Sorry I didn't explain fully with that last message, I was half way through the message when my fiance decided he was ready to go. (I had a coupon for 2 for 1 appetizers at a restaurant we like) Anyways they don't need to be chilled and I keep them in a sandwich baggy even though the recipe doesn't say you need to. As for melting I'm not sure, I haven't had any problems but its winter here so its not that warm. I made the first batch around a month ago and they still are fine, but I'm planning on trying to put some in the freezer and seeing how that works with the quality. One thing I found with making them is that if you use food coloring it will dye your hands sometimes for a couple days. If its cake icing coloring it seems to wash away easily. You don't need to add much coloring or flavoring liquid and you can always add more if you need too. If you go to a wdding store or somewhere where they have homemade chocolate molds and cake decorating stuff, they will have more flavors available than a grocery store. One thing I love about these mints is that with all the different cake icing colors there are you can find your wedding colors. One thing I almost forgot after you add the color you just need to keep kneading it to get a uniform color or just a bit to get a swirl pattern. Well good luck with your test batch! If you have any more questions feel free to ask :)
FEISTYKITTY 3/20/06 7:35 P
Alary, that's a great idea! Do they have to be kept chilled (cream cheese)? The wedding is outside in August, so I'm wary of having anything that might go bad or melt. I might do a test batch and see if I like it, and experiment with flavors. I have a KitchenAid, so the mixing will be easy. :)
Thank you!
ALARYK 3/20/06 7:31 P
Hey Feisty, if you want a cheap simple fast favor idea here's what I'm doing. I found a recipe for mints that are so simple. You put half a package of cream cheese in a bowl. Add 1 cup of icing sugar and beat till smooth. (I use my mixmaster so its fast.) Repeat 2 times adding 1 more cup each time. knead into a dough and add more icing sugar if its sticky. Then you just need to divide it into 4 portions. Add food or cake coloring, and the flavor of your choice. Add peppermint to each one to make it mintish and you can have any flavor mint you want, even rum! You roll it into ropes and cut it into pieces, put it on a baking sheet to dry over night. It takes me 20-30 minutes per batch and I figure I will need about 4 batches for my 120 favors. I'm putting them into jars with scoops and people can mix thier own flavor combination. So you don't have to go for hours filling containers by yourself.
FEISTYKITTY 3/20/06 7:07 P
In a way, I'm lucky. I'm only having one bridesmaid, my sister, who has been married for 9 years. She lives in LA and I live in SF, and she has a husband and two toddlers, so she can't really help me much (but also can't interfere too much). Because she's my sister, there's no way she'd not go to my wedding, and she's more than willing to help me in any ways she can.
The only 'zilla type attitude I've gotten from her was her reactions to a couple things - when I told her FI doesn't want to wear a tie, she freaked. He's going to wear a mandarin-collared ensemble (shirt & coat) with just a button-cover instead of a tie. Once I told her that, she said "oh, that looks nice".
The other thing is my flowers. FI and I both want sunflowers, and there's red in my dress, so we wanted to work that in. Thing is, I don't want much, if any, orange or brown in my flowers - I'm not going for an Autumn theme (late august wedding, still the height of summer here). She said "yellow and red makes me think ketchup and mustard" and got really pissy with me when I insisted I didn't want much orange in my bouquet.
Of course, then she was the one who found a picture online of the PERFECT bouquet - small sunflowers, dark red roses, and two orange-ish gerbera dasies. I love it!
But she's going to reserve blocks of hotel rooms for me, since she is a Marriot rewards member and can get a better rate than I can. She's also been a wealth of information for me. I'm very grateful to have her input in this.
Of course, that leaves me to do all of the favors, etc by myself! I still have no clue what to do for those! :)
KG1111 3/20/06 8:52 A
Thank you SO much! I guess your true friends come out during a wedding!
JOJO1974 3/20/06 8:40 A
Man, they should be lucky that you are buying their dresses. Some people have no class!
Hope things work out!
MALAIA 3/20/06 6:34 A
Gawd lol its so nice to know I"m not the only one with bridemaidzillas! I've got two bridesmaids here in Sweden and I"m buying their dresses. I was showing them the dresses I wanted and they were like oh no no no we'll look fat in that.. Gawd ARGH!
Chin up after one day its all over =D LOL thats what I keep telling myself
KG1111 3/20/06 4:27 A
Yeah, I guess I can see your point, but she only stopped talking to me after I told her I got engaged. We used to talk everyday!! Maybe she is just being cheap, but I would be there for her wedding no matter what, boyfriend or not! Our friends are getting married in April and he just asked my fiance to be in the wedding because his best friend (the best man) doesn't want to spend the $600 to come from New York (and that was including hotel and air!). He said if he was to come to California he wanted to be there for more time. I just find that so rude. But it's nice to know it's not just a girl catty thing. (:
JANICESKATES 3/18/06 11:06 P
KG -
In my case, I felt the way I did about going to my friend's wedding (note: I wasn't *IN* the wedding) because it was a symptom of the fact that we just weren't good friends anymore. I'd moved after a bad breakup and my friend never visited me, even though I'd only moved 45 minutes north of where I'd been living. Our keeping in touch was completely on me. And her wedding *was* inconvienent - it was far away, at her parents house in a small town with bad hotels that weren't even close by. Because there was no parking on her parents' street, guests had to be bussed into the neighborhood, scheduled only for the beginning and end of the wedding. Oh, and it was outside, in JULY.
All in all, it seemed like a lot to contend with for someone who never called me of her own accord. Once I realized how annoyed I was at her for making no effort towards our friendship, I sent a gift, figuring that's what she was really after, and moved on peacefully.
HILLARYMVRE 3/18/06 5:10 P
I had a bridesmaid that was acting the exact same way! She and I are like best friends so I was really caught off guard. We are also traveling for our wedding so I paid for my bridesmaids plane tickets. They got their dresses on clearance so most of them spent under $20 on that. The only thing is, I asked them to pay for their hotel room which was going to be about $250 for three nights. Everybody was super impressed that it was going to be so cheap to go to Las Vegas.... except her. She was being totally cattty to me so I asked her what her problem was and she told be that everyone thought that I was asking to much of them financially. I know for a fact that she was the only one that felt that way... it really hurt to have such a close friend lie to me and treat me the way she was because she decided to pay for her boyfriend to go to Las Vegas! Sheesh!
KG1111 3/18/06 7:08 A
Why do you feel that way? Do you have bridesmaids that feel that way about your wedding?
DIVAJAG 3/17/06 10:08 P
Janice, wow! I've done/acted the same way you did at my friend's upcoming wedding. It's good to know I'm not alone in my thoughts/feelings. Her wedding is in three weeks -- I can hardly wait for it to be over.
JANICESKATES 3/16/06 1:04 P
I'd like to say I can't imagine it, but...I've met me. I can be a real pain in the ass when I'm having a bad time.
I, in fact, did not attend a friend's wedding nearly 2 years ago, because I got in a snit over travel plans, told the bride that the hotel she picked was really rude, and when she got mad at me, because she felt she'd done the best with what was available, well, I just couldn't get over it. I ended up lying, saying that I had to attend a wedding with my then-boyfriend-now-fiancee that I had promised to go to ages ago - really, they were a couple weeks apart.
So I know I can be a real bear if you catch me at a bad time, short on vacation days, high on homework to finish, projects at work overdue, and worried about my next figure skating test. And then add jealousy of a friend getting married when I really wanted that and couldn't get my boyfriend to commit, or didn't even have one? Yeah, I could end up being a b*tch to my best friend in the whole world...I wish it weren't true, but it is.
But I think I'd snap out of it and come to my senses when my friend told me she needed me. It's just so easy to get caught up in our own drama in our own pretty little heads and forget that we can throw other people off-kilter.
It'll all be okay!
KG1111 3/16/06 12:34 P
THANK YOU SO MUCH!! It is SO nice to know that someone else is going through something similar! And you're right about the situation that the girls are in, I guess. My fiance keeps telling me that but it's hard for me to believe that these people I've been friends with for so long would be so selfish. I know it sounds easy for me to say but I really can't see myself acting the same way if I were single and they were getting married. And my sister is getting ready to go through a divorce too so I guess you're right. But can you imagine acting like that? I really can't!
JANICESKATES 3/16/06 12:20 P
Okay, the friend who just stopped talking to you needs to grow up, but you've already gotten over that. The person who is unsure what July will be like - maybe ask her what the problem might be. Maybe you can work something out with her.
I had a friend cry with happiness at being asked to be in my wedding, then, a few weeks, later, she called and scaled back to a maybe, because she was thinking of trying for her second child and being massively pregnant at the time of my wedding. She was trying to be nice by letting me know way in advance, and it's not a problem now, but I felt a little vulnerable until the possible-pregnancy window had passed. I felt terrible being happy when she had to put off her baby plans for a little while...but I was, I really was. I ended up avoiding her for a while out of guilt! We're okay now though. :)
If there are others being flaky, just tell them you're feeling insecure, like they're not really into it, and they'll probably rally around you - I'm sure they just don't realize how you're feeling. I've also found that my recently married bridesmaids are much better to me than my unmarrieds (or my getting divorced cousin, but that's another story). People who have been there know how much is resting on you right now and are just really focused on not making waves...while the bachelorette bridesmaid will get mad at you because the bridal shop is a mile further away from her house than you guessed it was. Um, hello, I don't even live in that state! But that's my problem...I'm digressing...
And if talking to them and asking for a little support doesn't work, I'm sure you can recruit new bridesmaids from the board! My shower is in July, but I'd move it for you! :)
KG1111 3/16/06 12:03 P
It's not outward complaints. It's just the attitude they seem to be talking about the wedding like. I know it sounds like I'm being paranoid, but I really don't think I am. One friend that agreed to be a bridesmaid has not talked to me or responded to my messages in months, so I'm not even including her. Another one backed out a couple months ago saying she didn't know what her situation was going to be in July. WHAT?! I don't know. I just feel people think it's such a burden!
JANICESKATES 3/16/06 11:51 A
I don't think there's any reason for you to pay for their hotel, too. Being a bridesmaid is an expensive honor and they would be traveling to your wedding if they were just guests at it anyway. What exactly are the complaints? Maybe it's not about what it seems like on the surface.
KG1111 3/16/06 11:35 A
I feel like all my bridesmaids feel like they're doing me the biggest favor! We're getting married in Carmel, CA and we live in LA so because they have to travel, I bought all their dresses. But they're still complaining! I do admit I do have a lot of closer guy friends, but STILL! I would be honored if someone asked me to a bridesmaid at their wedding. Should I pay for their hotel too??
