Pumpkin Chip Pancakes with Cranberry Topping

Luckily the cold weather has inspired Jacob to become my personal husband-gone-cooking-machine. It's pretty awesome because 1. I have been eating absurdly well and 2. the cooking bug has slightly affected me as well. Mostly in the way where I am mad about making breakfast every morning despite the fail-proof event of my stomach wanting more food an hour later. However, I find it worth the hassle, especially since it is now pumpkin time. Jacob and I have horded an incredible amount of pumpkin puree. You see, we had the full intention of making pumpkin pie from scratch until we realized that I have far too many knitting orders to complete (if you're saying "whaaa?": click here) and not enough time to create 4 glorious, shimmering pumpkin pies and decided to, instead, ingest mass quantities of various other pumpkiny goods.

Know what else November means? Cranberry sauce. You see, I can make as much cranberry sauce as I please because it's literally a 5 minute process- water, sugar, crans, boilboilboil, fridge. It was only a matter of time before we discovered that pairing cranberry sauce with pumpkin pancakes was like almost the same amount of awesome as pairing a shirtless Ryan Gosling with any movie role ever. So we decided to get a little crazy.

I discovered dairy free eggnog at Whole Foods yesterday which went from being potentially the most amazing invention ever to being practically this holidays greatest disappointment. It's made with rice milk (which is great) it sort of tastes like eggnog (which is also great), however, it is the consistency of water and therefore YUCK. We decided to just go wild and make lattes from it to go with the incredible pancake madness that awaited us. This recipe is pretty much awesome- it's pretty thick so once you put the batter down, you have to carefully spread it out. Also, it refrigerates well and lasted us each 3 separate breakfasts. Note: it is dairy free but NOT vegan. It can easily be made vegan if you use egg substitute or some good old flax seeds.

Pumpkin Chip Pancakes with Cranberry Topping

• 1 1/2 cups almond milk
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoons vinegar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips
  

1. In a bowl, mix together the milk, pumpkin, egg, oil and vinegar. Combine the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, allspice, cinnamon, ginger and salt in a separate bowl. Stir into the pumpkin mixture just enough to combine. Add chocolate chips.
   
2. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot.
3. Cover with cranberry topping and top with whipped cream substitute of your choice.
   

Cranberry Topping

12 oz. cranberries
1 cup sugar
1 cup water

Combine all ingredients in sauce pot and boil until cranberries are soft and mixture is thick.

Winter's Calling

For as long as I can remember I have loathed winter. Even in high school, after learning how to snowboard (and despite loving it), I still could not properly cope with the fact that it was going to be THAT freaking cold for THAT freaking long. When Jake and I planned our trip to Europe last year, many people asked why we were leaving in late September. My answer was always, "because I would like to avoid winter in Maine at all cost." "But you know there will still be winter in Europe, right?" they would retort, to which I would state, "Yes, but at least when I'm freezing in the snow I will be surrounded by something beautiful and new." And it was true.

Last winter, I spent a lot of my time coughing my lungs off with bronchitis, washing dishes, and hanging laundry. However, I also spent a lot of time learning to knit. Probably one of the main reasons I kept my sanity in those wacky, cozy sheds, was the fact that Seona had taught me something useful and creative. Since returning home, I hadn't really felt much urge to continue knitting. In the spring, I made some fingerless gloves for a few friends, knitted a few pairs of baby booties, but I never felt the need to knit like I did in England. Until this fall.

Roughly a week before the wedding it started getting absolutely frigid. I went to the yarn shop and stocked up on yarn, and started in on a couple of projects. This week, however, it has hit me full boar. Not only am I feeling the need to knit, I am feeling the need to knit CONSTANTLY. I daydream about Catherine Hill in Frome, the wool shop in Wells, and I just become so unbelievably depressed. Don't get me wrong, KnitWit is absolutely wonderful, but something about the yarn shops I went to in England - they are a comforting memory, and knitting at home is a way to deal with missing Frome and the Chapmans.

With this knitting compulsion also comes the comforting fact that I want to keep learning. Having had my grandfather's flax wheel in the apartment for 8 months, I am just itching to take spinning lessons. What an amazing coincidence that the lessons are only held on my days off! How odd, that this is the first year in which I am not dreading the Maine winter.

Free Music for Reception

As soon as we set the date, Jacob and I began going through our itunes library to construct our epic wedding playlist. We went through each artist and chose the songs that we felt 1. were lyrically appropriate 2. we absolutely adored 3. were dance-able and 4. were appropriate to the theme of getting married (which is why, sadly, no Adele made it to the playlist). We knew that our reception was only going to be 2 1/2 hours long, but we made sure to have over 3 hours of music to make way for any song skipping, non-groovy choices, or just an unexpected time shift.

Once we chose all the songs, we spent an evening sorting them by priority and which songs we thought transitioned best with one another. We went by the standard of 3 dance songs, 1 slow song alternating. In a separate playlist we placed the songs for our first dance, father/daughter dance, and mother/son dance to be queued after dinner. We chose not to play music during dinner because everyone seemed to be enjoying their conversation, and I didn't think it would be a good idea to drown it out with music. On the day itself, we had our playlists on an ipod, plugged into some speakers that a friend let us borrow. Once the ceremony was over, one of my bridesmaids began the playlist, and we just took it from there- walking out to I Would Do Anything For You by Foster the People. Music was obviously turned off for the speeches, and we had designated certain people to announce different parts of the reception (flower toss, first and last dance, etc).

And that is how we spent $0 on our wedding reception music.

For the precession, our friend Andi Fawcett played a cover of City & Colour's As Much As I Ever Could acoustically. Not only did the timing of our walk to the pavilion from the main building worked perfectly with the verses of the song, it is also one of our favorite songs.

Decorations and Floral

Pretty much all of our ideas for decorations came from a variety of DIY blogs. Young House Love, 100 Layer Cake, and primarily My DIY Wedding Day were my main resources. The first thing I knew I wanted was to have crudite/cheese plates on every table. One pet peeve I had always experienced with weddings were that people expected you to sit still during the speeches while you're starving your ass off with nothing to munch. I wanted to cure that immediately by providing people with food at their tables and no effort on their part. Next, I knew I wanted mason jars with buttons to be involved with the centerpieces. The night Jake proposed, he brought me an orange and blue bouquet of daisies and hydrangeas and I immediately decided that those would be our colors and flowers.

(gerbera daisies for the larger arrangements)

Sarah, the creative soul that she is, volunteered to make paper hydrangeas for the centerpieces. She somehow read my mind because I had been wanting to have paper flowers but had no idea how I would make them. Life saver that she is, she took to the task and executed it flawlessly. We got our jars between visiting flea markets and Goodwills, and bought big tubs of buttons from Michael's for $6 per tub. 4 tubs were enough to get me through. My bouquet was a combination of paper and cloth flowers wrapped in ribbon and adorned with a sparrow charm. The same sparrow was used in Jake's boutonneire inspired by this design. The sparrows were used to reflect our use of Dallas Green's "As Much As I Ever Could" for the precession.

Knowing that I would not want to be throwing my paper bouquet (as it was also full of pins!) and that I could hardly expect Sarah to create 7 dozen paper hydrangeas, I also decided to get my hands on some gerbera daisies. 1/2 dozen of these would be used in my throwing bouquet, while the others would be used in the larger flower arrangements throughout the reception. The most difficult part of the decorations was that we were not allowed to see the reception hall until Jake and I were let in. I could tell Sarah every detail I wanted (I even created blueprints for how the tables needed to be arranged), but Jake and I were not allowed to see any of the decorating. As for the bouquets that Sarah and I walked down the aisle with, we had a girls night dedicated to a cloth flower frenzy at AC Moore where we gathered a ton of gorgeous orange, purple, and blue faux flowers to go around the paper hydrangeas. I am so happy with how they turned out, and better yet, that I get to keep my bouquet forever.

(memory table)

For our guestbook, I desperately wanted to do something untraditional. Because travel is something that has brought Jake and I through so much as a couple, we went on a mad hunt for vintage postcards. We then provided the guests with these postcards to write their well wishes on and place in an old suitcase. I don't know what we will do with them, but they look so much cooler than just a book. The best part is that most of the postcards are from places we have been together. We placed this setup on our memory table next to some wedding photos of our parents and grandparents.

Wedding Cake

Originally we had very much wanted to do a Build Your Own Cupcake bar inspired by this blog. After realizing that is would not be at all feasible to have 50 people gathering around one table, we decided to bring the decorating to them. Since we were already going to have the crudite centerpieces, we decided to create a second group of trays for our food runner to change out before the cake was cut. These trays would have various toppings- sprinkles of varying colors and shapes, m&ms, reese's pieces, etc. for everyone to use as they wished on their cupcakes.


We had also originally planned on having a giant cupcake at the top for Jacob and I, but after a brutal first-run, we decided that it would be better to go with a different plan. Luckily enough, as we were leaving the town hall freshly applied to marry and absolutely giggly, some cream horns caught my eye through the window of Foley's Bakery in Monument Square. We went in for some celebratory pastries, and while inside we fell in absolute love with the tiny chocolate mousse cake in the display case. We promptly placed our order, and that Saturday picked up our little cake for $16. It was seriously the most delicious cake I have ever eaten. Though I was a bit busy smashing it in my husband's face to taste it the first time, we ate the rest at our hotel later that night and I was reassured that we had made the right decision.

As for the cupcakes, they turned out beautifully. Jacob's aunt is an amazing baker, and whipped up 75 blue, orange, and purple frosted cupcakes that looked absolutely stunning. Perched on top of the cake were two bird salt and pepper shakers that we had bought through a shop on Etsy. Unfortunately the shop no longer exists, but we managed to grab a couple of the last birds they sold before leaving Etsy. We got the bare birds and Sarah decorated them for us with our colors. As thank yous to our parents and friends, we got more bare birds and painted them ourselves for them.

Catering

We debated for a long time on whether or not we would have our reception catered. In the beginning, it was really not a priority- Jake and I are both experienced in cooking, and we figured we would just save the hassle and do it ourselves. After realizing how much we already had on our plate (haha), we decided to look at some affordable options for catering. We looked at deli's around town, but it wasn't really the vibe we were going for. There was no way we were going to have someplace like Amato's or Subway cater our wedding, again, as food service folk we had our dignity to uphold! That is not to say that deli's or chain businesses are not suitable for catering- in fact they might be the perfect fit for your wedding and your budget, however, it was not the perfect fit for us.

The day after our engagement, we stopped by a new place in town called Exchange Street Cafe. They have typical American Italian food for pretty reasonable prices, but what came as the shock to us was that it was all handmade. We had anticipated precooked or frozen food, not real homemade stuff. As we ordered, one guy in the back was rolling meatballs while the other was dredging eggplant for Parmesan. The food was amazing- it definitely made an impression, so we took a shot in the dark. "Do you do catering?"

Turns out, they had just started pulling together a catering menu and were looking for some business to get it rolling. Catering in Portland is just as competitive as in-restaurant dining I'd say, and I'm pretty sure Black Tie has the market right now. Heck, before I asked these guys, I was positive I would have to spend $5000 to go with Black Tie or have no caterer at all! Paul and Ricky were great, though. From the very beginning, we were exchanging phone calls. I'd tell them what I wanted, and they would one-up my expectations. They designed a menu that not only fit my budget, but also my estimated number of guests, timeline, and the diet of my guests.

As you may have read in my previous entry, we redid the labels on two cases of our favorite wine for the our alcohol. We also had our favorite tea shop Homegrown Herb and Tea create a special blend of tea for us to have brewed at the reception, as well as to use in our guest favors. For those who wouldn't care to have wine, there was also soda available in large a large blue tub of ice. Including the champagne for the toast our beverage expenses totaled $150. And that's including the sweet vessel we bought to put the iced tea in! Unfortunately, after we brewed all the tea, we realized the nozzle hadn't been screwed on properly so we had to chug the tea and use the vessel for ice water (which was actually pretty great).



I knew from the beginning that instead of passed h'ordeurves I wanted to have vegetable and cheese platters as a part of the centerpieces. My #1 gripe whenever I have catered weddings has been watching guests mumble hungrily through the speeches, waiting for the food line to begin. I wanted our guests to be able to sit, munch, chat, and enjoy themselves before we were announced, and to be able to eat during the speeches without feeling rude. For $50 we made it happen- plastic serving trays from iParty, and a variety of cheeses, veggies, and grapes from Whole Foods (with lots of extra food left over btw!). This is also how we were able to incorporate our cupcake decorating station that you can read about later.

My recommendation is that if your venue will let you choose your own caterer, go to your favorite restaurants and ask them if they cater. Ask around town for recommendations, and scope out new and growing restaurants who might be interested in developing a catering menu. You really never know until you ask.

Invitations, Announcements & Posters

We were fortunate enough to have an expert card maker as my Maid of Honor, so the main costs of our invitations were the postage and raw materials. We designed our invitation suite in Photoshop along with the rest of our paper materials. For the invitations we ended up getting them printed at Kinkos for pretty cheap. We fit 6 invitations to a page, and printed 8 pages for a total of $11 on cardstock.

As we began creating more paper items, I invested in a paper slicer for $12 at Staples, 100 sheets of cardstock for $9, and began printing things myself. Looking back, maybe we should have made this investment sooner, but at the time it was just was just easier to go with Kinkos. We made postcards as our RSVPs so our return postage was much less than if we had sent cards with envelopes. I think that in total we spent $80 in postage between announcements, invitations, and RSVP postcards. In total , our invitation/announcement/paper product spending was around $150.

Beverages were a tough decision, but in the end we thought it would be best to stick to wine only for alcohol. We got a few cases of our go-to wine company, and made our own labels in Photoshop to reflect our sense of humor and wedding design.

Programs were irrelevant for our wedding because we chose to do a short ceremony with no readings. Our credit for the musician who performed during the ceremony went into the favors that everyone received at the reception (a slip with a shout out and thank you). As for placecards, you can read about them here.


Our thank you cards turned out to be easy and fun as well. We used one of the photos from our engagement shoot and ordered 100 custom postcards through VistaPrint. Not only were the postcards very affordable, but they also reflected the well-wishes table postcards that our guests wrote on for us at the reception.