A Homemade Wedding Homestead-Style: Prep-Week

To say this wedding was a labor of love is to say the least. To say I have the most generous and talented friends is to say the least. To say we all worked our hinneys off the week before is to say the least.

I guess I don't really have a lot to say.

The weekend before the wedding, my mama baked 100 strawberry cupcakes. Yes, one hundred. From scratch.

Meanwhile, down at The Homestead, Cowboy H broke his wedding band helping me hammer the horse shoes into shape. And no, he did NOT hammer his finger.

Cowboy H's family then helped me tie the tags onto the horse shoes and box them up.

Back up in my hometown, between Thursday and Friday, my mama made homemade three-bean salad, homemade potato salad and homemade Mom's Macaroni salad. Enough to feed 200 people.

Having made it into town on Thursday, I got Cowboy H's family settled into their hotel rooms, dropped off mason jars at my "florist's" house, made personalized aprons for the BBQ crew, finished up the last of my wooden signs, and begged my way into an eye doctor's. In between visiting Costco and Michael's craft store a few times.

Cowboy H meanwhile, spent Friday afternoon lugging food down to the reception site and helping my dad prep the BBQ pit.

My mama also prepped greens and toppings for caesar and spinach salads. All in her personal kitchen. In her house. Where we also had the rehearsal dinner* Friday night.

Speaking of Friday night, my mama continued to cook, making homemade vegetarian rice pilaf, after the rehearsal dinner, while my devoted friends were frosting the 100 strawberry cupcakes with homemade strawberry frosting that my mama had just whipped up.

That's my Sassy Cassie on the left with her roomie, Katie on the right.

This is the lovely Lauren, who is currently blazing across Mexico with her padre. Read about it here.

While the cupcake frosting was happening (I LOVE my friends), I decided that I wanted the baby picture boards after all, so Cowboy H and I got to work.

Up next: the morning-of prep and Mama H loses the ring!


*The term rehearsal dinner is used very loosely here, because basically we just had everyone who attended the rehearsal head over to my parents' house so we could feed them. We had a Mexican taco/burrito bar and beer and sodas. We all got to relax and catch up and hang out. There were NO toasts, no speeches, no formalities. Kinda like the rest of the wedding festivities!

Thanks to Cassie for taking the photograph of the rice!