As anyone with a married daughter knows, there are many preparations before the nuptials. Our girl is quite stylish and crafty. Lenny is a writer and very creative. They wanted their personal touch on every aspect of the wedding.
Remember when I went down to Los Angeles for a "sweat shop weekend"? Lisa and her two bridesmaids (and me) were sewing runners for the wedding dining tables and we also made 750 fabric pennants (above) from five different fabrics to hang across the open courtyard during the cocktail reception after the wedding ceremony. Lisa sewed small gift bags, from the same five fabrics, to hold the wedding favors. I made hundreds of organic Salted Pumpkin Caramels to fill the favor bags over the last few days we were in Oregon. DT and I spent two evenings wrapping the candies in cellophane.
Lisa and Lenny had a "Welcome" bag delivered to each wedding guest room at the hotel. Lisa asked that I make organic chocolate chip cookies and snack mix to include in the (absolutely adorable) tote bag, along with the other welcoming gifts. Before we left Portland, I prepared portions of cookie dough. They were frozen in quarter-cup "pods" and packaged for transportation to our new oven in Indio.
As The Bride requested wine from the oldest pinot noir vineyard in Oregon, we also transported several many a boat-load of Ponzi wines to the wedding.
Down in Indio, a day before the wedding, I popped the frozen cookie dough pods into the oven outside our casita. Dave and I set up an assembly-line cookie packaging factory. Sweat Shop Part Deux - and why I brought all those commercial-sized baking sheets on this trip.
These little frozen discs baked into:
16 cookies went into the oven. 16 cookies came out of the oven. 16 cookies went into the oven. 16 cookies came out of the oven. 16 cookies went into the oven. 16 cookies came out of the oven. Rinse and Repeat. All afternoon.
Luckily, it was only 108° that day.
The Father of The Bride and I also turned this...
...into this:
Just in case you need my Top Secret Snack Mix recipe, here is the Top Secret recipe.
The canvas tote bags were so sweet and our guests were very pleased.Until my next update, I remain, your "before" correspondent.