Hello, loves.  As many of you know, along with weddings comes wedding presents.  Future Mr. tGC and I have decided to go with a wedding registry for this purpose.  My family will basically hunt you down for a Christmas present list, so we figured it’d be the best option for us. The two of us, though, have lived together part-time since I got a summer job in his college city, and full-time since we went to graduate school at the same place.  Needless to say, we have everything we need household wise.

So, we were stumped as to what to register for.  A friend gave us a suggestion that we’re going to run with. She said “Upgrade!” I figured, why the heck not. So that’s what we’re doing.  We are registering for things we’d like to upgrade – including our home decor. Since we’re both pretty young, our apartment shows it.  It’s cute, but a lot of our things were purchased for practicality, not because they were our favorite pieces.  No we’re stuck – how do we make our rooms look cohesive?  Do we pick one thing as the basis, then go from there? What do you think?

That, above, is the major piece we like for the living room.  It’s from Bed, Bath, and Beyond.  It looks much more vibrant in person. The Mr. is totally in love with it, which I think is too cute. The dark frame matches our coffee table, but nothing else in our entire living room. This is why I need your suggestions. Do we need to get new picture frames? Or will black ones work (that’s what we have)? Where should we put photos? Ahhh… so many things to think about.

Many of you replied to the categories for my cookbook, and I greatly appreciate that. I’ve decided to go with the following:  Appetizers, Entrees, Sides, Desserts, Miscellaneous.

And since you guys were so awesome, I’ll give you a sneak-peak into the recipes that I’ve decided on so far. Some are my own, some are my family’s recipes, and others are my favorites.

• Appetizers: Buffalo Chicken Dip, Spinach, Artichoke, and Parmesan Spread
• Entrees: My Hungarian Stroganoff, Kathi’s Slow Cooker Mac and Cheese, Mushroom and Brie Bisque, Grilled Chicken Pasta in a Tomato Cream Sauce
• Sides: Pasta Salad, Cauliflower and Onion Tart
• Desserts: Hawaiian Wedding Cake, Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins, My Peanut Butter Pie
• Miscellaneous: Pumpkin Spice Latte, Overnight Cinnamon Roll

As you can see, I still have a few gaps.  The Mr.’s co-workers are also excited about this because I’ve vowed to send the dishes to work with him. That way, they can be our taste testers and I don’t have to eat all of it myself and go over my wedding-prep calorie allowance. It’s an all-around win. 🙂

Okay – now I am off to make a birthday card for a celebration tonight.  I have an awesome idea for it in my head! If it goes well, I’ll post a tutorial tomorrow.  Happy Thursday!

For those of you who don’t know, I am planning my wedding.  Exciting, right?? Future Mr. GC asked in April on my first ever trip to the Outer Banks, NC.  It was perfect – the perfect spot, the perfect man, and of course – the perfect ring!

Yep – that’s right. That’s my beauty.  I actually took that picture, too. </bragging> Hehe. 🙂  I’d consider myself a crafty person, so I wanted to use my wedding as an opportunity to do 2 things: 1. show my guests a fantastic time that they won’t soon forget and 2. showcase our personal flair for a unique, one-of-a-kind, didn’t cost $1 million dollars day.

That being said, we’ve been searching practically the entire world for the perfect everything.  A lot of the perfect things though, we just haven’t stumbled on.  So myself and my awesome BFOTB (I love anyone who gets that reference…) maid of honor have decided to make the wedding a DIY affair.  It’s going to save us a bunch of money, and everything will be exactly how we want it.  Hopefully, as the time gets closer and a lot of the DIY projects get finalized, I’ll be posting them to showcase their awesomeness (hopefully not because they suck, haha).  We are doing pretty much everything aside from the catering and DJing ourselves, so we have a pretty big project ahead of us.  My other bridesmaids are 100% behind this, and were crazy enough to volunteer to help.  Little do they know what they are in for.. muahahaha :D.

As a way to thank them, I am doing what every bride should do for her fabulous five – getting an awesome assortment of bridesmaids gifts.  I plan on getting each girl an item of jewelry, a Yankee candle jar, something personal to each girl, their bridesmaid bouquet (I am making each one myself – I’d like to take this time to thank my Mommy for letting me work in her floral shop for 3 years), and lastly – a cookbook.  But not just any cookbook – it’s going to be one I make myself.  Hopefully they find it awesome and not totally lame. That aside, I found this awesome website, Blurb, where you can basically put anything you want into a book. The book is going to include recipes of my own, my favorites, and family recipes.  I hope to make it look like a fancy-schmancy cookbook with nice photos and everything.

Here comes the point where I need you.  I’m hoping to make the have somewhere around 20 recipes.  What categories should I include? I’m a nut for organization, so simply placing the recipes all hodge-podge in the book is simply not an option. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.  Another point of advice I need is this – how the heck do I make food look so awesome in pictures? My Nikon D3000 and I haven’t had the best luck of getting delectably delicious photos. Thanks for the help, loves!

I would also like to apologize in advance for the ridiculous number of posts you will have to endure relating to my wedding. It’s safe to say that I am completely mildly obsessed. 🙂