Shower Etiquette Update:

Opinions seem to be running heavily in favor of NOT having guests address their own envelopes. I would have to agree with this. The comments say it all.
I did like the idea of the hostess taking the box of thank you cards and addressing the envelopes for the bride herself. I thought that was a nice solution if you’re worried about the bride’s time.
There’s just something so weird about getting an envelope in the mail with your own writing on it! It feels almost creepy!
Let’s just hope that we can maybe squash this trend with the showers and that it won’t spread to the wedding receptions! Wouldn’t THAT be special!

Here's some little facts about etiquette that you might be interested in reading:

The bride should send out her thank you notes for showers withing 2 to 3 weeks of the shower.

For the wedding, the notes should be sent no longer than 3 months after the wedding.

Wedding guests can send wedding gifts for up to a year after the wedding date.

It's actually not socially correct (don't you love that term?) to bring a gift to the wedding! The wedding gift should be sent to the bride's mother's home where the gifts are opened and displayed before the wedding, or to the newlyweds' home after the wedding. (This is, admittedly, a little old fashioned. I remember seeing the gifts all displayed on tables at my grandmother's home for my parents wedding, in the movie that they made in 1949. It always seemed like a sweet tradition though.)

Did you know that a note that has "thank you" printed on the front is not considered "proper" by Ms. Post? The bride should send notes to gift givers before the wedding on her own "personal" stationery, (and yes we all still have that, right?) The notes would have either her name or her monogram on the front of the card, but never "thank you".

You should never use the married name or monogram until AFTER the wedding service.

Oh, and when you send or take a gift to someones wedding, ALWAYS put a note or a card with your name on it, INSIDE the box. That way if the card on the outside is separated from the gift, they still have a way to figure out who it is from. I can't tell you how often we find cards just laying on the gift table, and we never know whether they are associated with a gift, or if they are just a card that someone missed the card box with.

So if anyone would like to stop in and order your "personal stationery" I would be happy to help you with that! :) (It actually is a nice thing to have, all kidding aside. There's nothing like a handwritten, received in the mail note, it's even more special nowadays with all the electronic communication!)

And remember, etiquette is not designed to make our lives harder or more complicated, its purpose is to give us guidelines so that our lives are easier. You have only to host a wedding reception, and wait for those stragglers to send back their response cards to know what I mean!! That's a topic for another post though!

Anyone have any thoughts about all this?

Task Force Tips Open House

Thursday evening we catered a "Chamber After Hours" for Task Force Tips. Their new 100,000 foot addition includes a fire museum and a front that looks like an old firehouse. They even have an old steamer, horse drawn fire engine that was brought to its place of honor in the museum a couple weeks ago, pulled by a team of Clydesdales---AWESOME!!!

We felt that since they were following a "firehouse" sort of theme with their museum, that we would stick with that for the food for the open house, and do some hors d'oeuvre sized portions of typical firehouse fare. We had a lot of fun brainstorming about what sort of dishes to do. The final menu was yummy! chili, with all the fixings, mini Italian beef sandwiches, a mashed potato bar with all kinds of goodies to pile on your mashed potatoes, and of course the required cheese and crackers and crudite's with dip. (Isn't there a law somewhere that if you have appetizers you are required to serve these?)

We revved up the crudite with a dynamite presentation.

I had a lot of fun finding the glass containers for all the different veggies. It turned out really pretty and colorful, and yes, people actually ATE them!

The big hit of the party, though, was the mashed potato bar. We had scoops of our fabulous homemade (from REAL potatoes!) mashed potatoes in cups, and the guests could choose from a number of toppings. Shredded cheese, bacon, sour cream, chives, gravy, cheese sauce with broccoli; it was yummy and it was the talk of the party!!

We set up food stations in the four corners of the area, and the desserts in the center. This helped to spread the crowd out, and prevent lines, as well as controlling the amount of food. It worked very smoothly, and everyone enjoyed the conversation and socializing as they went back and forth, sat at tables, got something else to eat, etc. It was a very social setting. Of course, any time you get Chamber people together it's a social event!

I haven't heard the final count yet, but I would guess that they had over 400 people attend. It was hard to get a good feel for numbers because it was so big and spread out. The area where we set up the tables, chairs, and food, was actually larger than our ballroom, and looked small, in comparison to the other 95,000 square feet.

Preparing, transporting and setting up that much food for that many people involved about three days of prep work by our kitchen staff, 2 days of finding, gathering and packing equipment, decor and the like by our set up staff, and several hours of actual set up time the day of the event. Fortunately, everyone was on their game and it went very smoothly.

The fine folks at TFT were great to work with and happy to help with anything we needed. They even used a scissor lift to string an extension cord to the outside corner for the twinkle lights! With the ceiling being 30+ feet up there, it was no small thing. Just goes to show that having the right tool for the right job is critical! :) We are all now coveting their panel trucks and "mouse carts" (little two shelf storage carts with a skate board behind them for scooting around that big area! Sooooooo fun! And such a huge help with moving lots of stuff around quickly!)

Congratulations Task Force Tips on your beautiful new home! And thanks for letting us be a part of your celebration!

Tamara and Mark 9-13-09

Sunday evening was a reception for Tamara and Mark. I don't think I saw her without a big smile on her face the entire evening! What a wonderful couple! So happy to be with each other.

They chose to use orange and a soft green as their colors, September influence!

The bridesmaids had separates with tops that they chose. With everyone wearing the same color, it was very pretty, and each bridesmaid felt comfortable in the style she chose.

Tamara's gown had a very "vintage" look. Beautiful lace on both the gown and the veil.

The couple that took the honors for "longest married" in the anniversary dance had been married for 61 years! Wow! And they were so cute dancing. You would have thought they were still newlyweds! Maybe that's their secret!

The Hora involved the usual "bride and groom on chairs" thing. I must admit, my heart stops when they do this. I'm always ready to run for the phone to dial 911! I haven't seen them drop anyone--yet--but boy! it is SO scary! I can't imagine what it feels like for THEM!!

Congrats Mark and Tamara!

Amanda and Mike September 12, 2009

Seldom is the weather so spot on, absolutely, perfectly perfect! Last Saturday though, was the all time perfect day in the garden. The temperature was mild, with a slight breeze, the skies were clear. It was one of those weekends where we are glad to live in the Midwest!

Amanda and Mike did some really cute things for their wedding on Saturday. Their "placecards" were beach rocks, with the names painted on the fronts and the table numbers on the backs, it looked very pretty on the table!

Hidden Garden's Jim and Kenton were here setting up the centerpieces and getting everything all prettied up. Linda Monroe did her usual beautiful job with the cake.

Their dip at end of their dance was super!

It was nice to have the freshness of a new color season. They used chocolate brown, a soft green, and bright fall shades--orange, gold, yellow. Very bright and cheery, and so September!

Hard to believe that September is already here! Where did the summer go?

Beautiful Wedding Cakes!

My daughter, Amy, sent me this link to a site she found with some really incredible wedding cakes. Here's one of them to tweek your interest!

If you go visit the Cake Wrecks blog, be sure to check our her posts about groom's cakes. OMG, they were so funny! Fortunately we haven't had any deer groom's cakes at Aberdeen Manor, yet. Please, if your groom hunts, DO NOT share this with him! This is just for us girls to have a little chuckle about, ok?

Somehow I look at this and hear Bambi yelling "Mother! Mother!" Eeeeeeeeek!

This gal has a bunch more like this. I'll keep you posted. Check her out! Too funny!

Showers and Thank yous

Today I am going to bring up a controversial topic. Thank you envelopes at showers.
At some showers, the hostess passes out the envelopes for the thank you notes to the guests, and then the guests are asked to address the envelopes to themselves, so that the honoree of the shower will write the thank you, put it in the already addressed envelope and mail it.
I've been at some showers where guests just kind of expected this, and at other showers where some of the guests were offended by it. There was even a guest at one shower who refused to do it.
I think that the theory for doing this is that the busy bride or new mom doesn't have the time to fill out the address for the envelope, so we need to help her out by addressing it for her.

I am tempted to weigh in on this now, but I would rather hear what everyone who reads this blog thinks about it first!

So let's hear it!
Where do you stand on this practice?
If you gave a shower for someone, is this something you would include?
Why or why not?
Any alternative ideas?

I will post my opinion about it next week. First I want to hear what everyone else thinks!

Isabel and Sean 9-6-09

Sunday afternoon, following the ceremony for Candi and Jeff, we quickly cleaned up and turned things over in the chapel. When Isabel and Sean arrived with their families we were ready and waiting for them. The ballroom was looking grand as well. Isabel, and Sean's mother, Kathy, chose sparkle organza overcloths in mint green and lavender for the tables. The colors were very subtle and soft. The hydrangeas in the arrangements coordinated beautifully with them.

The florals were a combination of lows and highs. The high arrangements were very interesting, with LED downlights under the arrangements that shone down into the glass vase below. As the evening went on, and the lights were turned down for the dancing, they really looked lovely.

They began their afternoon by doing their photos together in the garden so that they would have more time to relax and enjoy the time following their ceremony, and their cocktail hour. They were finished with the photos and ready to go for the ceremony with plenty of time left over.

We did have a few brief sprinkles immediately after the ceremony so it was a good thing they were able to do their pictures in the garden beforehand!

Rather than having placecards, they chose to use a scroll with each guest listed and their table assignment. It's a very pretty alternative to placecards and comes with a very helpful computer program for organizing your guests and tables. Using the scroll also gave them lots of room on the table for their photo mat that their guests filled with signatures and good wishes.

Following the cocktail hour and hors d'oeuvres, with an excellent guitarist, everyone enjoyed a delicious dinner of prime rib and pecan crusted chicken. There is just nothing that smells more enticing than roasting prime rib and baking yeast rolls in our kitchen! It makes me hungry just thinking about it.

Transaudio's Mike was, again, at the mike, for both the ceremony and the reception. He is such a pleasure to work with! Isabel and Sean took advantage of the free dance lesson that Transaudio includes with their service. The crowd went crazy when Sean spun her around and twirled her across the dancefloor!

The dip at the end had everyone cheering and clapping!

Hopefully the photographer got the FRONT view of the dip! :)

You never would have known it was a Sunday night by the way this group partied! Their guests all had a terrific time, and the dance floor was full to the very end.

Wonderful party Isabel and Sean! When the bride and groom dance, so does everyone else! We see it week after week. You two had a lot of fun dancing and partying, and so did your guests.

So that, in three installments, was our weekend at Aberdeen. Three really great couples, and a lot of good times had by all.

By the way, did you know that September is the second most popular month for weddings? June is #1 of course. September and October have statistically the lowest chance of rain (hah! tell that to Katie and Tom last year who had 10 inches of rain on their wedding day 9/14! Floods and the whole nine yards!!!!) Temperatures are usually a little more moderate in September and October too.

We have lots of weddings coming up here in the next few weeks, so I will try to keep up and let you all know what we are doing and post photos.

And just so you know, my posting is governed mainly by my energy level! If I don't post about a wedding, it isn't any reflection on the couple that had the wedding. We have so many wonderful couples, and I strive to come up with new adjectives and ways of describing them and their beautiful weddings. I don't want anyone to have hurt feelings if I don't mention something about their wedding, or write more about one than another. That's what is really hard about having this blog. Just know that it's my amount of energy on Monday and how busy things are, that determines how much gets posted.

As always, I enjoy your comments and welcome any questions you might have. Hopefully my blog will help you with ideas that you can take and work around to fit your day. let me know if I can help!