Wedding Photo Wednesday: Family moments

When Travis and I discussed our wedding, we always talked about how important family was to the whole affair. The best part of of the day was getting to see so many great parts of the family. So in this week's wedding photos, I'll be sharing some shots featuring family.

Mumsy-in-law and me

Travis' maternal grandparents. His grandmother is so sweet!

Dad and I during the father-daughter dance. We danced to "Follow You, Follow Me" by Genesis.

Photos by Alfred Lambert

I'm back!

Well, I've actually been back from my honeymoon for a few days now, but I sort of felt like I needed even more time to recover from the craziness. That and there's been a lot to accomplish since I've been back. I have not really accomplished much of it, but I have gotten one big thing finished. I set up an site for everyone to upload their photos of our wedding.

Our first dance, photo by Paul Beck (my dad)

Wedding photos tend to be the biggest chunk of change for many brides/grooms and their parents. In order to save some money we asked my stepfather to be the official photographer and then told everyone else not to forget their cameras. After the wedding I planned to set up an online account with a photo service where everyone could upload their photos.
This is the only thing I've really accomplished since returning. My house is still a mess. Miyagi seems to have forgotten large chunks of his training. I have piles of gifts (which we are really grateful for) from extremely generous friends and family that I'm hoping to finish writing thank-you notes for soon. And on Friday we are moving back to Newport News.

You may now kiss the bride, photo by Myrna Teague (my great aunt)

But I have officially set up a pro account on Flickr. Everyone can upload their photos there so I can download high quality original copies instead of shrunken files from Facebook. That helps triple the total number of photos I have access to when I'm finally able to afford printing good quality copies. Looking through my stepfather's pictures, I've realized he doesn't have the right eye I wanted for catching some of the details of the wedding (which I worked so hard to visualize and my friends and family worked even hard to implement). He did capture the basic photos you want, but some shots were missing. Having others take photos as well allowed me to have shots I wouldn't have gotten if I had depended on just my stepfather's shots. Such as this shot from my new sister-in-law:

Table settings, photo by Jenny Land (sister-in-law extraordinaire)

So if you plan to get married, I really recommend doing this if you can't see spending $3,000 (minimum!) on wedding photos.

Technical gibberish, or Why I chose this method
I chose Flickr because for about $25, I get unlimited downloads, storage and access to the original sized uploads.
Why is this important? Well, I wanted the chance to Photoshop photos that might not be perfect (most have beautiful potential, but many need a little tweeking) and that is extremely difficult to do when you are working with sizes that have been shrunken down for web use.
Facebook, for example imports photos at a resolution of 72 pixels per square inch and a size of about 720 pixels wide by 540 pixels high. For comparison, the camera my dad was using saved pictures at 4,272 pixels by 2,848 pixels at 72 psi. That may sound like gibberish to you, but pixels hold the information that make up the building blocks of a photo. So, the more pixels, the more information I have to work with. Ergo, I can make a beautiful photo perfect.
At the same time, to print photos they need to be at least 200 psi for quality printing. If you resize the Facebook photo to 200 psi, it can be printed no bigger than 3.6 inches by 2.7 inches. And that is too tiny for me to use.

Coming soon
Finally, I wanted to let you know that I am going to be doing a lot of posting in the near future. Not only do I want to go through some of the awesome details of the wedding, I have several other posts I've been putting off, including: several book reviews (including The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender and Crescent by Diana Abu-Jaber), a photo tour of our new home and the setbacks and triumphs we've hit while training Miyagi.
So, please come back soon and let me know what you think!

Wedding Notes: Dancing with my dad

One of the first things I thought about upon getting engaged was my dad. I was excited that he would walk me down the aisle and that we would have a father/daughter dance. I remember a father-daughter dance we had in Illinois which was sponsored by the girl scout troop my mom was a leader in. It's a pretty foggy memory for me because I was only five or six, and yet it's stayed with me for most of my life. It's this memory I want to honor at the wedding, but I also want to honor all of the great times we've had together. We really are great friends. When I make huge decisions in my life, he's always the first person I call. In fact, I called him first when Travis proposed. I even called him before adopting Miyagi because I didn't know if it was the best decision.

In that vein I've been putting a lot of thought into what our song will be and I'm torn between songs that convey love and what our relationship is and songs that remind me of him, but don't necessarily speak to our relationship.

For the former I've come up with two songs:

Nickel Creek -"When you come back down"

Beatles - "In My Life"

When I think of my top three favorite bands, Genesis(and Phil Collins) always makes the list, and that is all thanks to my dad. The first song I remember learning the words to was "I Can't Dance." (The music video is hilarious; you must click on the link and watch it).

While the song always invokes memories of driving in my car with Dad, that song isn't exactly appropriate for the occasion. I have come up with a Genesis and two Phil Collins song I could see dancing to:

Genesis - "Follow You, Follow Me" (This actually makes me think of having nightmares as a kid and knowing it would be alright because Dad was there.)

Phil Collins - "You'll Be in My Heart"

Phil Collins - "Can't Stop Loving You"

A taste of childhood: Zucchini cupcakes

Until I was in middle school, my favorite thing that my mother ever made was banana bread. I remember marveling as she measured the flour, sugar, eggs and butter from memory. She used to let me mash the bananas and fold them in to the mix. She always made two loaves and I remember always being angry that she would give one away. Even the "heel" of these golden brown loaves were delicious and I knew nothing would ever make me feel better than to eat a slice, warmed and spread with butter.

Of course even our childhood favorites must someday make way for evolving opinions. While I still love banana bread and often request a loaf from my mom, my heart has pined for a bread that puts the banana variety to shame. I'm still not sure what possessed my mom to sneak a vegetable like zucchini into bread, but I am forever thankful that she happened upon that idea. My mouth still waters at the thought of the dense yet moist loaf, striated with slivers of green. Mom used to grow zucchini the size of a loaf of bread in the summer. She always grew far too many and often froze some for use in the winter. It never occurred to me to attempt the recipe for one trivial reason: I didn't have a food processor. The idea of shredding zucchini (or cabbage or carrots or apples) had always (irrationally, I admit) seemed dependent on owning the contraption. And then I purchased a value pack of 5 large zucchini at Farm Fresh and I knew it was time to brave the uncertainty and shred the squash with the handheld cheese grater that had never occurred to me to utilize.

And so, dear readers, I am finally able to say that I have made my own zucchini-based dessert. Not the perfect bread that I grew up with and dreamt about, but some things should be left to a mother to make for her daughter as she aims to use up a bounteous harvest. I instead chose to go with a more portable package - and something a little more sweet.

Zucchini-Walnut Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Loosely Adapted from Eggs on Sunday's Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Someday I will make that chocolate zucchini cake, but this seemed a little rich for Travis, and I wanted to introduce him to the wonders of zucchini desserts without covering up the zucchini. Most of my tweaks involved using the ingredients I had on hand as well as following my gut feeling on a few measurements/ingredients. Feel free to try the original recipe, but I always encourage you to trust yourself when it comes to your cooking.

Ingredients
2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp. ground ginger

1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce (a substitute for oil that I always use)
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup butter(soy)milk (See a recipe for making your own buttermilk here, under the heading "replacing buttermilk")

1 tbsp. plain soymilk
2 cups grated unpeeled zucchini (about 2 1/2 medium)

1 cup crushed walnuts

12 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature

1/2 cup powder sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Place cupcake wrappers into a cupcake pan, or butter and flour it if you aren't into wrappers.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, spices and salt.
3. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the sugar, butter and applesauce until they’re well blended. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in the vanilla extract.
4. Add the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk in 3 additions each.
5. Mix in the grated zucchini, then the walnuts.
6. Bake for about 30 minutes, until a tester inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool completely.
7. While the cupcakes are cooling, mix the the cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla extract on low speed until the sugar is incorporated.
8. Beat the mixture on medium to medium-high until frosting is light and whipped, about 3 - 4 minutes. Frost the cupcakes once they are cooled.

I shredded the zucchini as soon as I bought it since it was the value pack from Farm Fresh, which really is the "we-have-to-sell-this-today-or-it-will-rot" pack. Of course, 5 fairly large pieces of zucchini for just over $2 is an amazing deal and it's a neat money-saving trick I've been using lately.

I then stuck it in a bag in the freezer until I would have time to make this recipe.

If you choose to do this, just dethaw the zucchini and wring most of the liquid out in a paper towel or cheesecloth. Freezing adds a lot of water and baking requires that you be very specific with the liquid to dry ratio.

There were no spices in the original recipe, which struck me as odd because the dish just screamed for a bit of cinnamon. It's no sweat if you don't have the rest, I just happen to have them on hand. At the very least add some cinnamon. Maybe 2 tsp. if you are dropping the cloves, nutmeg and ginger?

As I strive to be more ecoconscious in my choices, I must acknowledge that cupcake wrappers are wasteful and really unnecessary. A mixture of equal parts shortening, oil and flour has always kept my baked goods from sticking to the pan and I would have gone that route if I hadn't found another product that I will share more details about in a future post.

NaBloPoMo: Parental distinctions

My parents are very different. This week brings that fact into sharp focus.

As my wedding date nears, my mom has suddenly taken more of an interest in being a part of the planning, which is fine. What is so clarifying for me is that before committing to coming to visit me this weekend I had to assure her several times that there would be stuff to do. In essence, she needed a play-by-play before she decided that she was definitely coming down.

With dad, all he wants to know is that he can see me. What we do is irrelevant, it's the fact that we are spending time together that matters. Don't get me wrong, when dad and I hang out our time is usually jam-packed with activities. But we are much more spontaneous. And he is also content just talking or just sitting.

I sometimes wonder if my mom can handle just being near someone. She constantly needs to "do," despite the fact that she often complains about being too busy. Sometimes I think that she wants to be unhappy on purpose. In any case, I was never good at just scheduling every moment of my day so there would always be something to do; I am more laid-back, like dad. This is likely the reason that mom and I don't get along at all. Our sensibilities are so different that a natural tension develops when we spend time together. This state is exacerbated by the fact that mom can't accept that our ideologies differ. The experience is such that I look towards spending time with my mom with dread, and I search for reasons to avoid the experience.

When people ask me what my parents are like I tend to say my mom is my mom and then move on to describe my dad in more detail. I know him better, despite how little time we've had to spend together. According to mom, I have even developed some of his mannerisms over the years.

It is with this in mind that I know that mom and I will never have the experience that most do when they are planning a wedding. Mom and I approach things so differently that when I told dad that mom wanted to help, he said that I should remember that the day is about me, not mom. And he's right, of course. Dad's contribution to the wedding planning has always been as a sounding board (as he is for so much of my life) and I am grateful to him for reminding me what matters. Mom's contribution will likely be to remind me what I don't want for our big day.

But as I continue to plan my wedding, there is a certain resigned sadness that shadows the process. Not because of the relationship we won't have, but because I am sad that I can't give her the experience she so obviously wants. But this is the way it's been since high school and I don't ever want to compromise myself or my ideals just to make my mom happy. And it's not that I don't love my mother, because I do. But some things need to be accepted for life to move on.