Location, Location, Location

I feel that the location of a wedding really sets the tone of the ceremony. It describes the couple as a whole and gives guest a hint of what is to come for the rest of the wedding and reception. My idea of a location was somewhere here in our hometown of Hendersonville. Wanting the traditional Southern Wedding, I had picked out Spring Haven a southern plantation home in Hendersonville, Tennessee. This location had everything I thought we would need tucked away in a wooded area it had a beautiful place for an outdoor ceremony. Then in the back of the property where the reception would take place there was a patio that was fully covered with plenty of space for tables and dancing. Also, there was plenty of green grass to play some yard games that I had found to entertain guest while we took pictures.

Here are a couple of pictures to give an idea of my vision :

My future mother in law had really found exactly what I wanted and we were really excited to show my fiance the next day. That night at dinner after hearing the build up my fiance says I thought we were getting married at the movie theater and just having our reception somewhere else. I know what you are thinking the movie theater. In all actuality it makes total sense for us to be married at a movie theater because that is where our church meets. We attend Grace Church of Hendersonville and currently sense we do not have a building for our Hendersonville location we meet every Sunday morning in the Regal Theater at the Streets of Indian Lake. My fiance wanted us to be married at our church, which is very sentimental and sweet. However, he also wanted Star Wars movie posters everywhere and for our ceremony to look like the guest were going to the movies. This is a picture of more of his vision of what our ceremony would look like: 

I knew we were going to have to compromise on this but I also knew that once the fiancé saw the venue I had chosen in real life he would be all for it. And of course sure enough he did the next day. I'm sure you are wondering where the compromise comes into play. Well, my first compromise was that the ushers would be in full storm trooper attire. Thank goodness their are only two ushers. Also, we will be having a light saber duel after our first dance. I think we will both be happy with those additions. 

Let Them Eat Cake

When I say I absolutely love cake, I feel like those words do not truly express my true feelings of how much I love to eat cake. Needless to say, the cake is something I have considered as top priority on the wedding budget. I'm so new to the wedding cake world that I had no idea that you could make appointments to literally go taste cake all day. My future mother in law to the rescue! She set up for herself, myself, and the fiance to go to three bakeries in one day. I think that was the best day of my life, just being able to eat multiple flavors and types of cake. However, I discovered that this would of course be another area of compromise that would enter into my wedding plans.

The first thing bakeries will ask you is how many guest they will be serving. Well, I'm kind of glad when I say that at least 175 confirmed guest and we have not even sent out official invitations which our invite list is now currently at 366. The bakery immediately shows me this chart :

As mentioned above I love cake I have budgeted according to this cake I understand that based on the amount of people I am having that a 5 tier cake is pretty much a given. That means I can have five different flavors! Well, the fiance is big on cake but obviously not to the degree as myself so I thought he would be sweet and just let me pick out every single detail that I wanted for the big cake and then of course he could choose any cake he wanted for his groom's cake. Boy, I was totally wrong. 

The first thing we had to compromise was the flavor choices. I of course wanted traditional white cake on the bottom which he agreed and then all over white icing. When I chose a chocolate with a chocolate filling for the next tier he asked why and I said so guest could choose chocolate or vanilla and the two primary layers. He agreed that was probably a good idea. The next two layers I wanted to do a throw back to our parent's wedding cakes one layer being red velvet because that is what my parents had at their wedding and then orange creamsicle because that was his parents. Everyone loved that idea and I felt that was an easy way to knock out the four layers. Now came the fifth layer, our layer , or what I thought was my layer. I immediately blurt out that the top would be vanilla almond and just as soon as the words had left my mouth I heard the rebuttal coming from my fiance. 

Of course I get defensive and have a mini bridezilla moment about that this is my cake and my layer that I will be eating form now and I want that flavor because it is this bakery's specialty. Well, of course the fiance wants marble cake as the top tier because that is his favorite and it is a mix of vanilla and chocolate. Absolutely not. I love cake but marble is not exactly my favorite. We go back and forth a dew moments and the baker helping us obviously sensing the tension between us, so she decides to hopefully better the situation by changing our focus to the decoration of the cake. Wow, did she really go wrong on trying to relieve tension. 

We all know that the fiance wanted a Star Wars themed cake, which I loved as an idea for a groom's cake. However, not the huge wedding cake that I had beed dreaming about. Here are our two ideas of what the main cake was to look like...

Fiance:

Me: 

How in the world were we going to compromise these two extreme ideas?

When I say that I was not budging I really was not planning on it. If it meant I had to be bridezilla and cry right here in this bakery I was not budging on what I wanted. Well, I just have to say my fiance is an amazing negotiator and should have been a lawyer of some type because he did get me to budge on some things. We decided the to have the flavor for the top that I wanted which meant we had to compromise on the decorating. This is a picture of our compromise:

My elegant cake with light sabers added 

Of course it would not be complete without Darth Vader sticking his head out of the bottom:

(i know this is spider man but you get the idea)

I think the cake so far had been the hardest for me I just knew though if we could compromise on this compromise for the rest of our lives would be a piece of cake.