Eco friendly lighting

Hubby and I are on our path to being Earth responsible people. We started a good decade ago. I remember being a teenager and helping my parents to recycle, separate the vegetable remains to compost, turning off the lights when leaving a room, turning off the water while soaping in the shower, etc. In the past years we've also worked on replacing the lights we could with eco-friendly lights.
There are three basic steps to being green: Recycle, Reduce, Reuse. It is definitely important for us to include this in our wedding as much as possible. Lighting is one section where we can easily apply those steps.

1)Reuse.
We want to decorate our reception room with the LED christmas lights. At first I thought about buying some lights on E-bay, preferably LED so they use less energy (reduce). But then I realized I was beeing silly not to use our ressources.
We're in the United States after all. Everyone here seems to decorate their home to something extraordinary extents when comes Christmas. Meaning that most of the people we know own Christmas lights.
So we are going to reuse by borrowing lights from our family and friends. We will label each lights with the name of the person it belongs too, install them in the room a few days before the wedding, remove them a day after and give them back to their owner. Our wedding is weeks before Thanksgiving, when the official Christmas season and house decoration starts, and therefore no one will actually miss those lights.
We save money by not having to buy any and we protect the planet a little bit by reusing what's already there.

2)reduce
I love candles. And let's be honest; what's a wedding without candles? Candles scream romance, soft light and magic to me.
But there is one tiny problem. Those cheap tea light candles you buy in the stores are made of parrafin. Paraffin is a petroleum product, which is not a renewable resource and causes pollution in its production. They release soot when they burn (unhealthy) and carbon as well, contributing to a big issue I don't even need to mention. Not very eco-friendly is it?

Well there are alternatives: beewax, soy and palm oil.

Bee wax candles.
Who doesn't know bee wax? It's probably the oldest type of wax known to men. It's a renewable ressource because bees keep on creating it. As long as the beekeepers are careful in the way they harvest it, there is no damage to the bee population.
Pros: It's smokeless and smells good as it burns. It's a renewable ressource with a low impact on the environment. Last three times longer than paraffin and two times longer than soy candles.
Cons: they pretty much only come in their natural yellow, they are expensive
(image source)

Soy Candles
Those candles are definitely growing. It's a more recent product made from soy. You can find them in many colors and sented or unscented.
Pro:biodegreadable, clean burning, renewable, lasts up to 50% longer than parrafin when burning because it burns cooler. Hard enough to make in any shape.
Cons: still more expensive than regular candles (but less than bee wax), soy is a food therefore I wonder the impact on soy production and food access... The flame is not considered a "warm flame". And how we we know it's GMO free soy? Soy is soft and has to be kept in a jar.
(image source)

Vegetable-oil based candles (palm and more)
Again, a renewable ressource since it comes from the fruit of the tree. Again clean burning.
Look for GMO free.
Information on those candles seems a little bit harder to come by.

Make sure you check the labels and that it's 100% what you are looking for.

Personally I'm thinking of getting beewax candles, not only because of their great smell but also because my mom is a beekeeper at times and although she doesn't make beewax candles, I feel like it would be an extra touch to honor my parents.

Sources: www.epicureantable.com
www.greenyour.com/

A rush of sugar to the head

As I mentionned before, I have a sweet tooth. The cake can look any way the baker wants, it doesn't really matters to me. No what matters is the taste. I want flavor. I don't need tones of tasteless icing.

In France the traditionnal wedding cake are little puff pastries filled with pastry cream. Martha Stewart has it on her site as Croquembouche, and it's my grandmother's absolute favorite. She could eat the whole cake on her own, scary.

We didn't plan to have anything traditionnal (French or American). To be honest the wedding cake did not really matter in the sense of what it represents. We just wanted some good desserts.
At first I was ready to have family pinch in and bake some cakes: pumpkin cheesecakes and other recipes with a seasonal touch.
But it so happens that his mom offered to pay for our cake. So it's a baker who will take care of it, well of our cakes.

As I mentionned before, I really want one of the cakes to be a pumpkin cheesecake. And afte tasting Filo Pastries Dulce de Leche cheesecake, I knew I wanted them to do it, and then do the other cakes too. I talked to the owner Maria and she was open for a cake tasting, we discussed ahead of time what we were looking for: seasonal cakes. One of the main reason for that is that we want to use ingredients that are in season and don't have to be exported from far far away.
So on top of the pumpkin cheesecake she suggested: a hummingbird cake, a spice cake, an apple cake and then Hubby wanted a red velvet cake.

We decided not to try the spice cake because the other options just seemed more unique. So one evening after work, we went to meet Maria at Filo Pastrie.
A table was waiting for us with 4 plates, two glasses of water, forks and 4 giant slices of cake.

From left to right and top to bottom, I present you:
Pumpkin Cheesecake
Red Velvet Cake
Hummingbird Cake
Apple Cake.

I was salivating at the view. Maria sat down with us to listen to what we though.
I started with the Pumpkin Cheescake, I think that no matter what it was going to taste I already knew it was in. It was as light as a cloud, just like whipped cream (I don't mean calorie light). Pumpkins are not quite in season yet when we tried it and while the taste was good, I think it will be even better comes november.

The second cake was the hummingbird cake made with pinapple, pecans, banana and a cream cheese icing. Excellent, great texture and with a hint of cinnamon in it; it had my vote. Pineapple and banana are not exactly local products, but I think we'll make an exception on that one.

The third cake was the Apple Cake, also with pecans in it, and with plenty of spices. Cloves were very obvious and I just loved it. A perfect fall cake. The icing was also covered with crushed pecans making the outside of the cake as beautiful as tasty.

The last cake was the Red Velvet Cake that Hubby suggested. While it was good, it tasted a bit bland after the three others. I guess I was expecting something else, I was told it had chocolate and I really couldn't taste it.

So in the end we eliminate the Red Velvet Cake from our list and decided instead to have a Mochat Chocolate Torte. Thicker (a nice change to the other cake's textures) and definitely more chocolaty. I like chocolate and when it comes to it I don't do it halfway. We did not taste it, but given the other cakes, I have no worries that it will be fabulous.
We will also have a least one Pumpkin Cheescake, a Hummingbird Cake and a two tiers Apple Cake. Yes, we will after all have a "ceremony cake" for us to cut. The decoration wil be the crushed pecans all over, and I'm consiedering finding a few really pretty fall leaves, washing them well and placing them around the cake at the last minute.

No need to tell you that I was not very hungry for dinner after that. I did very much enjoyed the cake left overs in the day after and I really look forward to have our guests try those great cakes. Our baker will also be bringing the cakes on site.

What's your favorite cake? Did you pick that one for your wedding or did you go for something more traditionnal?

A deal on a ring

Deciding what ring we wanted for me motivated us to find his.
We had already looked at rings before to get a general idea of what he was looking for. Back then I had ahd to drag him in the store for him to look at someting.
From the star he had be adamant about no gold. He definitely did not want yellow gold, but even white gold was out of the question. The metal is too soft for him, especially being outdoors all the time and climbing at times (although he would remove the ring in such a case).

So we looked at alternative metals: tungsten and titanium were the main ones, we also considered stainless steel. At first he mentionned silver, but I was against that one. Sure silver is a precious metal, but it's just as fragile as gold and it darkens a lot as it ages and I didn't see that as a good symbol of our marriage. We had in mind the qualities and flaws of each metals.

That day I had a special incentive for him, especially after going over budget for my ring: two jewlery stores at the mall were going out of business and had clearance prices on most of their stock.
Neither jewleries had stainless steel ring; but they had tungsten and titanium. I think it's again the practical part that helped Hubby decide. Tungsten is much heavier than gold and you do really feel it on your finger, while titanium on the other side is a lot lighter, and for him easier to wear because of that.
Hubby tried several rings, he didn't want something too wide and something flat.
The first store had a potential winner, 5-6mm wide and the price was great.

But it was in the second store that we find the right one. By then he had decided that titanium was what he wanted for its lightness and practicality. They only had one ring left in titanium, 7mm wide, 2 different polish and Hubby loved it. It was just a little bit more expensive than the previous ring, but still under $100. So even if he looses it, we can always get a replacement. The size was right so we left with it and I went to play in the garden with my camera and the rings.


What metal did your husband/future husband picked for his ring? Any reasons?

Too busy

I'm congested and not feeling my best, a lot or work to do at work and way too little time with my husband have made me stay away from blogging a lot more than usual. Not to mention that, well, we're less than a month away from the big ceremony. I am so excited about it. I really cannot wait.
I'm on my own this week-end, so I'm going to try to write a few posts and schedule them for the coming weeks.

Several things have happened since my last post:
We picked Hubby's ring.
My dress's alterations are on their way
What to wear under the dress
The climber's garter project
Getting ready for the guests
Working on the food.
Hubby's outfit options.
The right shoes for me
The cake tasting