The Wedding Cake

Sorry I've been so slow in updating this, but Zach and I don't have internet at our apartment yet, so I have to wait until I can get to a place with free wireless before doing anything. Here's a little bit about the cake we are getting designed. Enjoy!

We decided to go with Donna at Sedona Sweet Arts for our wedding cake. Donna really loves making sugar art and usually makes flowers for cakes, but I think we were able to challenge her with something a little different. When we first got to the bakery we sampled some of her cakes and almost immediately decided on carrot cake (Zach's favorite) for half of the cake and then chocolate mousse (my favorite) for the other half of the cake. The carrot cake half will have cream cheese icing while the chocolate half will have a chocolate mousse filling and both will have a thin layer of buttercream on the outside for decoration.

The cake is going to be relatively simple with a tuscan finish with ivory frosting on the outsite. And the most extravagant part will be the topper, which will be a bride and groom cactus. You can probably get a better idea from the pictures below. The first one is an example of what the tuscan texture will look like, except that ours will be ivory and won't have flowers. The second picture is what the topper will look like, and Donna is going to make that part entirely out of sugar.

The Save the Dates

Save the dates are finally out! Please visit the wedding website for more travel details so you can make your bookings. October is the most popular month for weddings in Sedona, so make sure you book early because things are going to fill up.

Zach and I made the Save the Dates ourselves and had a lot of fun, so we'll definitely make the invitations by hand as well. We wanted to incorporate the destination wedding theme, so we made them look like luggage tags. We were also able to get most of the supplies from www.envelopperinc.com, which has become my new favorite website. They sell all different types of paper, cards, labels, and envelopes and then DIY people can put all of the parts together. I like it because it allows you to pick any colors you want and sizes and you can mix and match different parts. So here's a little diagram of all of the parts we used and assembled followed by pictures of the final product.

The Wedding Photographer

Zach and I have been pretty productive with the wedding this week. We finished the Save the Dates and threw those in the mail today, we are finally updating the wedding site for our guests, and we chose our wedding photographer (even though that wasn't really a difficult decision). We're going to use my former roommate, current friend and sorority sister wedding photographer Lauren Wright. She's really great and along with providing us with beautiful pictures, I know she'll make us feel really comfortable on our big day. You can check out her work here to see what I'm talking about.

We're back from Australia/New Zealand!

For those of you who didn't know, we just got back from a month-long epic vacation in Australia and New Zealand. We had a blast, but we are both so glad to be back in the United States. Below are a few pictures of our favorite moments on the trip. You can also download this file to browse through all of our pictures (Beware: the file may take awhile to download because it contains 30 days worth of pictures).

Waiting to go to the ballet at the Sydney Opera House, AU

Christmas day on Heron Island, AU

Feeding a kangaroo on Kangaroo Island, AU

Preparing for blackwater rafting at the Waitomo glowworm caves, NZ


Sitting under a tree at Abel Tasman National Park, NZ

Tuckered out after a long climb in Queenstown, NZ

The Ceremony Site

Zach and I just took a trip to Sedona for the first time to scope out where we want our ceremony to take place and to look at our reception site and possible accommodations for guests. The trip went really well and reconfirmed that Sedona would be the perfect place for our wedding.

When we first got to town Zach, myself, and his parents went on a jeep tour to look at all of the possible locations on the red rocks for our ceremony. The first location was about 45 minutes away on a rocky, dusty road at an elevation of about 6000 feet. The second location was closer and was a much shorter drive but was not as high so it had less of a view. We decided to have our wedding at the higher up, more adventurous location with the amazing view. Pictured below is the spot where we would get married, along with some of the views from that point.

This location is perfect for us, but there will be some challenges that we'll need to keep in mind. There is a short 5 minute hike to get to the site, so we won't be able to wear heels. Also, the jeeps are open in the back, so on the trip up you get a layer of red sand all over you, so I'll have to make sure I'm covered up so I don't get a layer of red on my white dress. Other than that though, this place is going to be perfect, and we know our guests will enjoy it too.

The Save the Dates

Zach and I have both been pretty sick and busy with school, so we haven't been doing much wedding planning. We have finalized our trip to Arizona in November though, so we'll be able to take a day and go to Sedona and scope out a final ceremony location and a good hotel for all of our guests.

To save money I'm going to make the Save the Dates and Invitations myself, and I finally ordered all of the supplies I'll need from a pretty nifty website called http://www.envelopperinc.com/. I want to play up the fact that we're having a destination wedding and want to make our Save the Dates look kind of like luggage tags. Here of some of the ones I was using for ideas:

The Wedding Colors

So I've been back and forth with wedding colors and was having a hard time making up my mind about what I wanted the wedding decor to look like. I could either try to match the beautiful red rock surroundings and go with deep reds and purples, or I could choose contrasting colors. I've been looking at a lot of pictures of the Red Rocks and I was kind of inspired by the wildflowers I saw around Sedona, so I've decided to go with blue and yellow for the wedding. My whole vision is centered around a wildflower bouquet similar to the one the girl has below, since I think they'd go really well with the red rock backdrop.


I'd like my bridesmaids dresses to be nice and simple, like the J Crew ones below. I think with dresses like these, smaller versions of the bouquet above, and maybe some yellow flowers in their hair, my bridesmaids will look really beautiful!


I'm going to run the colors by Zach, but he's pretty laid back so I think he'd be fine with anything. And now that I have a general color scheme I can start designing Save the Dates and send them out soon! I plan on doing a lot of the stationary on my own, so be looking out for a post about Zach and me slaving over do-it-yourself wedding projects!