Friday's with Mr. Milk - To Film or Not to Film?

Why do people film their wedding? I mean, it's not like you'll sit there and watch it over and over again is it? Chocolate Lover and I aren't too big on filming stuff to begin with, hence my questioning of the practice. We don't even buy DVD's or hold on to DVR recordings. I think that once you watch a movie that's it! If you are desperate to watch it again I'm sure it can be found somewhere so what's the point of spending money on collectibles? Then again, I wouldn't mind having a copy of the Shawshank Redemption, so from that point of view if something is important enough or you like it that much, then it's worth having.

So for our wedding, although we are not going nuts on videography (we focussed more of our resources on photography), we will still hire a videographer to capture the raw footage of everything that went on. Then the thought is to have friends and family film their own vingettes using digital cameras and collect all of that footage onto iMovie on a Mac so that we can create a good, but FREE, 5 minute highlight video. We'll be asking the videographer to setup an additional camera on a tripod filming us from the "viewer's" angle so that our guests sitting outside the small church of Aphrodite Hills can watch what's going on inside the church through either two LCD screens mounted on the wall of the church or on a projector screen. We haven't figured out all the details yet...

At the end of the day, your wedding day is important enough that you don't want to regret not having done something after the fact. And with that premise in mind, we will be recording it live from Aphrodite Hills on September 25, 2010.

Until next Friday, this is Mr. Milk signing off.

P.S. Why do we still say "film" when everything nowadays is digital? I guess will be "diggin" our wedding day :o)

What I Owe You

So the other day I took a raincheck on writing 10 interesting things about me when I received the Sugar Doll award. Its time to deliver. Not sure if it will be interesting to you, but here goes:

1. I have lived on 3 continents and each place feels like home.
2. Mr. Milk proposed Christmas morning and I was totally clueless about what was about to happen (some of you may know that already).
3. I have something chocolatey every day (surprise surprise)!
4. We recently started ballroom dance classes at our community center and I have trouble being led!
5. I would love to have a dog or two but can't imagine putting them on the long-ass plane ride  to Cyprus if we decide to move back. I also can't imagine leaving them behind. Sigh
6. I love pasta and could never do the no carb thing (What are these people thinking! No offence). 
7. I love receiving things in the mail (non-bill related obviously). Thanks to online shopping I can still experience that!
8. I hate it when people are inconsiderate and judgmental. Its one of the few things that makes me really angry
9. Almost there... I am addicted to TV (yes I make a great couch potato!). Grey's Anatomy, Oprah, DWTS, you name it, I watch it. Clearly I would go nuts without the DVR!
10. And last but by no means least...Well... Lets see what Mr. Milk has to say. He's coming through the door right now...Come on hon the ladies are waiting... "She's always right" (I swear no coaching was involved!)

So there you have it. My list :)

Blog Award!

I was again the honored recipient of a blog award! Thanks go to A Cupcake Wedding and Morgan at The Handcrafted Hitching Post. These are two blogs that I started following recently and encourage you to check out!

The directions are to post the award on your site, write 10 interesting things about yourself, and then pass it on to 10 other bloggers.

Since the passing-it-on to others is easier than the writing-10-facts, I'll start with that ;o)

Running to the Wedding
Buhdoop
Girl with a Ring
You Can't Take it With You
Random Reflections of a Perfectionist
Thoughts of the All Consumed Bride
Sassy Bride on a Mission
A Cape Cod Bride
Sand Dollars and Sunflowers
That's What She Said!

Will follow up with the 10 facts when I can come up with something interesting in a following post.

First Etsy Purchase

I must admit that before all the wedding planning and blogging I had no idea what Etsy was. After seeing it on blog after blog, I thought it was about time I found out. What a great site! There are so many things that I like and have added to my favorites. And just by browsing I've gotten several ideas for gifts.

Well the other day I made my first purchase! So exciting! This is what I bought...

A monogram stamp from Modern Art Stamps. Obviously we are getting it with our initials and wedding date, but what's got us excited about this simple stamp is that its in the font we are using to design our invitations and monogram. Coincidentally!

The stamp was cheap, mainly because it wasn't mounted. We figured we could do that. It will take 2-4 weeks for us to get it but I couldn't wait that long to post about it. More to come when its here. Next stop...inks!

Friday's With Mr. Milk - Designing Invitations

We've finally managed to get a working copy of Adobe Creative Suite 4 on my Mac. It took a while due to some ridiculous error claiming that the software could not be licensed on my computer. Anyways, that's a different story. Chocolate Lover and I felt that the most efficient way of printing our invites would be by designing them ourselves (since I know how to use desktop publishing software) and by using a printing company that I hire quite frequently at work.

Now we are in colour heaven, or hell, depending on how you look at things. For those who don't know much about colours, what you see is NOT what you get, as CL quickly realized. just because you think you found the perfect teal on the screen it doesn't mean that when it's printed it'll look exactly like that. After a quick colour 101 with CL, we are now looking at the proper Pantone colours, coated or uncoated depending on the printing surface, and the right CMYK readings so that our invites look as good on paper as they do on screen. The only thing we are left battling now is the Greek letter for 'P', otherwise known as the numeric 3.14 or 'pi', which is my initial. We want to use that for the Greek invites but unfortunately the script we have for our monogram does not come in Greek.

I'll update you on the developments in a later post. For now, I need to get back to creating my own font so that I can print my name in it's proper Greek spelling rather than have our Greek guests think that my name starts with an 'R' (the Greek letter for what looks like the English 'P'). Or maybe I should really change my name to Mr. Milk....

Until next Friday, this is Mr. Milk signing off.

Our Reception Revealed

So it occurred to me the other day that I haven't really talked about our reception. While the ceremony and dinner here discussed in a previous post I failed to mention that our reception will be on a totally different day!

This is for several reasons. To begin with we want to be able to enjoy our ceremony and dinner with our close friends and family. This will hopefully allow us to spend enough time with the people that are special to us and who potentially travelled hundreds of mile to be with us on our day.

Another reason involves the culture and size of Cyprus. We are basically a dot on the map. Unless you know what you are looking for, you will most likely miss this lil' island. Due to its size, it's easy to imagine that between our two families, we know a lot of people. The only thing I guess I can equate it to in terms of North America is living in a small town and knowing more or less everyone. But on a bigger scale.

Our parents have people they want to invite but not necessarily people Mr. Milk and I know or are close to. Having the reception on a different day will allow our parents to invite the people who are closer to them. While Mr. Milk and I were ok with missing this step completely, we realized that it is important to both our parents to share their kids joy with their friends and colleagues. My dad and his mom initially did not like the idea of having the reception on a different day. My mom and his dad thought it was a great idea. Go figure. Anyway, the reception will be at a different venue altogether, somewhere cheaper, and will be on a weekday, I think it's a Wednesday. We came to realize that one of the issues people complain about face in Cyprus, is the huge number of weddings they have to go to, starting from May and probably going through all the way to November. Sometimes several Saturdays are taken up by weddings. In a row! And these can be weddings that include THOUSANDS of people. No joke! It's no coincidence the movie was called My Big Fat Greek Wedding! So we thought having a cocktail reception during the week would be appreciated by most of these guest who are coming to support our marriage, but mostly our parents. We will be leaving their weekend untouched.

Since our wedding venue is a little out of the way by Cyprus standards (if someone here heard Cypriots complaining about distance they would just laugh at them!), the second venue is in a more convenient location in the center of the capital city, Nicosia. We came to realize that a large majority of our guests, for both the dinner and the reception, reside in Nicosia. Around 80 to 90% if I had to guesstimate. So we also wanted to make it a little easier for these guests to get to our reception, which will only last a few hours.

source

As you may have figured out, culturally, family is very important to us. Not that it isn't to people anywhere else in the world, but I think we are more inclined to take our parents desires and wishes into account. Initially it was difficult for both Mr. Milk and I. We are not what we would refer to as traditional Cypriots by any means. He has lived in Canada for the last 10 years and I was in San Francisco for the last 5. Not to mention that I grew up in Saudi Arabia and only moved to Cyprus when I was 14. So no, not traditional. We were gung ho on having our wedding the way WE wanted it. But we realized that this went beyond our little worlds and that there were elements of us getting married that were important to our parents, that they took pride in, and I think, to some degree, they would have been hurt if we just went about our business and didn't take into account the things that were important to them.

The resolution came in the reception. The way we see it, our wedding day, the day of our ceremony and dinner, is OUR day. That day will be geared towards what we want. With the people we want, and the favors we want and so on. The reception is more about our parents and giving them the opportunity to celebrate our marriage in a way that makes them happy. Not that they aren't happy about the wedding day. They most definitely are. Its more about being proud of their kids and sharing that with their group of people. While it took a while to get here, and we are still working out the details for the reception venue, I think all parties involved are happy with the final decisions. And the best part? I get to wear my wedding dress twice! After all, this is all about the bride... ;o)

Have others faced cultural/familial dilemmas, issues, concerns? Would love to hear your views!

Warm Mocha Tart

This past Wednesday, I decided to have a "me" day. I indulged in activities that I enjoy and generally had a girly day. One of the things I did was bake. Using chocolate of course! So I thought I'd share my creation with you. I found the recipe in the book Bittersweet by Alice Medrich. It was given to me as a gift by my chocoholic friend and I love it. There are some amazing recipes in it. This recipe asks for a 91/2 inch fluted tart pan with removable bottom. 

It is worth investing in one of these (can find one for $10-15) if you plan on making this often as it makes it easy to remove the tart once its baked. Otherwise just make it in whatever round pan you have. The first piece will probably be difficult to remove but you should be ok after that. So lets begin:

Ingredients for the crust:

8tbs (1 stick) unsalted, melted butter
1/4 cup sugar
1/8 tsp salt
3/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour

Ingredients for the filling:

3 tbs unsalted butter, cut into chunks
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup heavy cream
11/4 tsp instant espresso powder or instant coffee crystals
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 large egg, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 350oF

Mix the butter, sugar, and vanilla in a bowl to make the crust. Add the flour and mix till well blended. The dough may seem too soft but this is fine. Press it evenly and thinly onto the bottom and sides of the pan

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the crust is a golden brown

In the meantime start to make the filling. Place the butter, sugar, cocoa powder, and cream in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir until the mixture is blended, smooth and begins to simmer around the edges. Remove from heat and stir in the instant espresso or coffee powder and vanilla. 

Just before the crust is ready, whisk the egg thoroughly into the hot choclate mixture. Pour the filling into the hot crust.

Place the pan into the over and turn the oven off (yes, off). Leave the tart in the over till it quivers like Jell-O. The recipe says this will take 10 to 12 minutes but I've found that it needs more like 20 minutes. 

Let cool on a rack and serve at room temperature. 

Yummmm

The coffee flavor is pretty mild in this tart so its great for those who don't particularly like coffee. Enjoy!