Pieces of us

I've been to some weddings with some really amazing themes. One wedding I went to a few years ago was completely red and teal...down to the straws. It was obvious the couple thought long and hard about how to incorporate their wedding colors into every aspect of their wedding.

Our theme? Us?! So we decided that WE would be our theme -- traditions and wedding protocol aside. One of our first us themed decisions was the cake. Neither one of us are really cake people (I know, we're weird), so we decided to go with an after dinner treat we both love, cream puffs. Mr. Papaya Dog used to live in Brooklyn and whenever I visited, we'd go to Beard Papa for a delicious cream puff. My favorites are vanilla and green tea.

So it only made sense we went with cream puffs. People have cupcakes instead of cake why not cream puffs? I told my friend Mary, who's a baker in Washington DC, about the cream puffs and she thought it was a great idea. She even volunteered to make them if we provided the supplies. Perfect!

Speaking of making cream puffs from scratch, that leads me to the second theme that inspires our wedding decisions -- home/handmade. We wanted our wedding to be special and full of elements you couldn't just buy pre-made on a wedding website. Elements of our wedding can definitely be replicated, but it requires a little work. Yes you can buy limoncello, but it's not the same as making it in a 5 month process, creating personal labels and bottling it yourself. We don't have a lot of money to spend on the wedding but the time we put into the details will be worth it.

Besides the limoncello, my dress and hair piece are being made specifically for me by hand. I'm making all the table runners for the centerpieces, and I've designed and will be silk screening all the invitations by hand.

What themes are you working with in your wedding? Are you building it around a central piece (wedding invitations, venue style)? Maybe your honeymoon destination is your theme?