Macarons and Marie : Assembly Required (a day and a half ahead)

Grrrr. Writing recaps is SO hard, especially when it's much more interesting to read all the fresh ideas from all the fresh new Bees and all the fabulous recent weddings in the hive! But, I'm determined to get this all done by our one year anniversary, which is fast approaching! I don't think I'll do a ton of recaps, just a handful of really long posts. So warning: this is tediously long! Sorry!

So we left off with that Wednesday before the wedding, where we gathered and packed everything for the trip down to Hot Springs/The Homestead. As I mentioned, to maximize efficiency for car travel, we packed a lot of things flat and un-assembled, which meant assembly required!

Tip #1, If you're planning a destination wedding or planning from afar, be sure to add at least an additional day and a half at your location to give yourself time to assemble your details, especially if you have a lot of them.

THURSDAY

 Last road trip as singles

That Thursday, the travel day, was a bit overcast but beautifully mild in the 70s. Perfect for the morning drive down to our destination. After a three and a half hour drive, we arrived in Bath County. Our first critical stop was the florist--we had to give them the silver ice buckets to fill for the centerpieces!

 Mountain Laurel Creations: Tiny country flower shop

Our vintage sterling vessels--I had previously put labels on the bottom of each to indicate on which table they should sit.

Gloria and Debi of Mountain Laurel Creations--the tiny little start-up flower shop just outside of Hot Springs--were there waiting, with the flowers for the wedding all sorted and ready to be arranged.

 Various elements for the centerpieces and bouquets: Peonies, ranunculus, hydrangeas, anemones, seeded eucalyptis, veronica, astilbe, wheat

Again, it's a very small operation. But I must say, what they lack in slickness, they make up for in effort. (Recall I had flower sticker shock from a bigger, more seasoned, but way more expensive operation that the hotel recommended. And in the end decided to try my luck with these ladies). They're so small that they didn't even have certain basic wedding elements. Way back I asked if they had large planter urns and some sort of column pedestal (flower arrangements for the altar area at the ceremony), but they didn't. However, after I sent some pictures of what I was going for, they went ahead and found some and invested in resin ones (so no additional costs for me). They had a local artist faux age them! Here are the sweet ladies of Mountain Laurel Creations standing next to one of the urn-column things.

The urn and pedestals for our garden altar; Debi and Gloria of Mountain Laurel Creations

AND, recall I also was in search of Amnesia roses, which are a) hard to source (Gloria had never heard of them) and b) apparently don't look that great in real life--although they photograph well. We had originally agreed on some pink Esperanza roses (at the advice of Gloria), though I really wanted the Amnesia. When I arrived, I was surprised with a bunch of the Amnesia. Gloria had found someone last minute who could get them to her and she wanted to give me the option. I went with them after we took them outside to get a good look at them!!! Now that's customer service. They were so reasonably priced, too.

 Amnesia Roses

Tip #2: Don't be afraid to use small, local start-up businesses! They're eager to please!

Moving on. Our next most pressing concern was to a) get those delicate macarons to Esmé (the coordinator) to put into the resort's refrigerator and b) do a quick run-through of events and walk-through of the garden area with her.

The garden for our ceremony; Mr. P and Esmé

We then checked into our suite. It was wonderful with plenty of room (bedroom, sitting room, sun room) for us and all our wedding junk!

We also had the use of a small conference room, the Madison room, where we could lock up valuables like silver candlesticks and the like. It's also the place where we put together the macarons (I had baked the shells and traveled with them un-assembled), deciding it would be easier to transport them without them filled. There's no way we could have done that in our room.

Tip #3: If you are assembling a bunch of stuff, make sure there's a place to do it! If it's going to be in your suite, make sure there's a lot of space--you want your wedding night to be serene and clutter-free! (My tips are so obvious and useless!)

We were exceptionally busy that night. We mounted the faux-to booth and escort card boards onto foam core boards; arranged the escort card names on the board...

 ...put together the welcome bags (again, they were packed flat to maximize transport space); and rolled and wrapped the programs in ribbon. As the night wore on and I got more tired, I became more resourceful (i.e. in taking short-cuts) and started to care less.

 Mr. P stuffing the welcome bags; the finished bags--I realized very soon that we might not have enough ribbon and that it was too difficult to tie bows, so I just made knots and the loose ends made ersatz bows; similarly I got tired of making bows around the programs, so I created one-loop pulls with the ribbon, which actually worked out better.

It took forever. I remember feeling really light-headed from not eating very much (you won't feel like eating for all the anxiety and excitement!). It was pretty late by the time we were finished, but we knew we had to get some nourishment, so we went over to Sam Snead's tavern. We were exhausted when we got to sleep.

Sam Snead's Tavern for some sustanance

Tip #4: For goodness sake, eat something...to avoid being light-headed and a cranky beyouch. 

FRIDAY

We were up at the crack of dawn and were ready to distribute the welcome bags. Not all the guests stayed at the Homestead. Some stayed in the next town over, Warm Springs at various B&Bs, motel, and even an art gallery loft! So we had to drive around the county dropping them off! For those at the hotel, we just left them with the bell hop who had a list of our guests.

 Welcome bag delivery and country critter friends

After dropping them off, it was back to the hotel to the Madison room to put together the macarons! They had kept well and had thawed (as they were previously frozen) perfectly. This is where I got lazy--instead of making the filling (no time!!) I just used grapefruit marmalade for the pink ones and ginger for the green ones. (The ginger was gross!)  I also realized that only one macaron would fit into the box. I had planned on two each (why didn't I check before hand?!), so half of all those pesky, pain-in-the-arse cookies weren't used! (But I later found out, like six months later, that MIL had taken them home and put them in her freezer! Will have to try them on our anniversary?)

Macaron assembly--lazy jam filling and a single sad cookie

We didn't make a timeline, only a list of major things we had to get done by X time. There was no way we could anticipate, say, how long it would take to deliver the bags or put together the macarons. (Note: I say "we" and  Mr. P helping in the images above. I can honestly say that we shared in this endeavor and without his practical execution skills, our wedding would be just a box of my ideas.) I think keeping it flexible with plenty of buffer time (say two big tasks per day or something like that) kept the stress levels at bay, so I wasn't always looking at the clock or feeling flustered for not meeting a time marker).

Tip #5: You don't have to go nuts over a timeline, especially if you're type B like me. It'll fall into place if you know ahead of time the major tasks that need to be done and in what order. Again, buffer time.


By the time we were done, we were starving, but the Vietnamese Tea Ceremony was to start at 3:30, so we just relaxed for about an hour and a half before we got ready for that...the rehearsal, and the rehearsal dinner!

Next up, the Tea Ceremony!!!

**********

Previously:


Macarons and Marié: The Gathering
Macarons and Marié: The Highlights
Macarons and Marié: Last Minute, Low Key Bachelorette