picking music

well one of the last tasks we have to deal with is to pick the right music for the entrance, the walk away and  background.
Rather frustrating and leads to me not being able to hear certain songs anymore...

Wedding Menu finalized

yip our menu is finalized and that's what we got

Salad

Bruschetta toppesd with Olive Tapanade, Fresh Tomato, Basil & Garlic

EVO and Parmigiano

Entrée

Pan seared Salmon, Vegetable Ratatouille, Chardonnay Rosetta Sauce & basil Oil

Or

Pan Seared Filet Mignon, Garlic Potato Puree & Braised Greens

 Burgundy wine Reduction

Or

Rigatoni Pasta with home made Sausage, Green Peas & Granda Padano

 Roasted Tomato Cream sauce

Dessert

Tiramisu

engagement picture

last night we met with my friends Sara and Martin and Martin was so nice to take a couple hundred pictures of us, so that we have a bunch of shots as engagement pictures and while being out there I realized that I haven't been shooting or posing people for a long time. And he kept asking me where to put us and I had honestly no idea and felt so plain helpless...
Guess that's an excuse to shoot a bit more again and maybe get my photo business up and running again.

Anyway here are some of the pictures I personally really like.

she's not going to run away...

old gray men need some rest from time to time

we always hanging out somewhere

you are never to old to go down a slide

but than we didn't have to slide that far

our relationship is defiantly more stable than this platform 

made it at last

thanks Martin for these beautiful pictures! I hope you don't mind the postprocessing I did!

Capuchino aka Zipfelmuetzen

well it was time to show off my progress in the art of espresso and capuchino. After all the definition of a capuchino is

a harmonic blend of esspresso, hot milk and foam

which can mean basically anything, but I kinda like it heavy on the foam and espresso, while being low on the milk.

Zipfelmuetzen

food tasting in San Francisco - Zingari

there are terrible things you have todo while preparing a wedding. One of the most frustrating thing is you need togo out to nice resturant and are forced to taste there delicious food.

So after testing 2 different italian resturants in San Francisco we decided on...

Zingari

why?

there food is really tasty, it doesn't break the bank. They basically give you a 20% discount. The dinner we had was very good, the decoration was ok. And the owner of the restaurant actually joined us, showed us around.
They also provide us we an ala carte menu and so there is something for everybody. Be it vegetarians or carnivores.

Anyway, let's cut to the chase, The review of the food

Appetizer:

one of the appetizer was the classic italian dish bruschetta. Which was enhanced with an olive paste as a foundation. The bread was really crisp and the topping incredible moist, while the olive paste stopped the bread from getting soggy. Instead of plain garlic, they used roasted garlic, which gave the dish a certain sweetness.
Short it was the best bruschetta I had so far.


Entree:

For our main dish we chose something I refer to as a tasty bolognese. Sure it has a more fancy title. But it was basically Rigatoni with a meat sauce.
Now there were a lot of exciting dishes on the menu, which I'd had loved much more. But not everybody has the desire to eat something exciting or something they can't pronounce. So this was basically the most boring dish they had.
And it was absolutely tasty and delicious. It was incredible flavorful, the peas were very sweet and I was just really really impressed by it and all of our testers liked it. This is also the only dish which is offered as vegetarian option.

Desert

As desert we had the all time classic dish, Tiramisu and we all had plenty of these in our life. Sadly I did not take a picture for some strange reason.
Even more sadly it started out very very tasty and than it became really soggy. Now for there defense, Robin and my Friend Kim bothed loved the dish and did not understand why I'm so critical about it. It's just every time I bit down on one of the embedded cookies, I felt like biting into a capsule of water, which killed the experience for me.

The espresso

well after a good italian dish you need a cup of esspresso. I thought. Well I have to the change this statement to

you need a good cup of espresso

Sadly the espresso was one of the worst I ever had. It was just bitter and had no body at all.

Fazit

appetizer 5/5
entree 5/5
desert 3/5
espresso 1/5

After Zingari we went to another restaurant, called Credo

For some reason Robin and I both felt not to good and were just exhausted. So we ordered an appetizer and an entree. Which were both ok, but nothing special. The resturant was just pale compared to the first experience, it was a nightmare to get to the bathrooms and it was so loud in the restaurant that you could barley hold a conversation.

reception and ceremony planning

portals of the past

this weekend we took the opportunity to have another look at our venue and to start planning where to sit the guest, since the place is rather small. Smaller than we initially thought and so we will maybe have space for 10 chair.
Basically I'm trying to find the time now and make a 3D model of the whole area and see how this works out, since we wont have the possibility to test it with chairs.

Basically the path is only 3 yards wide and we need to have enough space for the bride to walk the aisle.

benches and makeshift table

Another Benefit is that there is a big green box, which we can cover over with a white table cloth for the champaign and maybe some crackers or water for the guest. Since we will be for 2 hours at this location after all.
And there are some benches too for people to sit and relax on and we can maybe incorporate this into the photography session.

Speaking of photography, this is one of the big unknowns right now. How to execute the shot, what has to be done and where are all the locations.

robin, smiling in front of the waterfall

Possible spots for this are:

• the portal
• the small spring/waterfall
• walking up the at the lake
• the benches

heron

While taking pictures of the location and try to work out the details a heron landed a couple of steps from me and so I had to take a couple of pictures of these gigantic birds.

They are just such beautiful creatures and always so skittish and keep flying away. I do wish I had a camera/lens combination with a more precise and reliable autofocus. Since of about 50 pictures, only 3 where in focus.








And last but not a least a shot from the other side of the lake

Portals of the Past

back from san diego

us two in the limo, prior to Robins friends wedding

we somewhat managed to survive the wedding in San Diego and it's kinda obvious. This ridiculous 40k$ is nothing what Robin or I want and way over the top and not personal at all. Sure the food was amazing, the best tri-tip I ever had!

But the venue looked like any other cookie cutter professionally planned wedding. And in 4 days I might got to spend 5 hours in total with my fiance, which is pretty sad.Because she had todo so much as a brides maid :(

At least I finally got to ride in a stretch limo again and I was surprised how cramped this stretched expedition was. It just made no sense that there was so much less space than in the Stretch Town Car I was in last year.

engagement brunch

well this actually happened a while ago, but since I had to wait till now to get the pictures of it. Since our maid of honor was a touch to busy with other stuff happening.

Basically I made a brunch for Robin (in my arms), Robins Roommate Lauren (opposite from Robin) and Robins Sister Becky (opposite of me) to proof my worthiness of a husband to be and cook.

Now what is on the table?

• prosciutto di parma with fig stuffing
• crepes
• apple sauce
• rasberries
• blueberries
• whipped cream
• ensalada caprese with fig infused balsamic vinegar
• sautéed bell peppers
• artichoke hearts
• fresh bread

To say that it was tasty was a slight understatement.