitchen; it is handy when the groom's father is the pastor.
Francie and Jake decided on a French Provincial theme for the food, including mushroom poofs, baguettes with brie, sugared grapes, sliced strawberries, roasted olives, spinach salad, a chicken/onion/apple dish that i don't know the name of, rosemary roasted potatoes, curry carrot puree and ratatouille with both red and white wine.
To start with, they needed a few carrots:
Have you ever seen so many carrots?
Amna peeled carrots, 
Francie peeled carrots,
I think Jake even peeled some carrots between errands.
There were a LOT of carrots.
Then there was a lot of potato dicing and vegetable chopping for the ratatouille, but i was elbow deep in roses by that point so there are no action shots.
Just down the table from me, however, Nancy and Munevver were working on the cake decorations.
This shot of them both looking concerned captured the moment when they realized that not only did the not have an upright mixer, they didn't even have a hand mixer. In fact, the only type of blender was the immersion stick that was brought for the carrots. So, they mixed, whipped and colored the frosting by hand.
There were 2 layers of white cake with marionberry (teehee) filling and butter cream icing that had been baked and iced by a professional, but were naked and waiting.
It had been decided that the cakes would not be tiered and that they would have decorative vines and grapes to keep with the theme.
Make that happen, ladies.
Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, Amy was starting the chicken.
Wow; that is quite a bit of chicken.
Amy looks very cheerful in this picture
which is amazing when you consider that she had brown ALL of that chicken in butter in the one, itsy, weensie cast iron skillet. Good job, Amy. After it was browned, the chicken was layered with sliced apples and onions, soaked with Apple Jack apple brandy and then baked.
Elizabeth was hard at work sugaring clusters of dark purple grapes.
They were delicious.
Once all of the food was being cooked, Elizabeth and Francie got to work on folding, collating (coalating?, colating?, - you know what i mean), stapling, hole punching and beribboning the programs.
There was some frenzied clean-up when everyone in the wedding party had to go over to the sanctuary for the rehearsal. I continued to work on flowers, managing to finish everything except Francie's bouquet and the ribbons (but you know that already) while Amna pureed carrots and kept an eye on the chicken.
The rehearsal dinner was at Jake's parent's condo building. It was a nice, low pressure gathering with lasagna, but i only got one picture
adorable, but exhausted
before i went back to the hotel to get ready for the bridal shower. Elizabeth had bought decorations and she and Amy had gotten refreshments, but neither could really scoot out of the rehearsal dinner to set up, so i volunteered.
Molly, a college friend of Francie's, was already at the hotel with her family so i invited her up to my room and she was on balloons and streamers while i moved furniture and finished wrapping presents.
very pretty, Molly 
I love this picture of Francie and her mom because you can see how tired everyone was by that point. 
Poor Francie was pretty much done,
(compare that picture of her on a couch to this picture of her on a couch taken earlier)
Hi Jake; you finally get a pic of you on this blog
but i am proud of how well she rallied
for opening presents, 
most of which were either black or red and didn't need to be pictured on this PG-rated blog.
The party broke up around, well, sometime that felt really late and everyone scattered to their respective rooms to catch some sleep (or finish flowers) before meeting for beauty patrol and dress corsetting and of course getting married the next day.
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