The Look

The Look of Our Winter Wedding
Ivory Linens, White Flowers, Glowing Candlelight
(Photo by Friend)

There are countless ways to approach the design of your wedding. We took the venue-driven route. We chose venues that, among other things, were so stunning they require little to no decor. We wanted to keep things simple & elegant to enhance, rather than distract from, the venues' true beauty. Simple & elegant became our wedding mantra. If the idea didn't fit simple & elegant, it didn't belong at our wedding.

The snapshot of our sweetheart table & wedding cake best showcases our wedding look. The simple, bunched carnation bouquets with ivory swirl ribbon. My long, sleek calla lily bouquet with ivory swirl ribbon. Striped ivory linens with simple white napkins. Votive candles glowing. Magnolia menu cards with peony purple backers & matching shades of peony purple ink, including our swirl motif. Our pretty purple toasting flutes. Our square, white wedding cake with orchids spilling down the side. All set against the glittering backdrop of Manhattan. Simply elegant!

Now I realize some of the things I'm describing, you can't see well in the photo above. I'm working with guest snapshots to tell our wedding story; later, I'll go into every last design detail with TGP's crisp, beautiful photos. But you get the idea hopefully.

The Manhattan Ballroom took my breath away when I saw it for the first time. I was so happy to see our design ideas come to life so beautifully. But in the end, it wasn't the flowers or the linens or the menu cards that mattered. Our friends & families who celebrated with us made our wedding shine!

. . . and Eat It Too!

Look, we can cut cake!

And feed each other nicely!
(Photos by Friends)

As beautiful as our wedding cake was, the time came to cut, serve & eat this beauty.

RZ & I cut the cake to the tune of "How Sweet It Is" by James Taylor (First Dance song runner-up). It's kind of an odd feeling to be cutting cake with a million eyeballs on you. Thankfully, we managed this simple task together without ruining the cake or cutting any fingers. I can't remember who feed who first but both bites were given nicely. We hadn't discussed cake smashing being off-limits but it was an unspoken, understood rule. Then came the obligatory, post-cake kiss. It was all fun & good but this Bride wanted to sit down & enjoy her yummy cake!!!

Because it was delicious!!!!! Our wedding cake was a black & white cake with chocolate fudge filling, a dirty layer of buttercream & an outer layer of white fondant. We'd had a hard time choosing between the black & white cake or a red velvet cake but I can safely say we made the right choice. OMG, it was finger-licking good! I enjoyed my first bite, then my slice at our sweetheart table & finally, my last slice as a late night snack in our hotel room.

I'd enjoyed cakes from Carlo's Bakery before & they never, ever disappoint on looks or taste. I may be a tad biased but I'm positive our cake was the best ever!

Have Your Cake . . .

Our Wedding Cake by Cake Boss

The delicate orchids decorating our wedding cake

Sitting Pretty!
(Photos by Friends)

A wedding cake should look good & taste even better. It's that simple. With our little old local bakery, Carlo's Bakery (aka Cake Boss), making our wedding cake, I was confident ours would be pretty & tasty!

Let's talk pretty first.

Our wedding was simple & elegant so we chose the cake design that best fit this vision. Our four-tier, square cake was covered in white fondant with white orchids cascading down the side. Oh so simple, oh so elegant.

Every last detail of our wedding cake was carefully planned & executed. The four tiers were suggested to feed our 125+ guests. The square shape was an absolute must for me; I'm a huge fan of square cakes & their clean lines. The all-white color scheme matched our winter white wedding. The white fondant was a different shade of white from the white orchids to keep the cake from blending into white nothingness.

Our pretty cake was surrounded by votive candles on a table with ivory linens directly behind our sweetheart table in the Manhattan Ballroom. It was a simply stunning display!

How did our wedding cake taste? Details tomorrow!!

Tasting Delight

Our Wedding Tasting: YUM! I loved our cake tasting & I was blown away by our wedding tasting at Hyatt on the Hudson. We had the golden opportunity to sample our four-course wedding feast complete with wine pairings. The Hyatt was kind enough to work with me & my very picky eating habits to create a tasting menu that I would enjoy. On the night of our tasting, RZ, RZ's parents & I arrived at the Hyatt with a healthy appetite.

Our job for the evening was to choose one appetizer, one salad & one dessert. Also, we needed to confirm we liked the entree selections available for our guests to choose from at our wedding. Sounds like a tough job, right?!

We sampled & chose from these three, yummy appetizers: Lobster Bisque, Lamp Chop & Crab Cake:


Then we ate & chose from these three, delicious salads: Apple, Endive & Feta Salad, Organic Green Salad & Caprese Salad:


Finally, we enjoyed these three, savory entrees: Filet of Beef, Pork Medallions & Salmon:


In addition to our wedding cake, we're offering a dessert & we tasted two, incredible options. Unfortunately, we inhaled the selected dessert before I could snag a photograph.

The Official Tasting Crew included me, RZ & RZ's parents:


The evening was very special, full of good food & good cheer. RZ & I are growing more & more excited for our wedding every day!!

Meeting the Boss

Cake Boss aka Carlo's Bakery
The site of our cake tasting

Fall cake display at Carlo's Bakery

Halloween treats
(we were there Halloween weekend)

"Love at First Bite"
Our bakery box of treats

3 vanilla spiderweb cupcake for Halloween
3 red velvet cupcakes just cause

Cake Boss, that is.

Our wedding package at the Hyatt includes a wedding cake from Carlo's Bakery in Hoboken. Sound familiar? Carlo's Bakery is featured in the popular TLC show, Cake Boss. On a recent Saturday morning, RZ & I found ourselves at the packed bakery for our cake tasting.

Although the line of tourists hadn't formed outside yet, the inside of the bakery was a zoo. It took some grit & determination to alert someone we were here for a cake tasting. Then we were ushered past the velvet ropes (no kidding, there are ropes), into the bakery where Buddy was posing for photos with a cake & upstairs to Buddy's office to met with Mauro. Buddy made a brief appearance to say hello & good morning to kick off the appointment.

The Hyatt had told us there was a selection of cakes included in our package or we could choose a custom design on our dime. We started the appointment looking at the selections & I was pleasantly surprised by the designs available. I had been sure the selection would be slim & we would be forced to pay more for our cake. Instead, we could choose from quite a few pretty cakes. One looked like stacked Tiffany boxes tied with white ribbon, one featured a beautiful swirl pattern & another was decorated with the NYC fondant skyline. I drooled over the swirl cake but we went with another clean, modern design.

Then came the fun part- tasting the cake! We were served ten, small slices of cake, each a different cake flavor paired with a different filling. Did you ever dream of eating cake for breakfast as a kid? Well, this was a dream come true. Yum, yum!! RZ & I easily narrowed it down to two choices & we had a tough time with the final decision. In the end, we went with the most popular cake/filling combination that Mauro suggested. Our wedding cake will be beautiful & delicious.

Our Cake tasting was definitely one of the best parts of wedding planning to date. Oh, how sweet it was.