Pear Gorgonzola Pizza

I’m about to change your life. No really. Get ready for the easiest and tastiest pizza recipe ever! We first had this pizza the night we got engaged at one of our favorite Nob Hill restaurants.Six basic ingredients, most of which you probably already have in your home, and the others you can buy in advance and keep for around a week or so without being used.

Ingredients:
Pizza Dough (I like to use Pillsbury)
Walnuts (A handful)
Flour (A pinch or two)
Pear (Just one, sliced)
Gorgonzola Cheese (2 ounces or so)
Provolone Cheese (5 slices, cut in half)

How To:
Preheat oven to 425Sprinkle a few pinches of flour on a pizza panSpread the dough out as evenly as possible on the panPlace the sliced provolone on the dough in a circlePlace the sliced pear on top of the provolone in a circleGrab a handful of walnuts, crush them in your hands and sprinkle on top of the pearsSprinkle the gorgonzola on topPlace the pizza in the oven and cook for 10-12 minutes.The pizza is done and ready to be enjoyed! Soooooooo good!

Then we what?

Just a few snapshots from our wedding rehearsal.Amber from A Savvy Event getting us up to speed on how things were going to run.Making sure we’re all in the right place.Ok, and then we what?Ah, we walk back up the aisle. Got it!

With Bells On

Like just about everything else paper related for our wedding*, I went with the circle theme for our rehearsal lunch invitations.We held our rehearsal lunch at a really cute, casual restaurant in downtown Sonoma, Hop Monk Tavern.I was trying to keep things as simple as possible for the invites so I did two flat cards that I mailed out in a yellow A2 size envelope.One flat card was used as the invite, with information about the lunch (pictured on top of the image above) and the second was actually a postcard. Above, you can see the front of the postcard. This saved us time and money as I didn’t have to include a return envelope, the postage for postcards is less expensive and I was able to print our address on each postcard.The picture above shows both the front and back of the postcard.Look at the text on the R.S.V.P. What do you think? I got this idea from Ashley Meanders whose work is super creative. This was totally met with mixed reviews. Some friends and family loved it and thought it was hilarious, while other people got confused and thought they were literally supposed to show up wearing bells. For the record, no one showed up wearing bells but I guess the phrase “I’ll be there with bells on” is lost among some folks!

*Circle Theme: Save the Date, Wedding Invitations, Bridal Shower, Wedding Website

Knowing Your Options

What’s the point of having a signature cocktail if you’re not going to let your guests know that it’s available?At our wedding, to let our guests know about our signature drink, Love is Sweet Tea, I came up with a cute 4”x6” print to put in a frame and have out at the bar.After the wedding, I made two more signature cocktail samples to photograph and put in my Etsy Shop. These sign’s are now available!

Check out my Etsy Shop for more images

Love is Sweet: Signature Cocktail

As the weeks leading up to our wedding flew by, I was left with the small projects that I had been putting off. One of the projects on my list was to come up with a signature cocktail.I wanted something easy to make, that required few ingredients, didn’t have to be served in a fancy glass and would be a refreshing option since the wedding was taking place during the warm summer month of July.

I racked my brain for ideas until I finally came up with the name for the cocktail: Love is Sweet Tea

Just a simple play on the phrase “Love is Sweet”. After that the recipe was easy.

Love is Sweet Tea
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup warm water
- 8 cups brewed black tea (use 6 tea bags)
- Lemon slice to garnish
- 6 ounces lemon flavored vodka

Yields: 1 Pitcher

Directions
In a small saucepan over medium heat combine the sugar with 1/2 cup water and add in the 2 sprigs of mint leaves. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Remove from the heat and let cool. In a large pitcher stir together the tea with the sugar syrup. Serve chilled over ice.

I must say, our signature cocktail was delicious!

Teal. You seriously want a teal desk?

This is one of the projects we did for the wedding. Taking on a sad old desk and making it fun and fresh. Sometime around the holidays Christoph and I visited the Alameda Antique Faire. But that’s not where this desk came from. As we were leaving we saw a sign pointing to a warehouse that was selling furniture. We were having a leisurely day and decided to stop.Clearly, the desk needed a little TLC. But I knew it wouldn’t take much to turn this into something special. Christoph looked at me like I’d gone crazy (as usual) but I told him to just trust me and he did (as usual).When I came home with the teal paint I got the same look. But again, he went with it and he repainted the desk.In the end, Christoph loved the color and is still trying to take all the credit for it. It became a real show piece at the wedding that really made things pop! To the point that my planner has since acquired the desk for her collection to use in future weddings that she plans.

Honeymoon (Part 2)

Luckily, the worst of the honeymoon was over before we even got to our final destination.We missed our first flight. We had intended to stop by Target for necessary unnecessary items like snorkel gear and water shoes before our flight down to LA. Since we were running behind we decided to forgo….until we got a text saying the flight was delayed by 30 minutes so we stopped. Much to our surprise, when we got to the gate 30 minutes before our anticipated departure there was no airplane at the gate. It had left at the original time. Without us. Some quick acting on our part and in less than 30 minutes we were booked and boarding an LA bound plane on a different airline. We were able to catch our original flight from LA to Tahiti with no problems! Lesson learned. That snorkel gear ended up being pretty costly! The first three nights of our stay were at the Sofitel on Bora Bora in a lagoon view room. While we were staying on this part of the island, we went on our guided jungle hike where we touched a statue that is said to bring good luck and saw a beautiful banyan tree with an amazing history among several other things. Our timing to visit Bora Bora was perfect, the weather was ideal, but we also happened to be visiting during the biggest cultural event of the year known as Heiva which takes place every July. Heiva is a production known for traditional Polynesian singing, dancing, sports and crafts.
We met local celebrity, Miss Bora Bora 2011.For the last 5 days of the honeymoon we stayed at the Hilton Bora Bora. Our room was amazing (much like the rest of the trip). An overwater bungalow that looked out onto the pacific ocean.As you can tell, I thought our honeymoon was perfect! Unbelievable location with my favorite person in the world, sounds like paradise to me!

Honeymoon (Part 1)

After nearly a year of planning and a wedding that went beyond any of my wildest expectations we celebrated the first few days in our new roles as husband and wife in Bora Bora on our honeymoon.Don’t worry, I had to google map Bora Bora too to understand exactly where we were headed off to.The beauty of Bora Bora was beyond words. Seeing it in person, I was absolutely taken aback. We took more than 500 pictures over the course of our 8 day stay. It was everything that I would imagine a honeymoon to be and more. We spent the days either basking in the sun relaxing or taking on adventurous activities like scuba diving to depths* greater than I’ve ever gone in shark infested** waters, hiking through a densely covered jungle with a local who only lives off the fruits of the land and kayaking to deserted islands.Fun polaroid’s from our wedding

We were told that 95% of the people who visit Bora Bora are honeymooners and I believe it. But of all the couples we saw I think we were the ones having the most fun. I think we were also the most antisocial. While other couples seemed to pair off meeting for meals and activities, we found happiness in the company of just one another. Filling our time with activities like:

Jumping from our over water bungalow into the ocean, in just about every way we could think of.Floating around and under our bungalowLaying aroundAnd whipping my hair back and fourthI think it pretty much goes without saying that I had the time of my life. I look forward to sharing more from our honeymoon tomorrow!

*70 Feet below the surface
* And don’t worry, they were 4 -6 feet Lemon Sharks….not great whites!

And then we were married.....

It was the best day of my life thus far. I can't wait to share all the details with you.

I'll be back to blogging in two weeks :)

Christoph and Stacy: Get Married!

After four years of dating, tomorrow I will marry my best friend, my one true love.....and I can't wait!

Photo by: Christine Chang