Wedding Cookies part Deux

Last summer when my sister got engaged I made some wedding themed sugar cookies for her. The wedding has since come and gone but, since it took place in Mexico, few of our family attended. To make up for that, and possibly as an excuse for my dad to raise a pole barn, my parents are hosting a reception for them in Michigan this weekend. I am actually negative about four days of vacation (since I did go to Mexico) so I can't go. In lieu of my attendance I'm sending another batch of wedding themed cookies. I have a sad feeling that they'll arrive and my mom will open a big box of crumbs. Thankfully I documented the process so everyone can see what took me three days to do. And that I didn't just send a big box of crumbs. Although that would have been easier.

I started with a bride-shaped, champagne-shaped (does anyone else pronounce that sham-PAG-na to remember how to spell it? no?), and cake-shaped cookies cutters, both regular sugar cookies dough and chocolate sugar cookie dough, and a super duper floured surface.

I despise rolling out dough. This is one of the main reasons why I don't use fondant. Well that and the nasty taste. But I no less dislike rolling out cookie dough. And I rolled, and rolled, and rolled. For days. But then I had lots of cookies!

Yum! First I outlined all of them with royal icing and got to work decorating.

I'm very serious about my decorating. I had two colors of sugar sand, markers, royal icing mix, gold and silver powder (which amuses me for the warning label that says non toxic but not recommended for consumption;), color gels, little sugar ball things...and more. And the vodka was legitimate decorating. You have to mix the gold and silver with clear liquor to make a paint. I also made some buttercream as an alternate to the royal icing.

I was really annoyed to remember that buttercream always comes out rather yellowish (duh) so I added some blue to cleverly come up with the sea green the groom wanted (but did not get) for the wedding color. Sadly none of the buttercream frosted cookies took to my decorating techniques very well. Obviously I couldn't send those. So I ate them. Oh the sacrifices!! I used the food safe markers for most of the decorating. Mostly I just doodled but the bride cookies got a lot of poetry. Some of my favorites:

 Shame my handwriting isn't better.

 Homage to my other blog!

I used the chocolate dough exclusively for this topsy turvey cake shaped cookie cutter I got for Christmas. The cookie cutter came with three decorating mats for use with fondant (yuck + rolling = no) or buttercream. The buttercream just didn't work out for me so for these also I used royal icing and food markers.

I was pretty happy with these.

Also, can I say how awesome it is that I used both a bottle of vodka and the Bible for decorating? 'Cause it is awesome.

Wedding Bells

A few months ago my sister got married. It was a lovely beach event at the Barcelo Maya Palace resort in Cancun, Mexico. Rather than spring for the resort's pricey photographers, who according to other family who've been married there, aren't very good, my sister just asked that anyone with a camera please take pictures. I was in the wedding so I wasn't able to crawl around and get shots like I did for the last family wedding. A cousin of ours took pictures of the wedding but I was able to take a lot of the posed shots. When not required to be in them of course. I really really prefer to not actually be in pictures.

While I don't normally take pictures of people, largely because I don't really like people and therefore have a hard time relating to them in a photograph, I had a lot of fun with these. Partially because I do actually like my sister but also because I got to play with a lot of neat Photoshop effects!

 They did a sand pouring ceremony to signify their unity.

 They happy bride and groom.

 I love to do this, make one element in the picture color. I get a little carried away and do it a lot.

 See there I go again.

 I also love the black and white.

 And I could totally pretend that this was the result of my awesomeness but really it's an effect called 'glamour glow'.

Also I bought that bracelet for her. So glad she wore it!

 This says everything you need to know about my sister.

The reception was on a section of the beach far from the resort buildings. It was quite excellent. Very private, they'd marked out a space on the beach with candles for our dance floor, and we just plugged an mp3 player into speakers for music.

 Hands down my favorite shot. Not really sure why. Also that little land outlet ... abandoned resort. There was a brief plan to go investigate but then we heard there were pirates. And not of the sexy Johnny Depp breed.

 Ah the toasts.

Also a little roasting.

Those of us who were able to attend spent a truly lovely week helping them celebrate their marriage. For me I decided that I was going to decorate my Caribbean getaway much like the resort when I either a) start making money as a blogger or b) take up the drugs/arms running career I'd planned at university.

No really that was my plan.