Lego Caketopper Part 2

Last week I received the component pieces for the Lego caketopper I designed. I had to go to several online vendors in order to find all of the pieces I needed, but I've received all of the pieces now and construction of the caketopper is complete.

Here's a view of the caketopper from the front:


Here is a view from the rear, also providing a sense of what the model looks like from the side:


Close-up of the groom mini-figure (me):


Close of the bride mini-figure (Liz):

Reception Menu

The reception is being catered by Levy Restaurants, which is the Cathedral's in-house caterer. Levy also caters events at other locations. The sales manager at Levy, Maria Lopez, has been professional, friendly, and easy to work with.

The cocktail hour will have six hors d'oeuvres for guests to sample --

• Fruit and cheese plate with bruschetta d'Parma display, and served with a variety of crackers, flatbreads, bread rounds, and condiments
• Tender and zesty calamari served in crisp pita cups
• Baby lamp chops marinated with rosemary and garlic, grilled and served with mint chutney
• Smoked duck breast and caramelized Asian pear on pecan raisin toast
• Gulf shrimp wrapped in crispy potato, served with banana chili sauce and presented on cocktail forks
• Dried black mission figs wrapped in pancetta and grilled with balsamic

The dinner first course is a delicate cup of seasoned cucumber slices with baby lettuces and micro greens seved with Humboldt Fog goat cheese and a roasted tomato vinaigrette.

For the entree, guests will have a choice of --

• Meat: Bone-in rib-eye steak, topped with herb butter and fried buttermilk onions, and served with horseradish whipped potatoes and roasted farm vegetables
• Fish: Macademia nut crusted mahi mahi on bed of wilted spinach, served with jasmine rice, plantains and pineapple ginger salsa
• Vegetarian: Wild mushroom ravioli with cream sage sauce

Dessert is the wedding cake :)

For beverages, it is open bar all night long. In addition, we will have one signature cocktail for our guests to try, which is a Maker's Mark and gingerale, garnished with maraschino cherries and served over crushed ice.

This is a drink that Liz and I have fond memories of dating back to our initial meetings when she ordered this drink for us and told me it was a "grasshopper." The next time I went to a bar, I asked the bartender for a grasshopper, made of Maker's Mark and gingerale. The bartender looked at me strangely and told me that a grasshopper was an entirely different drink. The next time I saw Liz, she told me that she made a mistake and said it was a "dragonfly."

In honor of this moment, we are calling our signature cocktail the "New Grasshopper."

Ceremony Music

A couple of weeks ago, Liz and I met with the organist at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Mr. Samuel Soria. He played a variety of songs to choose from for our ceremony.

There will be two processionals when the wedding party walks down the aisle to the front of the Cathedral -- one for the groomsmen and bridesmaids, the parents, and the groom (me!), and another for the bride (Liz). Also, there is a recessional where people exit from the Cathedral.

We're looking forward to hearing our choices for the ceremony music played on the Cathedral's impressive organ. Here they are --

First processional -- Across The Stars by John Williams (Love Theme from Star Wars Episode II - Attack of the Clones)



Second processional -- Bridal Chorus by Wagner



Preparation of the gifts -- Ava Maria by Schubert



Recessional -- Arrival of the Queen of Sheba by Handel

Honeymoon

Liz and I are going away 11 days for our honeymoon, spending 5 days in Belize, 3 days in Guatemala, and 3 more days for travel and partial days in Belize and Guatemala. This will be the first time for both of us to visit Belize, Liz's second time to Guatemala, and my first time to Guatemala.

We'll spend the first part of our trip on Ambergris Caye, which is an island off the coast of Belize. We're looking forward to quiet, soothing beach time, as well as some snorkeling or scuba. We might even try out fishing.

In the second part of our trip, we'll take a short flight to Guatemala, where we'll spend a couple of nights in Antigua and a couple of nights by Lake Atitlán. It'll be a chance to enjoy some cultural sightseeing, take in some nightlife and good eats, perhaps do a little hiking, and be amazed by the beauty of Lake Atitlán.

It's been busy with wedding prep, and we're looking forward to some R&R after the big day!

Lego Caketopper

I'm just about recovered from my back sprain, thanks to the loving care of Liz, as well as some excellent treatment from her friend who is a naturopathic doctor and also a licensed acupuncturist. While my plans of fitting into my tuxedo pants have been derailed, my time resting at home provided some time to finish my design of a Lego caketopper for our wedding cake.

My Lego interest is something I've rekindled in the past several years. I remember spending many mornings as a kid making spaceships with my brother, and then in the afternoon having our spaceships and their crew wage epic battles with space monsters (which were stuffed animals) and space aliens (which were just mini-figs with a brick for a head). But one day our parents gave away all of our Legos to their friends' younger children, so I stopped playing with them during college and law school.

In the past couple of years, I've focused on building pre-designed Lego Star Wars sets, and making modifications to them to make them more movie-accurate, or to add features to the sets. I've also built a couple of my own models (My Own Creation or MOCs).

When I design my own models, I usually make them from scratch without the aid of design software. I tried using a software program called Lego Digital Designer (downloadable for free from The Lego Company website) to make a version of Anakin Skywalker's personal starfighter (the Azure Angel), but abandoned my design without finishing.

However, I decided to give Digital Designer another try for purposes of building the caketopper for our wedding cake. The basic concept is a white-colored, Valentine's Day-style heart. There is translucent red lettering that says "Eugene + Liz" on either side of the heart.

Also, beneath the two mounds at the top, there is space for bride and groom Lego mini-figs to sit. It's not apparent from the outside, but I did some somewhat fancy designing to create as much hollow space as possible within the heart to decrease the weight of the model (so the model can safely sit on top of the cake).

Here are some images of the design prototype, from a couple of different angles. I've just finished ordering all of the pieces, so it'll be about a week or so before I can assemble the actual model. The real thing will look a little different from these pieces, and will have the bride and groom mini-figs, but these images provide a sense of what the model will look like.

Injured backs but Happy Hearts

We are getting so close to the wedding! Although there is a lot of little things to do, each time we complete something ourselves I always stand back and am happy that a piece of us really went into our big day.

I am so proud of Eugene's creative side. As I've mentioned before on this blog, he is a lego engineer and he just finished designing our cake topper! I cannot wait for you all to see it! It is so cute and will really bring a special touch to our cake. We've really tried to make the style of our wedding modern but playful... therefore the lego love. I think that those words even represent us as a couple :)

On a not so good note: To get in shape for the wedding, Eugene, some of the wedding party and friends have been doing boot camp! I love it but we had a grueling test and Eugene injured his back :( He is feeling progressively better. I was worried there for awhile. But, taking care of him has been some great time for us to enjoy each other's company. Its been quality time that we needed to talk but also to just share how much we love each other.

I am so happy to be seeing all my family and friends soon! Each day I get nervous but excited! Everyone has so many good wishes that it is easy to forget all the stress for that day.