Holycow! That's a whole lot of cookies she made! No wonder it took months to get them ready. They looked delicious too! Did I hear it right... 9 dozens per person?! Al

Did I hear her right? "Peach Italian cookies"?

Where did they PUT them all? And how did they keep them fresh and not crushed, I wonder?

Yet one more example of why I dislike weddings. People do seem to go a bit "gaga" on these occasions (crazy: intensely enthusiastic about or preoccupied with), and this is a great example of one more colossus wedding production.

So who stole the limelight for the day from the bride and groom by making headline news? That cookie-dolloping mother!!!

At three cookies per guest, that's enough for 7,333 guests. But that's using the 3-cookie rule found at our house. Let's be generous and give them a dozen, that's still enough for 1,833 guests.

Yep, that's gaga in my books. I wonder when the surgery for carpal tunnel is scheduled?

-Grainlady

According to the story, cookie-madness is a tradition in this family when it comes to weddings, so I guess the young couple were all for it as well.

To each their own. My husband and I had a horror at the idea of an elaborate, over the top wedding, but for some people it's their dream.

I was just imagining the calorie count per person for all those cookies. I also find it total madness.

SharonCb

Well, at least all that baking kept her busy and kept her from getting into a fight with her daughter's future mother-in-law. Wish I had thought of it for our wedding . . . .

LOL Karen! Yea, I wonder when Carpel Tunnel will set in!

Both my husband and I have very small families so we had a very intimate wedding, no more than 25 guests at the ceremony. We liked it that way.

I guess some people like elaborate weddings. It's once in a lifetime thing (or so they hope) might as well do it as glamour as they desire.

What blows me away is the money. I used to watch the rich bride poor bride show; people set their wedding budget to $50,000 yet they still went over. I saw one bride spent almost $1,000 to dress up her dogs. To me, that's some serious money got thrown away. Al

Yikes Linda. Those numbers bring new meaning to overcatering!!

I've told my kids they can have the down payment on a (SMALL) house or a wedding. Hopefully they're wise enough to make the right choice.

loves2cook, when I used to sell & organize weddings, I often wondered why parents didn't do just that. Ten to twenty thousand dollars was pretty much our range as the facility couldn't handle more than about 250 guests. But jeepers, a lot of the young couples really were just starting out. What ever happened to a nice church service and a party at home?

Many of these couples were paying for the wedding themselves, or with only partial help from their parents. So they're headed into marriage with a ready made debt!

Funny, the weddings I have attended that both the guests and the couple seemed to have the best time were the ones that were simple, pretty low cost affairs. Less stress, less frantic worry that everything be perfect, fewer details to keep track of=more fun for everyone.

I hope baking those cookies made them happy because otherwise it was pretty much a waste of time and money. Let's face it, they are mosyly going to end up in the trash, especially the ones baked last September. On the other hand, it looks like a real labor of love and the cookies are very pretty.

I went to a wedding where the bride's family had baked a cake for every table. They were the centerpieces and also dessert. Unfortunately the one at my table didn't taste very good. They did look cute.

I agree that the expense of weddings is insane. They cause so much tension and I don't think people even enjoy going to them very much.

Well, I can tell you for sure that I'm not baking 22,000 cookies for any purpose, not even my daughters' weddings!

Amanda and David have finally set a date, I guess. October 9, 2010. I have agreed that I will bake a smallish wedding cake so they'll have something to cut and we're going to have a dessert table with some cookies, brownies, cheesecake, etc. She figures she'll invite 300 people, we have huge families, probably 150 will come. So that makes 146 cookies per attendee, LOL.

No huge weddings here anyway. Elery and I will do the cooking for the reception, David is going to arrange to have a pig roasted and everyone in the family brings a dish to pass and their own booze. Beer and wine is usually provided, there'll be a DJ for music and dancing and the dinner will be buffet style with paper plates, as befits a pot luck wedding. We will rent a bigger hall, though, no dancing outside in bare feet on the lawn, like the Redneck Bonanza, and no peeing on the DJ. Hopefully the police will not find it necessary to attend unless they are invited!

She's already picked out her clearance sale wedding dress, $299.00. There will not be a honeymoon, unless they decide to take the kids and go camping!

Annie

Congratulations to Amanda and David!

That sounds like a fun wedding, Annie!

DH said if he were in that family (the cookie family) he wouldn't get married!

Sally

Hooray, that's great news and it does sound like a good time!
Now the bigger question is-- what's the Monkey Princess going to wear and what's her role in the wedding? :-D

Ellen, since they've been together 9 years, maybe it was about time they got married, I thought they were waiting for Gina and she finally got married, so it's time, LOL.

The Monkey Princess will wear a white dress with red roses, I think. Bruvver says he's NOT dressing up so it's going to be fun to try to get him to wear anything other than sweatpants and a t shirt with a tractor on it, LOL. Amanda would like him to be ringbearer and I think it's a great idea, that ought to break up the seriousness of the occasion as he's tearing off the tie/vest/whatever and throwing the pillow at his sister, LOL, and trying to steal her basket.

The Princess will be a flower girl, of course, with her cousins Kaelynn and Linsey. Madelyn was just born a couple of weeks ago and the twins were born in November. I'm ashamed, I cannot remember the name of the girl twin, the boy is Joseph James. They'll be too small for a role but their mothers are both going to be bridesmaids and Ashley is Maid of Honor.

David is from a Catholic family and 9 years ago his grandmother announced that they would not recognize any marriage that did not take place in the Catholic church. Now she's just begging them to get married, even by a heathen Methodist, LOL. Amanda would like the same pastor who married Elery and I to do the service, Foster Brummel is in his 90s now and he's known me since I was a kid in Bible School, so that would be fun.

Will the wedding really happen? I don't know, they've been talking about it for 7 or 8 years now and it hasn't happened yet!

Annie

Annie, congratulations to Amanda and David. How about if we each pick a cookie or dessert and send you something before the wedding then you will have an uber fantastic dessert table with almost no effort.

Count me in for some sweet treats.

Well, I guess it was a labor of love. Sadly, I bet few cookies were eaten and the ones sent home with the guests will be tossed. Too bad. We had {{gwi:1485209}} at my DD wedding in 2008, along with some other cookies, and the only thing the guests really ate were the macaroons - they are to die for.

My DS and his fiance are getting married in June, and while they want a "casual" wedding, I made it very clear that I'm not doing any of the cooking, and since her family is from out of town, neither will they. I did some for my first child's wedding - never again. That's why people start catering businesses and I think it's my responsibility to do my part to keep them in business and help the economy!

Down in these parts it's all about the cake, or cakes -- a bride's cake and a groom's cake. I'd never heard of a cookie table until recently. Then, I thought it sounded like a fun idea. I had a good time baking about 5-600 cookies for our band in about one day (200 kiddos) and I could see upping that for a special event, but at 9 dozen per guest, that's crazy. How many families, let alone individual guests are going to eat -- at the reception or afterwards, 108 cookies? I have two boys and have been at many school and scout functions with lots of other boys. I've certainly seen young boys (the biggest cookie eaters I've seen) snap up a half dozen or maybe even a dozen cookies if they got the chance, but even they stop long before 9 dozen.

I had to do the math -- that was only about 200 guests. Drop 20,000 cookies and it stillwould have been plenty!

I guess my reaction is from great to gag in 20,000 cookies.

Woohoo, Annie! Another Redneck Wedding in the making?!?!?

I agree that many weddings today are horribly overdone.
Where's the basic notion that two are joining their lives in front of God and family?
My daughter insisted on paying for her own wedding. Very small, 30 guests, the whole thing including dress, suit, rings, chapel & cake cost under $2500. I did the food (mid-afternoon, so had a light snack) as part of their gift.

My DH & I were married in our own living room. Immediate family and one friend for each of us.
We ordered pizza to be delivered about an hour after the ceremony which gave us time to open gifts.
We grabbed some pizza and left for a 4 day honeymoon in Reno. Both mom's stayed and cleaned up and took care of the 4 kids!!

Deanna

See, Deanna, that's the way it should be done. Elery and I were married by the pastor that I've known since I was a child. Present were my girls and grandkids, my parents. We left immediately after the ceremony for Joe's Gizzard City, LOL.

Loves2cook, don't think I won't remind you of that offer when the time comes! I'm going to do much ahead of time, all the homemade rolls can be baked and frozen, so can cookies. The pig will be done for us, and I'll spend much of my time working on the cake. I'll be begging Sol for tips, I think, LOL.

No one in my family has ever hired a caterer for anything, so I doubt we'll start now! Amanda and I will start working on a menu sometime this summer.

Anyway, you're all invited...

Annie

My mother and father had never seen any of their children married. My first marriage took place in Japan and no one could afford to go there, then my two brothers and sister all eloped when their time came. When I decided to marry again to DH, I was back in my hometown and decided to take the wedding to my father since he wouldn't go to it. We married in my parents' livingroom in front of the fireplace, with lit candelabra on the mantel. Immediate family and two friend for each of us attended. I made my sister's (matron of honor)and my dresses then bought a single rose with baby's breathe for each of us. Mother, a professional cake decorator, made a two tiered wedding cake for us and decked out the diningroom table with it as the centerpiece and punch. That evening we had one of the worst snowfalls ever and no one stayed long after the gift opening and cake eating. The entire thing cost less than $50 and Dad finally saw one of his offspring married. Oh yes, he took the absolutely fantastic wedding pictures. It was beautiful.

Annie, keep a very close eye on Bruvver and those rings on the wedding day. This summer there was a report of a call to our local police department from a couple getting married that day. The ringbearer had been playing with the other children and lost the rings so they wanted the police department to send somebody with metal detectors to search the 5 acres surrounding the wedding site. Stupid for not watching the child. Never did find out if they found them.

Annie, that sounds like a fun wedding. I also recommend keeping a close eye on Bruvver -- because he is Bruvver!

BCskye, what a nice story. My wedding had to be postponed one day because of a blizzard. I think Mother Nature was trying to tell me Noooooo!

If people put as much thought and attention on what comes after the wedding day as they do the big showoff day itself, the divorce rate would probably me half what it is. And anyone who spends $1000 to dress their dogs for a wedding obviously has some screwed-up priorities and needs a serious reality check!

That's my highly critical, overly-generalized opinion for the day. :)

Sounds like fun Annie. You know you have lots of folk who will help you cook!

Seems to me you have another wedding you need to cook for this Spring, Elery's son maybe? I recall you saying it was all appetizers. I'm in for that one too!

Yes, Sharon, Ben and Jeanette are getting married on Memorial Day weekend, but it's going to be much more interesting than one of my family's Redneck Bonanzas.

She is from the Holland area (Holland, Michigan, that is), so she wants to get married there. She's got the church, etc., but she wants to have an appetizer reception in the morning for 300 people, then the ceremony, directly after the ceremony a "cake reception" for I'm not sure who, then the immediate family and friends will have another reception with dinner after that. I'm just confused.

She doesn't know if there's a kitchen at the church hall she wants to use, she doesn't know if they have refrigeration, she doesn't know if there's any way to heat anything and she doesn't know what time we can get in, or if we can get into a kitchen the day before.

Did I mention that it's on a holiday weekend on the lakeshore and everyone will have to travel so they'll have to book rooms months in advance? I'm not sure she's thought this entirely through yet....

So, yes, appetizers for 300 in May. I don't know if they will be hot, cold, who will serve, what facilities there are for storage, set up or clean up. It should be interesting, but Elery and I plan to sit down with them sometime this month and make some "samples" to see what they like. Oh, and she's lactose intolerant, can't eat cheese or dairy, so she's not wanting anything with cream cheese or cheese, I think.

So, no gougere, no spanakopita, no cheese balls, spreads, or dips, although the guests could eat them, I suppose.

If I have no refrigeration, no cooking facilities and no storage, it's gonna be chips and dip!

Annie

Personally I think people should make their wedding day whatever they want it to be, and aside from hoping that they do something that's within their means far be it for anyone to judge their wishes. After all, it's THEIR day and, God willing, they'll only have one such day in their lives. The two best weddings I ever went to probably ranked the second most expensive and the cheapest one I've been to. It's what's made of the day that matters.

In my particular case the gifts probably totaled more than the cost of the wedding, and while not a high-end wedding the cost was enough that if our parents' had given us cash for the house instead we'd have ended up owing gift tax. So we beat the system in a sense. Not that this was the intent.

If I'm counting right there were just 33 days between my proposal and my wedding. But I dare say that had my MIL been baking cookies the whole while rather than meddling she might have spared my wife many tears. I love her, but that was not the best month of our relationship!

Annie, congrats! If you need help, I wll grab LC46, call others and we will drive in.

And as for those 22,000 cookies? What a waste of time, money and food.

Hey, I think I am free in October! So I can help, too. And besides it will give me an excuse not to attend the "other wedding"! LOL

I agree with FOAS that a couple's wedding plan is their own decision, and as long as I don't have to pay for it, they can do/spend whatever they want. I am not saying I agree with lavish, foolish wastes of money, but it's not my decision to make nor my place to judge.

Tim and I got married in our family room with less than 50 people in attendance. I bought a cocktail dress off the rack and made my sister and daughter's dresses. A friend of mine played guitar and sang a couple of songs, my daughter (13 y.o. at the time) learned to play "Colour My World" on her saxophone and played that, a friend of mine catered some appetizers and another friend took (awful) pictures! It rained cats and dogs that day, too. The entire wedding was a fiasco, but we got the deed done! LOL

Linda

LOL, Linda, at least it didn't rain on mine, but I did buy my dress off the rack at Macy's. Well, my boss did, it was on clearance and cost less than $50, it was my wedding present. (grin) Of course, without Chrystal (my boss), I'd have never met Elery, so she was at the wedding too, she had to be. Heck, she's family, like a sister I got to choose.

It might be just me, but I think people may get married as many times as suits them, but you're only allowed one big white frilly wedding. If you're on your third or fourth, (or as Elery's brother is) fifth, I think the long white dress and veil thing is just kind of silly. Others may think otherwise. (shrug)

So Amanda will get her long white dress and veil, and everyone in the family contributes to the party and we'll all celebrate the marriage. They'll have a nice wedding and family and friends will give them a joyous beginning to the marriage, eating and dancing and just being happy.

Linda, Peppi, LC46, don't think I won't remind you when the time comes. I might print this thread for future reference, LOL.

Annie

Cool news! I love weddings! Other people's... :)

Let me explain my comment: What I mean is that more attention is put on the trappings of the day by some people than on the purpose and meaning of the day. Come on, when someone's on their sixth hugely elaborate Wedding of the Century, who can really take them seriously anymore? Who wants to feel obligated to sit through those theatrics five or six or more times? When getting married becomes habitual, it's time to dial down the parade.