Holy Birthday Cake, Batman!

The Backyard Groom's birthday was yesterday. Normally I would make him a cake, because even though I am by no stretch a good cook, I do love to bake (mostly because I get to lick the spoon after). But this year I decided to surprise him.

When we met with Angi at Blue Note Bakery and booked her for our wedding cake, she told us that she did cakes of all sizes and for all types of occasions aside from weddings. I remember at the tasting thinking her chocolate cake with chocolate filling would be perfect for The Backyard Groom's upcoming birthday. Then somewhere between starting a new job and obsessing over the flight for the trip we just returned from, I forgot about the idea completely. Until the day before his birthday.

I knew it was a long shot, but I emailed Angi, apologized for the last minute request and asked if she could make something small for my favorite guy. I told her he loved the chocolate cake and filling from the tasting and also anything relating to Batman. She got back with me immediately and said it was no problem.

On the big day, I went down to Blue Note Bakery and picked up this box.

I literally squealed when I saw what was inside.

(It's hard to tell in this iPhone photo, but the icing on the cake is bright yellow with black trim. Both colors are honey-flavored fondant and beyond delicious.)

I knew he would love it. And he totally did. He said it was the best birthday cake he'd ever had, both in looks and in taste. Now we've gone from not caring about having a wedding cake to ecstatically looking forward to chowing down on ours. Thanks, Angi!

A truly blushing bride

This might sound strange coming from someone who is devoting an entire blog to planning her wedding, but it makes me kind of uncomfortable when people ask me about the wedding.

I'm a pretty shy and private person (which is one of the reasons I like the anonymity of blogging,) so when people I don't know that well ask me about wedding plans, I tend to get all flustered and embarrassed. Then my face turns bright red, and to make matters worse, my answers usually involve lots of 'uhhs' and 'umms' and other stammering.

Call me overly self-conscious, but I'm afraid people might interpret my reaction as a lack of enthusiasm for or attention to planning the wedding, when the actual truth is quite the opposite. The people that I'm closest to, the ones I have no problem babbling on and on about my wedding to, can attest to that.

The fact that the attention of being a bride makes me uncomfortable helps convince me more than ever that The Backyard Groom and I made the right decision by choosing a smaller wedding. This way we can be our goofy selves, and the only blush I'll have to worry about on my wedding day will be the kind applied with a brush.

A Hangover from "The Hangover"

The Backyard Groom and I see a lot of movies. Now that I'm planning a wedding, I pay way more attention to all the movie weddings, no matter how peripheral the nuptials may be to the plot. In The Hangover, the wedding isn't exactly a huge plot point, but obviously the movie wouldn't exist without the bachelor party before the wedding.


It's a hilarious movie, and I'm not trying to take anything away from that (even though if I had a gripe, it would probably be that the chicks in the movie range from, at best, a sweet kooky hooker to, at worst, a shrill philandering nag).

But after seeing the movie, I couldn't help but asking one question: (Well, two questions if any of you recovering "Alias" addicts out there can tell me how annoying Will Tippin suddenly became this guy?)

Where are all the movies about bachelorette parties?

I can't think of any. But movies about bachelor parties seem to abound, from The Hangover to Very Bad Things to perhaps the first entry in the subgenre, Bachelor Party.


I really liked Bachelor Party, in which a SO young Tom Hanks nearly cheats on his fiance Tawny Kitaen with...his fiance Tawny Kitaen. It's unabashedly '80s (hello, Tawny Kitaen and Adrian Zmed!) and totally fun.

Anyway, I'm not an authority on bachelorette parties. I've only been to one in my life (Holla, Non-Bridesmaid B!) but it included many things I love, like brightly-colored drinks, cute dresses, good friends and a healthy dose of booty-shaking. Here's hoping Hollywood picks up on this untapped comedy gold mine and makes a fun movie about funny women enjoying themselves.

And maybe for a change the men can be the ones sitting at home by the phone.

You're invited, Mr. President!

When I was flipping through the latest issue of Modern Bride, trying to bypass all the details I wouldn't need to be worrying about for The Backyard Wedding, a small blurb caught my eye. The headline was "White House Well Wishes." Uh...yes please. According to the blurb, if you send a wedding invite to the President and First Lady, they will send you a congratulatory note in response. YES PLEASE!

This made me happy because our engagement has a little bit of a back story involving our new President. We may be Texans, but we hail from Austin, a little oasis of blue in a sea of red. And through a friend's husband, we (along with half the country it seems) got hooked up with Inauguration tickets. So The Backyard Groom and I trucked it from Austin by, respectively, taxi, plane, bus and train to make it to our nation's capital for the big day.

Unfortunately, we were among those sorry folks with purple tickets and never made it inside the gates for the actual event. It sucked. BAD.

Here's the best photo The Backyard Groom could get of all the people we were crushed against for six hours outside the gates. All we could see was people in every direction.


After we missed the entire thing, we wandered around DC dejectedly. This was our first trip to the beautiful city after all. When we got trapped behind a barricade, we were stunned to realize we were at the start of the parade route. After some military bands and guards and four score of Secret Service men, the Obamas' limo rolled by. The Backyard Groom managed to get this shot of Michelle, and you can sort of see Sasha's red mitten and Barack's profile too.


Where does our engagement come in? I found out after our Italian engagement that The Backyard Groom had the ring in his pocket on Inauguration Day and was planning on popping the question after the swearing-in ceremony.

For those of you who may be interested in inviting the Obamas to any of your functions, the address is:

The Honorable Barack Obama and Mrs. Obama
The White House Greetings Office
Room 39
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500

Learning to Fly

The Backyard Groom and I LOVE to travel. Like most 20-somethings starting out in creative fields, our budget is pretty small, but we manage to devote a good chunk of it to seeing new places and revisiting our favorites.

In fact, when The Backyard Groom proposed, we were on a trip to Italy, which gave The Backyard Groom a chance to snap some gorgeous photos, like the one below of Venice's Grand Canal taken from the Rialto Bridge at sunset.

The only hitch in our traveling giddy-up is that lately I've developed a bit of a fear of flying. I've never been a huge fan of flying, but it didn't seem to freak me out so badly before. I'm pretty sure it dates back to a less-than-smooth return flight from Las Vegas last year and a few other bumpy trips since. The tragic situation with the Air France flight earlier this week also hasn't helped. Of course, I feel terrible for all the families who lost their loved ones, but on a completely selfish level, it has me really nervous to take any more transatlantic flights. Or, if I'm really honest, any flights period.

That becomes enough of a problem when you're a travel nut, and even more of one when you're a travel nut in the midst of planning a honeymoon. We were pretty much set on somewhere in Europe, but now I'm having second thoughts. Not to mention, we have a weekend getaway in the coming weeks that involves a plane trip I'm already dreading.

Any other nervous nellies out there worried about flying? Got any advice?

Hi. My name is The Backyard Bride, and I'm obsessed.

That's right, folks. I am coming clean. I am obsessed with wedding blogs.

I know, right? I never thought I would be that girl, the one who thinks about her wedding all the time, especially because our wedding is going to be so teeny tiny. I never thought I would care about other people's weddings. And by other people's weddings, I mean the matrimonial festivites of perfect strangers. I can't get enough of their pictures and ideas and DIY projects. And the dresses. Oh, the dresses.

Honestly, I thought reading wedding blogs and creating my own was just a way to help pass the time at my less-than-satisfying former job. But now that I've got a new job, one that is actually creatively compelling and doesn't provide time for online wedding obsession, I realize when I get home at the end of the day how much I miss looking at all those pretty pictures and reading about all that hopeful happiness.

And with that, I'm off to get my daily fix. Even though it's coming a few hours later than usual.