Our "short" trip to the beach...

After breakfast, Momma Rocks and I donned our bathing suits and cover-ups, jumped in the car, and headed down to what we thought would be a 15-min trip to Bahia Honda State Park to see the ceremony site and have a little beach time.  Little did we know we would be side-tracked by a friendly, helpful, but very talkative vendor!

We are getting married on a bridge, and like most bridges, this bridge does not come equipped with chairs.

(Photo by me)

See?  No chairs.  And while Mr. Rocks would prefer our ceremony last only 5 minutes, it is an important event (I mean, hell, it is where we both commit to spend the rest of our lives with each other!), and I am thinking we should shoot for 30 - 45min.  And we figured that people will want a place to sit for those 30 - 45 min (cuz we are nice like that!).  So we will have to rent chairs (and a speaker system, while we are at it).  Luckily, the friendly folks at Mile Marker Party Rentals have chairs for us to rent.

(Mile Marker Party Rentals)

And more importantly, they will carry the chairs up to the bridge, set 'em up, and take 'em down when we are done.  So, I had emailed the vendor prior to flying down to FL, but had not heard back from her.  Which is no biggie - I mean, we are still over a year out from the wedding.  And April is wedding season in FL, so I assumed (correctly) that she was probably busy with 2011 wedding.  But I figured since we were in the neighborhood, that Momma Rocks and I would stop by the store and see if the vendor was in and had a minute to talk with us and give us a contract so I could give her money.

It turns out, when you want to give a vendor moola, they are more than willing to talk with you!  Actually, I am sure that, even if I was not planning on paying a deposit, the vendor would have still taken the time to meet with us.  She is a pretty neat lady - very friendly, a bit high-strung and type-a, and perfect as a person who would be (partially) in charge of setting up a wedding!

We not only finalized a contract, but she also gave me several photographers to contact - which was super helpful!   So, an hour later, we still had not made it to the beach, but we did indeed secure chairs for people to sit on whilst hanging out in the bridge!  

A Tropical Breakfast

Momma Rocks and I had a lot planned for the Saturday of our Rockin' Keys.  (We were only in town for two days, and we were on a mission!)  First up on our list Saturday morning was to check out the free breakfast at the Holiday Inn.  See, Mr. Rocks and I want to do a "morning after" breakfast the day after our wedding, and....well......how convenient, the Holiday Inn (where all of the guests will be staying, we hope), has a free hot breakfast.  And it was tasty!  They had a nice assortment of eggs, biscuits and gravy (a southern favorite), bagels, toast, pastries, cereal, and the best self-made pancakes in the world!

(Source: blog-popcake-na.com)

I love this little machine - you just push a button, and a few minutes later, 2 delicious pancakes come out the side.  Seriously, I am considering asking for one for Christmas this year (just kidding, kinda of).

However, our plan on "Let's just have our morning after breakfast at the free hotel breakfast" plan is not going to work out.  First, the food area is a bit small, and there were often lines of people waiting to get food (and who wants to wait in a line?).  Second, the breakfast room is kinda small - it could probably hold ~50 people.  And if it was just people from our wedding, that would not be too bad, but, since breakfast is open to all guests, I am guess it would be kind of crowded in there (and crowds + Rock Hugger = not fun time).

So, Momma Rocks and I started brainstorming ideas about alternative breakfast plans.  We planned based on the following facts:
    1)We really don't have money in the budget to treat all of the guests to a full-service breakfast.
    2) It really does not make sense to give everyone breakfast when they can get it for free at the hotel.
    3) The hotel breakfast runs from 7 - 10 AM.  While I can see getting up at 9/9:30 the day after the wedding, there is NO WAY Mr. Rocks or I would be up at 7 or even 8AM.  To me, an ideal morning after breakfast would really be a morning after brunch and run from 10AM - 11:30AM.

So, we came up with a "Plan A" and a "Plan B".

Plan A:  We utilize the outdoor space at the Tiki Bar (attached/behind the hotel) and have a Mimosa and Cuban Pastry brunch from 10 - 11:30.  The Tiki Bar probably won't be serving breakfast, so it should be closed and we would have the place to ourselves.  We could sit outside and enjoy the beautiful Keys weather, sipping on Mimosas and munching on tasty cuban treats.  This way, if people want a bigger breakfast, they can hit up the hotel breakfast beforehand.

(Source: Bubblybride.com)

The catch to Plan A?  Well, the tiki bar is still not open- it was supposed to open in January, then February, then March, and now I am told it will be open at the end of April.  We'll see - I am a bit skeptical.  I am sure it will open before next year, but until it is operational, I cannot talk to a general manager about prices.  See, Momma Rocks and I were thinking if we buy bottles of champagne and OJ, the cost of the breakfast would be manageable.  However, if we have to pay "bar prices" for the alcohol, then I am not so sure if we can fit it into our "already higher than it should be" budget.  I am hoping that we can just pay a little to rent the space and pay for a bartender and a waiter or 2 and bring in our own stuff.  I am hoping my awesome persuasion skills will be able to convince the GM that getting a little extra money is better than getting no extra money (i.e. we won't use them if it is too expensive).  But, until the damn place opens, IDK.

Plan B: becuase everyone needs a plan B! If the Tiki Bar idea does not work out, "plan B" is to rent out the breakfast room in the Holiday Inn and just do coffee and cuban pastries.  I talked with the GM, and we can totally have that room after breakfast ends at 10AM.  However, we probably would not be allowed to have mimosas if we did it in the Holiday Inn, since they don't have a liquor license.  Also, it would be inside and not as "tropically cool" as having it at the Tiki Bar would be.

So, we shall see what happens after the Tiki Bar opens.  But at least I have 2 options for the morning-after breakfast bunch!

After breakfast, we put on our bathing suits and started to make our way down to the beach....

Let's have our cake (and eat it too)

So, one of the goals of the recent Rockin' Keys trip was to eat cake.  And eat cake we did!  I scheduled 3 cake tastings on one afternoon for Momma Rocks and myself.  In retrospect, I think I should have spaced them out over the two days we were there - after 3 tastings in a row (where you wash down every. single. bite. of. cake with a drink of water, we were full, had a sugar high, and we both really had to pee.....oh well.

Momma Rocks - pre-cake tastings, enjoying Key West

(Photo by me) 

Me, waiting for my first cake tasting!

(Photo by Momma Rocks)

Now, you might be thinking "Wait a minute Rock Hugger, didn't you decide to do butterfly cupcakes ala Publix?"  Well, the butterfly cupcakes aren't off the table (and I recently acquired some really nice thick cardboard to make a cupcake tower!), but I kept reading about how other brides got to do cake tastings, and dammit, I wanted my cake tasting too!  Not to mention, we had not really considered any other cake places (mainly because Mr. Rocks is not a big fancy cake guy), and it was worth a look, right?

So, off to Key West we went for a bit o' cake.  The first place we went to was a bit disappointing.  So disappointing, in fact, that I am not even going to mention their name.  They brought us several "mini-cakes" where the cake and flavored frosting were already put together.  

(Photo by me)

The chocolate gnache was awesome, but the cakes themselves were a bit...dry...ucky....bitter....they just weren't good.  But apparently this place specializes in novelty cakes - good if you want someone to make a cake that looks like an elephant, but only if you don't plan on eating it.


So, an hour later (and a pee break), we were off to the next place, Amazing Cakes.  We met the baker in this office complex right off of Duval street - she had basically converted an office space into her kitchen, with the big mixing bowels and ovens and all.  Her place was really clean and she had all of her certifications on the wall (Momma Rocks really liked that).  Unlike stop #1, Amazing Cakes gave us a platter with all of her cake flavors and all of her frosting flavors separate.

(Photo by me of some tasty, tasty cake!)

This is a much better way to taste cakes!  Paula (the baker) has us try each frosting first, then try the cakes, then mix and match cake and frosting flavors.  And her cakes were excellent!  All of her frostings were buttercream based, and the cakes were very moist and yummy.  Momma Rocks and I both approved.  We played around a bit, and came up with two different cake/frosting combinations:  one would be the chocolate cake - 3 layers of chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream and raspberry buttercream filling.  The other would be the "non-chocolate" cake with 3 layers of yellow cake with strawberry butter cream and plain buttercream filling.  How good does that sound?  Hungry yet?  :)

And even better - Paula and I went over some design ideas that I loved, and the cake was totally affordable!  I sent her an email after we got back from the Keys, and I am waiting to hear back from her. We would still need to figure out if there would be a delivery charge from Key West to Marathon (and how much that would be) but the Publix Plan may have a serious contender!

After Amazing Cakes, we jumped back in the car and headed up to White Street to Key West Cakes.  (And we had another potty break - I seriously had no idea how much water one drinks while tasting cakes!!)  Key West Cakes set up the tasting similar to Amazing Cakes - with the cakes separate from the fillings.

(Photo by me)

These cakes also tasted good - not as good as Amazing Cakes, but much better than the first place!  I liked how Key West Cakes had some neat flavors - like coconut cake and key lime cake.  However, Key West Cakes was waaaaayyy to expensive (for us).  So, while tasty, not a contender in the cake race.

Once we left Key West Cakes, it was getting close to sunset...which meant that there was absolutely no parking anywhere near Duval Street.  Momma Rocks and I were also getting a bit tired (coming down from the sugar rush plus we did not sleep the night before), so we decided to do some "drive-by" sightseeing in Key West.  I showed Momma Rocks the Southernmost Point and Mile Marker "0"

(Drive-By photo by Momma Rocks)

And, of course, we had to pee again.  After a potty break in the absolute-most-disgusting-gas station bathroom-I-have-ever-seen (and I have traveled in third-world countries, yo), we packed it in, said good-by to Key West, and headed back up to the middle keys for dinner and an early night to bed.

Little did we know that missing the sunset at Mallory Square would be faaar surpassed by the sunset the next night.... :)

A teaser of what we did on Saturday!

(Photo by me)

I am Baa-ack!

Hola world!  I have been absent for about 1.5 months.  I blame Mr. Rocks (really isn't life better when everything can be blamed on Mr. Rocks?)  Actually, to be fair to Mr. Rocks, it had nothing to do with him.  It was the effing Photographers.  I had started looking for photographers, discovered that they are so far out of our price range that I really needed to start thinking about selling a kidney just to afford the damn photogs.  And of course I got frustrated....I mean, who in their right mind pays $4000 for 2 hours of photo coverage?  Seriously people!?!  So I kinda dropped the whole wedding planning part of my life for a few weeks.

Of course, life continued.....and one of the big items of wedding stuff is that OOPJ is now "Official!"  Yep. She is officially allowed to marry us in FL.  Woo-Hoo!!!  And I have slowly started back down the terrible path of wedding planning - I made a few different versions of paper flowers that I plan on showing everyone sometime soon.  I also booked a flight to NZ to go visit BMNZ this summer (WOO-HOO!)  Finally, Mr Rocks had some boy time in Vegas this past weekend whilst Momma Rocks and I went back down to the Keys for some wedding planning.  While we were there, we ate some cake, had terrible manicures, had awesome seafood, and got to see the sunset at Bahia Honda.  I was a good lil' blogger and took lots of pictures, which I will show you guys in a couple of days, but for now, just a little teaser of the Keys.... (I really wish we were getting married this summer!!)

(Photo by me)