Wedding Pics (Finally)

Yep, I'm finally posting pics from the rehearsal dinner and wedding! And rather than waste space rambling, I'll just let the pictures do most of the talking. Oh, and I'll give you the menus.

Friday night was the rehearsal dinner, a Southwest burrito buffet. The meats I am NOT posting pictures of (shredded meat, in a basement, under fluorescent lighting...well, it just does not photograph well), but they were a cilantro-lime chicken and adobo chili beef. There were all the fixings, too: tortillas, cheese, sour cream...plus black beans and rice, chips and salsa, etc.

For sides, I made a layered Southwest salad with cilantro lime vinaigrette. It didn't photograph so well either, so use your imagination. Then there were these little cheddar pepper corn muffins, served with chili cream cheese spread. LOVE these; they're so yummy.

Here's a picture of the dessert/coffee/drink table. Dessert was white chocolate fruit tart and cookies. Drinks were the standard (water, tea, coffee, etc.) plus horchata! (That's a sweet Mexican rice milk spiced with cinnamon, if you've never had it.)

Oh, and here are the two "specialty" salsas: cilantro/lime-corn salsa and a mango pepper salsa.

Here's a picture of ME taking pictures of the dessert table. Haha.

Closeup action for the white chocolate fruit tart. Mm.

THEN, moving on to the wedding (Saturday afternoon).

This was an afternoon dessert buffet. Here's the one picture I have of my prep work the night before. I'd like to point out three things: (1) the crazy number of chocolates covering the dining table turned workspace, (2) the fact that the entire table is covered in bubble wrap (long story), and (3) the lovely Starbucks apron I'm wearing. Adam doesn't work at Starbucks anymore but generously donated his old aprons to my kitchen collection--and they're GREAT.

Okay, moving on to the day of. The menu included the following:

• spinach dip and crackers
• fruit and cheese skewers
• sweet breads: banana chocolate chip, frosted pumpkin rum spice, and cherry almond
• cheesecake bites--two kinds: white chocolate almond and chocolate chip cookie dough
• candies: cookies 'n cream truffles, red velvet cake truffles, chocolate-dipped cherries and apricots, and (heart shaped!) peppermint creams
• miniature trifle cups, in two flavors: pumpkin spice and black forest
• mint water, raspberry tea, and virgin autumn sangria

Here are some pictures, in no particular order.

In this one you can see the crackers and dip, plus the pumpkin spice trifles (with gingersnap garnishes!):

Here are the fruit and cheese skewers and sangria:

Here, cherry almond bread chunks:

Here, cookie dough cheesecake bites (bottom left), black forest trifles, and chocolate chip banana bread (on the right).

White chocolate almond cheesecake bites, banana bread (again), and pumpkin rum spice bread...

These are some of the candies (on Marla's adorable lazy Susan):

And some more of them:

Here's my caterer's cameo shot: me getting ready to go re-stock the candy trays.

Oh, and a final shot of the sangria. (Isn't it pretty? I loved the presentation on this.)

I have to say, this was a lot of fun and great experience...but I'm glad it's over! Next time, no back-to-back rehearsal and wedding. Whew!