Wedding Week - Part 4

After a fun week of visiting friends, luncheons and rehearsal dinners, and the wedding ceremony itself, we could take a deep breath, relax, and enjoy the festivities. 

When we first talked about the wedding, we both immediately thought "wouldn't it be fun if we could bring Oktoberfest to Charleston?"  Well, we couldn't do quite that, but we did bring some Bavaria to the festivities. 

We held the reception back in Charleston, at the Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon. Not only is a beautiful and historic venue, but we also thought it would be pretty cool to offer a dungeon tour at our wedding reception!  So, during the cocktail our, the guests had a tour of the dungeon, where pirates and confiscated British tea were held and also where you can see the only remaining parts of Charleston's old city walls. I had no idea Charleston was a walled city, or that the water used to come up to the building. 

One of our hopes was to figure out how to get hops and good German beer. Luckily our wonderful florist and caterer were able to come through for us!  We decided to offer a selection of Munich beers - a Weihenstephaner helles, a Paulaner Weissbier, and a Franziskaner Dunkelweissbier. 

And of course some mini pretzels to snack on before the reception began. 

While our guests enjoyed beer and pretzels and a tour of the museum, Herr J and I stopped at our hotel to change into our Bavarian party clothes. 


Our bartender gets into the spirit, thanks to some dirndl and lederhosen aprons Herr J found online. 

However, my favorite party favor he found online was the Maβ coozy, lederhosen style.  (Luckily he saved one for me, and it took a trip to Oktoberfest this year)



Again, Sara, our awesome florist somehow divined from my explanations and random Pinterest ideas exactly what I envisioned for simple centerpieces... of course in Maβ glasses. 

Luckily the lebkuchenherzen we had shipped over arrived at the last minute and we were able to put them out on the table as decorations and more fun Bavarian things to take home. 


The father of the bride and ushers. 



Two of my favorite things about the room were the two fireplaces on each end, and the gorgeous caribbean blue ceiling that you can see in the mirror. 


And one of the moment's we'd been eagerly awaiting....the cake. Again, another example of a wonderful vendor who was able to create exactly what we wanted from what I'm sure was a very poor description.  If anyone in the Charleston area needs a cake (birthday, wedding, otherwise), I highly recommend our baker Tammy at Cakes by Kasarda... especially the "moist chocolate" flavor.  If you're getting married in the area, it's worth a visit to sample her cakes. We were blown away by the taste and by the presentation.  This was my first cake tasting ever, though Herr J had been with friends and to the wedding expo with his brother. So, when she brought out little slices of several types of cake, and then a plate of scoops of several frostings, and yet another plate of several fillings....well, I thought that was the normal way cake tasting went and was pretty excited for the next one. Though I did think it would be hard to top her cake - at least 3 flavors were the best example of that flavor cake I've ever tasted. 

Herr J tried to warn me that we should probably just cancel the other appointment and book Tammy, but I thought cake tasting was fun. As usual, he was right. The next place just brought out different samples of pre-frosted and assembled cakes. And they all had pretty much the same frosting and taste and I was wishing we'd skipped it.  

I will say that choosing the cake was really difficult, but we got exactly what we wanted thanks to Tammy's tasting where we could mix and match. And when I was having trouble deciding between the American buttercream that was just too sweet and the Swiss buttercream that could be a tiny bit sweeter, she suggested that she often just blends the two. So, we created a cake with perfect frosting and were able to alternate layers of cake - alternating vanilla and almond on the bottom tier, alternating vanilla and strawberry (and she blends fresh strawberries into the batter), and chocolate on top. I don't remember if the chocolate is mixed with vanilla or not....we'll see when we next visit my parents and take it out of the freezer! 





A toast by the best man...

... and the maid of honor.  We realized with a laugh when they signed the marriage book as witnesses for us that we chose well...between the two of them, we have attorneys licensed to practice in at least 3 states. 

And then it was time for the dances. First, father and daughter.
 

 And then our first dance together.

And then, time to eat!  When we started this process, I was a little worried we wouldn't find German food. I'd found what looked like a good German restaurant in town, but it had closed. And caterers mostly focused on Asian, Mexican, or Southern food.  Had we gotten married 3 hours west in Spartanburg (home of the BMW plant), I think we would have had a plethora of options for Bavarian food. But, luckily my father found a local caterer who said "you want to do Oktoberfest for your reception? We've never done German before, but that sounds fun!" And when she came back with a proposed menu based on internet research, she said that the one dish that kept popping up as classic German food was this thing call currywurst.  

In the end, we went with our favorite German dish (actually Schwabisch, not Bavarian), zwiebelrostbraten and käsespätzle. For those who haven't had the pleasure, it's basically steak with fried onions on top. It's often served with a beer sauce and with käsespätzle, which I like to call German artisanal mac and cheese. Yum!  

 

And we did have a sausage and sauerkraut bar. They found some great bratwurst and served it on a bun with mustard or as currywurst. And did a realy good job with the sauerkraut. We also had some green asparagus, rice pilaf, and baked apples.  We weren't sure how it would work, but Cru Catering did a fantastic job. They also managed to serve incredibly tender steak, which is always a big risk to cook for such a large party. 

 
I think we should have practiced cutting the cake - I had no idea it would be so difficult to get the slice out of there! 

 

One thing that was difficult to find in Germany for an American wedding was a cake cutter. I'm not well versed enough in German weddings to know if a ceremonial cake cutter isn't normally used, or if the cutting of the cake just isn't a big thing (or the cake itself).  In any event, when we described to a sales lady at a big kitchen store what we were looking for, she said they didn't carry anything like that, but they did have a ceremonial knife for cutting stollen. Dresdner stollen, to be precise. We figured it was pretty cool and sword-looking and we could combine another German state into the mix, so why not?

Apparently this is a replica of the Giant Dresden Stollen Knife, which was 1.6 meters long.  Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, was said to love holding festivals. In 1730, he held a magnificent baroque festival for which he commissioned an 1.8 ton (18 yards long by 8 yards wide) stollen (traditional Christmas cake).  It took 8 horses to bring the stollen to the table and in order to cut such a cake, he had a 12 kg silver knife forged. 

After going into the Saxon treasury and surviving the November Revolution, it was lost after being hidden away from the advancing Red Army at the end of World War II. 

After much research, a replica was created and they market more manageable sized versions.  Next Christmas, we'll be cutting our stollen in style and remembering our wedding day. 
 

We had the chance to catch up with family and friends, some of whom we hadn't seen in too long.  And to learn something new about some....for example that our cousins knew every song and every dance....we were impressed!

 

A little more dancing before the night ended. 

And the last minute gummis we'd ordered to replace the favor bags that hadn't arrived.... 

....but luckily arrived the morning of the wedding!

 
After the reception ended, we went up to the rooftop of the Vendue Inn for a drink with friends.  

We then returned to the hotel, just to add a little more laughter to the week.  After we'd finally cleared off everything we'd left on the bed in our haste to get ready, we finally went to bed. I thought it was strange the duvet was wet, but it seemed to just be water, and it wouldn't surprise me if I left a wet towel or spilled water on it or something like that. Not 5 minutes later I jump up as something wet starts coming out of the ceiling. The mystery of the wet duvet is solved by the water leaking out of the vent in the ceiling. Luckily they had a vacant room across the hall and we just slept there - in a nice clean and uncluttered room. 

The next morning we hurried to pack everything up and met some Dallas friends at High Cotton for breakfast before we all headed out of town. 

I can't say enough about the food in the area. There are so many great restaurants around, and not only in downtown Charleston. Here's a sampling of the wonderful breakfast. 

Johnny Cakes
 Biscuits and Cornbread (with sweet butter)

Chicken and Waffles

Corned beef and hash

 

shrimp and grits

And one of the most thoughtful (and tasty) gifts we've ever seen.  My oldest friend (we go back to 3rd grade) came to the wedding. She's a pretty excellent baker and cookie decorator and she left a box of homemade love heart cookies for us at the hotel.  And she took the time to look up a bunch of different love sayings in German to write on the hearts. So cute! And they were really tasty, melt in your mouth shortbread kind of cookies. 

 

 

With full bellies and a few hours before I had to fly out for business meetings (sad to leave my new hubby, but he was flying home the next day), we decided to go back to Frankie's Fun Park for some mini-golf. We didn't have time for golf the day we drove the go-karts.  

This time, with wedding rings!

I've always been pretty terrible at air hockey, but I think getting married changed that. Best air hockey performance of my life!

 

We finished up the day with this crazy Speed of Light game they have. We took a video of some other people playing it. You compete against each other and earn points for hitting the lighted buttons. I think you get more points depending on how quickly you hit them in a row and may lose points for mistakes. And then there's a bonus round to hit as many as you can in a short time. It's out of control and addictive and fun. 

And then Herr J dropped me at the airport and I spent the week in New York.  We had a friend getting married the following weekend in another part of Germany, so I flew into Frankfurt. Coincidentally another friend from London was attending the wedding and flying in from New York, so Herr J picked us up in Frankfurt and we all went to the wedding. 

And when we finally returned to Munich that Sunday, we dropped off the rental car and had our first meal in Munich as husband and wife and had our first Oktoberfest beer of the season. A lovely evening at Augustiner am Dom

dining on our favorite zwiebelrostbraten!

A huge thanks to all of our family and friends who travelled to celebrate with us, and to all of our amazing vendors who made this work for two crazy people trying to arrange a wedding by phone and internet. And to our wonderful pastor who was willing to work outside the box and did many of our pre-wedding counseling sessions by Skype.  With everyone's help, we had our dream wedding!

All photos of reception by Marni Rothschild.

Wedding Week - Part 3

It seems like the wedding was ages ago, but it is Valentine's Day after all, so maybe pretty good timing to post some photos from the actual wedding. 

We had a relaxing morning with friends - Herr J caught up with a friend over some more barbecue and I joined the Dallas crew for a good southern breakfast before heading off to the salon.  This time with a request for less hairspray and hopefully no repeat of the prior night's massive tangles.


(All further pictures by the talented Marni Rothschild)

Getting ready in the church library, with all the challenges of laces and bows to tie!

It was so much fun to see the final product of everything we'd selected. We did it all over the course of a few days in May, so we weren't quite sure if everything would turn out as we had in mind. But everything was perfect, including the bouquets with hops and edelweiss and other green and white flowers. 


And of course hops boutonnieres for the men.  Herr J and I so enjoyed our trip to the Hallertau Hopfenland that we wanted to include some hops in our wedding flowers. It was a good thing we had a September wedding, as our amazing florist, Sara, was able to find them in season from somewhere in the US. Interestingly, the US (Oregon or Washington) hops have much larger flowers than the Hallertau hops. Not sure if it was just the different variety, or if decorative hops typically are larger than beer hops. 

And there's an edelweiss flower thrown in there for some good Alpine measure. They were available, so why not?

We hurried to take some family and bridal party pictures before I had to be sequestered away from Herr J's sight. My mother was on lookout duty, trying to spot the groom's car. 



Yet another thing we guessed on and worked perfectly was Herr J's tie. I had in mind that it was the right color, but couldn't really compare the two when we bought his tie. And I couldn't explain to him why I thought pale blue and white were good colors without telling him how my dress looked. 


relaxing, and waiting.....


...and finally it's time to head to the sanctuary. My maid of honor is trying to deal with the huge train. 


Getting my game face on!


What I found out later was that while my father and I were waiting to be told it was OK to enter, Herr J and his brother were waiting at the altar, wondering if everything was going OK. I guess we came in a verse late on the processional. Oops! Sorry for the added stress, Herr J, but I hope you knew I wouldn't miss it!

While Herr J and I were pretty happy that day, I'm not sure anyone was more happy than my parents!


And the first husbandly duty is to carry that heavy train!

Two of my gorgeous bridesmaids!



And the new in-laws. 

The wedding party

I love my bouquet! The funny thing is that we attended a wedding the following weekend in Germany. They had edelweiss in their flowers too - it was only because of seeing them in my own bouquet that I could answer everyone's question of "What are those alien-looking furry flowers?"  I guess I'd only seen drawings of edelweiss, not the real thing. I knew the shape, but thought they were smaller and definitely not furry!

After the ceremony, we headed back into Charleston to get ready for the reception.  We took a few photos around the historic district. 


And a Bavaria-meets-Charleston one

Then we headed back to the hotel for a quick change before the reception. More fun, more Bavaria to follow!

Until then, wishing everyone a happy Valentine's Day!

- Herr J and Frau A

Wedding Week - Part 2

After a few days of visiting friends (Herr J in Georgia and me in Myrtle Beach), catching up with our parents, and doing a little siteseeing, it was finally time for the official activities of wedding week to begin on Friday.

After a morning trial run with the hairstylist, I had a bridal luncheon with the bridal party, Herr J's and my mother, Aunt A, and Cousin B. It was a lovely treat to get to go out to the beach on Kiawah, and I'm so thankful to everyone for such a wonderful afternoon. Everyone looks so beautiful and colorful!

 

We were incredibly lucky with the weather - it was windy but sunny at the beach, but the rain began as soon as we left Kiawah. By the time we got to the church for the rehearsal, it was pouring, with thunder and lightning. We ran through the ceremony quickly, had a few laughs, and signed the marriage certificate with our witnesses. It made quite a funny picture of Herr J and I standing around the book with our pastor - and our attorneys! We were well represented by counsel licensed to practice in at least 4 states....though they were only present in their capacities as Maid of Honor and Best Man!

By the time we finished the rehearsal, the storm had passed over. Some guests later told us that as they were driving past the church there was a big rainbow overhead. If rain is a positive omen for a wedding, then I'm hoping a rainbow is even better!

(Please note - all photos below are by the wonderful Marni Rothschild)

Our church, St. Johns Parish:

Though I'd been quite worried, the afternoon storm turned out to be a blessing. The rain cooled down the temperature and dramatically reduced the humidity - and mde some lovely skies over the marsh. Since we were coming from Munich and many of our friends and family were travelling to Charleston for the first time, we wanted a wedding weekend that reflected our lives and showed off the beauty of the low country. We couldn't have picked a better spot than the Sea Island Yacht Club on Wadmalaw Island. This is what I wanted everyone to see.







It has a huge, wide porch overlooking the river and the marsh and is a perfect setting for a low country boil (a tradition in the area).  What is a low country boil? It's usually some variation of sausage, shrimp, corn on the cob, potatoes, and spices - thrown together in a pot and cooked outside.  If you do it yourself, you'll probably gather around the pot and have some drinks and some laughs while you wait. 



Again, the beautiful bridesmaids (with their lebkuchenherzen).



Mmmm....cornbread muffins...

To give everyone the real down home experience, my dad demonstrates shucking oysters at the oyster bar. Many of our Texas friends really enjoyed this part!


It was a perfect gathering of family

and friends 

and good food and views. 


At the end of the night, we did a fun little trivia quiz on Germany, with various German food products as prizes. Of course, you get a prize whether or not you're correct!

We fell in love with our baker Tammy's cakes at the cake tasting, so we had to get a couple of sheet cakes for the rehearsal, too. Here is chocolate cake with buttercream filling and a vanilla cake with raspberry filling.  Best chocolate cake we've ever tried. 


Enjoying the view of the river. 


The first day of the wedding events went very well. We had so much fun at the rehearsal dinner catching up with everyone - it was our first chance to see most of the guests who were not in the wedding, and a relaxed low country boil turned out to be the perfect locale. 

Also, we'd received the last minute favors from Amazon to substitute for the ones lost in the intercontinental mail. We were holding out hope that maybe another box would arrive in the morning. Being a wonderful small town, my mom asked the postwoman if she could call in the morning if the box arrived. But we were prepared and ready for the big day. 

Until around midnight I went to get ready for bed. I knew my hair had some pretty major knots in it - humidity and wind are not kind to me. But all the hairspray and styling of the morning must have created some evil chain reaction to turn my hair into one giant strawberry blonde dreadlock. Yes, my hair looks great in the photos, but if you lift up one strand, the ENTIRE mess would come with it. 

I thought that washing it and combing through some conditioner would do the trick. After 3 (small) bottles of conditioner and 90 minutes sitting in the bathtub (I was too tired to stand in the shower and too wet and cold to stand out of it), I finally got the knots out. There were some serious moments of doubt and thinking that we were going to have to cut it out...the morning of the wedding. Of all the things I thought would be major stresses in getting married, brushing my hair was not even on the list. 

Luckily my hair survived, Herr J survived the trauma of a bride fearful of losing her hair the day of the wedding, and we made it to the final, big day. And I've promised to avoid hairspray, backcombing, and anything else that might traumatize us both in the future when it comes to women trying to look pretty. 

Wedding Week - Part I

After much anticipation and planning from abroad, we finally made it to our wedding in early September. It was a bit of a logistical feat, but in the end everything came together and was even better than I'd hoped. 

Photo by Marni RothschildWe decided to get married near Charleston, SC, which is not only where my family lives, but also just a beautiful spot for a wedding or a vacation...or in the case of many guests, both!  While visiting my parents last Christmas, we were able to book the church and a reception venue, and then were able to book everything else through a combination of internet, telephone, and a quick trip last May. Thank goodness for the internet and major help from my parents! 

 

We had a pretty clear vision of what we wanted - something combining the natural beauty of the low country with some aspects from our life together in Munich. And above all, we wanted it to be fun for our guests and a chance to get together with family and friends who we unfortunately do not see often enough.

 

And so with that goal in mind, we set out to bring a little of Munich and Oktoberfest to Charleston. Which is why I spent much of my free time this summer in front of the sewing machine. Not just finishing the dirndl I'd started last year, but making trachten treat bags for wedding favors.  I'd started by making little pouches out of dirndl fabric (blue gingham with flowers, green gingham with hearts, and a fun red, white and black pattern), and Herr J gave me a brilliant idea to make lederhosen shaped ones as well. This took some trial and error, but eventually they came out looking like little lederhosen. It was a fun project and I'm now intimately acquainted with the contents of several stores' sewing departments, and I got in some good practice with my sewing machine's embroidery stitches!!

 

We stuffed the treat bags with an assortment of German candies, boxed them up, and mailed them to the US in a few different shipments 4-6 weeks before the wedding. We sourced what we could in the US (beer mugs, etc), but certain things could only come from Germany and we shipped quite an assortment of German food products, candies, and a lot of lebkuchenherzen for decoration. 


And after shipping it all off we carefully packed for a complex itinerary (Herr J was visiting friends, attending the wedding, and then flying back to Munich; I was visiting family, going to the beach with friends, going to NYC for a week-long business trip, and then meeting him and another friend at the airport in Frankfurt to attend a friend's wedding before finally heading back to Munich).  Herr J left a couple days earlier than I. While I was excited to get on with the getting married, I found that I really missed him and it was strange flying over alone. Fitting that feeling, it was a cold, rainy day leaving Munich. 

It was neither cold nor rainy in South Carolina! 

For the first time in many, many years, I was able to celebrate my birthday with family.  I had a nice dinner with my parents and uncle, and then met the Dallas girls Sunday morning to start our Myrtle Beach adventure.  I hadn't been on a road trip or a girls' trip in a long time. It was so much fun to see everyone. We packed up the rental minivan, stopped for a good lunch on the way and then headed up to the beach.  

One of our friends was kind enough to get a week in a family member's condo near Myrtle Beach and several of the girls came for some or all of the week before the wedding. Relaxing and catching up with girlfriends was the perfect start to the week.  But before starting the bachelorette festivities, they surprised me with an ice cream cake and birthday presents! 



It was a fun but kind of odd birthday this year... Since my main focus was on the wedding and travel, I kept forgetting about my birthday. Since we would be apart on the day, Herr J surprised me the previous Sunday with a table full of great birthday presents (lots of great hiking and diving gear and a fisheye lens for my OMD). And then I'd forgotten again and got to enjoy the surpise yet again. 

But, back to the relaxing on the beach with trashy magazines.... 

In between a lot of much-needed relaxing and talking, we fit in a little bachelorette fun 

And there were more suprises and presents...including some lingerie and a sparkly "bachelorette" tiara which I of course wore out to dinner. 

We went out for a nice seafood dinner overlooking the pier, where our sweet young waiter brought us some extra key lime pie and gave us a tip on where to find a nice but not overly crowded beach. (Basically, he told us where the older people go...which I guess is now my demographic group!)

And then we went up to the rooftop deck for after dinner drinks. Nothing too crazy, but we did try to stay young with a round of shots (Coke for the pregnant friend/designated driver!)

And we couldn't leave Myrtle Beach without watching this classic. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. 

While I was catching up with the girls and getting in some pre-wedding beach time, Herr J was also visiting friends and catching up on American culture. Yes, he went to Georgia's first game of the season! He also introduced his friends' sons to the joys of German candy. 

After our respective pre-wedding trips, we met back up in Charleston on Wednesday morning.  We spent a lovely day with his parents, taking in some of the sights around Charleston.  Their first stop was the Angel Oak on Johns Island


After a quick stop at Fiery Ron's Home Team BBQ for some of their great pulled pork and mac and cheese (subtly flavored with a hint of mustard), we headed down to Patriot's Point to catch our tour to Ft. Sumter. (Given all the things that we wanted and needed to do in a short time, Herr J had a very detailed timeline that allowed us to get it all done). 



I hadn't been to Ft. Sumter in many years, and it was a beautiful day for it. The great thing about this tour is that you also get a nice boat ride and views of the harbor and marshes. 


And the dolphins were swimming just off the fort. So much fun to watch, but they're frustratingly difficult to photograph! When we chose the venue for our rehearsal dinner, the dolphins frolicking (or feeding?) in the shallows of the river tipped the scales in favor of the place we chose.   



So, after a day of siteseeing, we and Herr J's parents went over to my parents' house for a nice relaxed, newly-extended family dinner.  

 

And on Thursday, before the festivities really began, we took a day to just relax and spend time together.  Of course, before we could do anything else, we had to deal with the favor situation. I'd been a little paranoid about mailing everything over, but figured a month would be plenty of time for them to arrive. And of course there was no way I could carry everything over with me. I did expect that perhaps a few chocolates would melt or be crushed, so I packed a couple extra bags of the more delicate chocolates in case we needed to replace a few.  But I wasn't prepared for the packages to go missing, for DHL to have no information about where they were (somewhere between having left Germany and having arrived in the US was the best they could do with the tracking numbers), or for the fact that in the one box which finally arrived Wednesday, the damage was so bad that the gummi bears had liquified!  The chocolate of course also was a disaster.  

While we were still holding out hope that they might arrive, we realized that with 48 hours to go before the wedding, we needed to find a backup plan. And thankfully Amazon US stocks a wide range of Haribo gummis and has 1 day shipping. We ordered enough bags of different gummis to give as favors, and were just hoping the boxes arrived. At that point I'd given up hope of any of the candy being edible, but was hoping my weeks of work on the bags wasn't wasted. (The ones that arrived were undamaged, but were only 1/3 of the bags). Sadly, we could find no solution to replace the lebkuchenherzen that we planned to use for decorations. 

With our Amazon order placed, and having just heard from my dad that the lebkuchenherz did arrive, we decided to try out Sticky Fingers, which was recommended as one of the better bbq restaurants in town. 

I'm not normally a big wing fan - mostly because there's often so little meat on there and it's not worth the trouble - but the manager sent us a few wings to try, and even I admit they are pretty great. First, they're pretty meaty and large wings, and so a lot less effort to eat. And the taste really makes it worth it....slightly smoky and tasty, not the fried stuff covered in artificial tasting sauce.  These actually remind me of the great wings at Newton Circus in Singapore, if you've had those. 



With the wings and the friendly service, we knew we were off to a good start, and the entrees did not disappoint.  We both got combos so that we could try them all out, and I think the beef brisket was my favorite. And I'm a sucker for any restaurant with hush puppies on the list of sides!



The sauce choices...yes, of course we tried them all. (My favorite combo was the Tennessee Whisky on the beef brisket)

So, with our happy and full bellies, we headed off to unwind and play at Frankies Fun Park. (And let me just say now how wonderful the fun park is on a Thursday during the 2nd week of school....we had the place almost to ourselves).  

 

Our main event was the go kart racing.  A pretty pink car for the bride...

...and blue for the groom!



We also rode the slides and couldn't resist some skee-ball and some of the other arcade games.  A great way to leave the stress behind! 

We had one final meeting at the church and then I had one last mini-bachelorette party - dinner at Husk with my two bridesmaids who couldn't make it to Myrtle Beach. They brought me a gorgeous vintage veil to wear and we enjoyed some delicious southern cooking. 


Unbeknownst to us, it was Restaurant Week in Charleston....lucky, because we get to sample some amazing food at good prices, and not so lucky because everything is booked.  However, Husk is well-equipped for waiting and has a lovely bar in an adjoining house with some snacks.  


The food was definitely worth the wait, and we three had a lot of catching up to do! 

SC Shrimp with Tomato Braised Okra and Sweet Peppers
Fried Green Tomato with TN Cheddar Pimento, Pickled Ramps and Surry Country Ham
Kurios Farms Bibb with Marinated Heirloom Tomatoes, Roasted Corn and Salami, NC FetaThe appetizers were so good we forgot to take pictures of the rest of the food. However, Husk archives all of its menus online so you can go back and drool over all of the possibilities. 

With so many great meals, activities, and time reconnecting with friends and family, it was the perfect way to start off the week. But come Friday morning, the real rush begins!

 

Friday Photo Favorite: The Big Day...

It's finally here...tomorrow is our wedding!