Kathy I am so sorry your pictures are in limbo somewhere I do hope they show up. But I like the idea of dressing up again and have your picture taken. Our niece had a huge wedding fancy fancy the photographer she hired messed up all the pictures so she has no photos either. When my daughter got married the photographer was late, but I had bought those throw away cameras at each table with a note asking the guests to take pictures of their table and of bride and groom when they came to their table. The good news is that the photographer got there! Hurray and to make up for being late he stayed through the entire wedding so we have lots of memories. But let me tell you I was really stressed out!

Lpink, May 2012 would be a LOT better. Talk to her, will you? OK, the beer can cake. Bake 4 eight inch layers, more if you want taller. Mine was supposed to be a mug, but I couldn't figure out the handle, so it became a glass. Buy a dowel at the hardware, mine was 98 cents, then make a batch of rock candy. It doesn't need to be flavored or colored, it will be that amber color when cooked. When it's cooked, spoon it over the dowel so it runs down, you'll have a long piece of the dowel to hold onto as you only want the candy over about a foot of the end of the dowel. As it cools for a couple of minutes it'll get a LOT thicker and stick to the dowel, you'll have to turn it and tilt it to keep the candy looking like a "stream". Scrape about an inch off the top so you can stick the can on, then cut off the bottom of the dowel with a serrated knife so that you can stick the dowel down into the middle of the cake and it will go all the way to the bottom, with the candy just at the top of the cake. Frost the cake beer colored and the "foam" is just white buttercream squeezed in blobs from a wide plain tip. Stick the dowel into the cake, stick the can on top and voila!! A suspended beer stream, pouring into the cake. (grin) Annie

We had our wedding videod. They put a wireless mic on me, which picked up my wife's voice adn that of the officiant. That was just for the ceremony. Although money's always an issue, I would consider having a professional outfit do the wedding video. It was suprisingly affordable compared to the photos, and they did a very good job. As for a camera (and I'm a mac guy), I would get a camera that records on MiniDV tapes. You will never worry about exceeding capacity and the tapes are a great backup so that you don't take up your entire hard drive with movie bits.

Oh gosh I am so sorry I posted and then disappeared for a week. Ok lets see and thanks for all the responses I'll try to answer all questions best I can! I'll give verbal answers and then try to work out getting pictures posted sometime in the next day or so. Steam Oven info: The steam oven requires a single cold water plumbing line into the oven. So actually very simple, although its a lot easier when you are doing a new build than a remodel (a crawl space would probably help ease remodel pains.) No drain required! I can't tell you a cost because it was buried in our overall plumbing bid, sorry. I DID have to remind both the plumber and builder about 15 times to plumb it tho even though we noted it specially in the plans. Just not on their usual list of to dos. On the reliability front, we read and read and read and concluded (with some level of uncertainty still) that Kitchenaid had finally replaced the component that was burning out during the clean cycle of their ovens and that if you bought a new one, you should be ok. BUT we haven't dared run the clean cycle yet :-) and I still felt guilty buying their product when they had gone for years without admitting and fixing the problem. We bought an extended warranty for both the oven and for our GE Profile Fridge just in case. And we bought from a local well reputed appliance dealer who we felt would honor the lemon guarantee also. But we do use the oven almost daily with no problems 2 months in. As you'd hope! We paid $3200 for the single oven, which was a definite splurge, and cheaped out on some of the other appliances going the scratch and dent route with those. Advantium info: You have to switch from a metal tray to a glass tray when using microwave or oven. The trays have grooves and fairly easily catch on the metal turntable mechanism, and both trays easily wipe clean. We have a drawer under the oven in which we keep the tray not in use, and the stand you are supposed to add in to do broiling. So far, no one has forgotten to switch the trays, and the oven gives you a digital reminder when you set the cooking times to use the metal or glass tray. If you were only to buy this one oven, I'd be sure and get the 120 which has a larger size interior than the 240. Read through the dimension info carefully. This one was a craigslist buy, about half retail, you find them regularly on craigslist and ebay. We also got our gas cooktop (Dacor 5 burner) off ebay, one third retail. This one was a lower risk, since there is so little that can go wrong with a gas cooktop mechanically. Island info: Upper counter is 4'6 across and 8' long. The long side is fine, the 4'6 width is insane. The upper counter is 43" off the floor so to start with, if I'm standing on the floor I can reach about 2' of the 4'6. Even if I lean out while standing on the stool, I can't come close to the far edge. I think we should have held it to about 3' deep. On top of that width, there is another 2'5" of lower counter width which holds our cooktop and funny caboose sink/wet bar. So when standing at the stove, I can only just barely reach the edge of the higher counter to put something up there, and then its too far away for anyone to reach from the other side. However it does hold a LOT of junk. notebooks and scanners and mail and coupon clippings and pan lids and the dog treat jar.... you get the idea. (slobs? us? oooops.) There is also a lower counter on the backside which is the cutting and food prep areas wrapping around from the cooktop side. Imagine an L shaped lower counter wrapping two sides of the higher counter. The backside lower counter is where the cutting board is with the bins, and that section is actually another couple of inches lower than the rest of the L. So we have three counter heights on the island, 43" height eating/piling things surface, then 36" height with a corner "wet" bar, a cooktop, a prep area with the advantium below, and then a 30" height butcher block. The pics will come next. thanks for your patience. I hope this made sense so far.