the essence

We are having an absolutely beautiful morning here in the forever hot state of Florida! It's after 8:30 & my house is still open with a cool, yes cool, breeze blowing through. I love it. Of course it will soon heat up again, which is fine because we're scheduled to go swimming with my mom's group at 10 this morning. I still feel like I should be baking something.

Anyway, last Saturday we had a lovely wedding to attend with Jen & Gabe. It was the wedding of an old high school buddy of Ray & Gabe's; the wedding was in a beautiful catholic church in downtown & the reception was at a swanky country club in South Tampa.



I'll be honest, if I don't really know many people at an event then my next favorite thing is the food. At the cocktail hour we had puffed pastries filled with crab, brie, & raspberry; mini bruschetta; & individual glasses of shrimp cocktail filled with the largest shrimp I've ever eaten.

Some of my favorite things from the wedding:

These were the favors/place cards. They were customized little bottles of wine (or bottle of M&M's for the kids) with our name & table attached. It was so pretty!



This was the entry table when walking into the country club. It held the guestbook & the card holder, which I just loved!!!



We also had quite the swanky ride for the day. Gabe's brother let us borrow his super luxurious BMW for the day. I totally loved being driven around in that!



Gabe's brother lives right across the street from Channelside, on the 15th floor. After the wedding we went back to his place & we went up to the clubhouse area on the 5th floor. They had the most gorgeous rooftop pool & view of the downtown skyline!





More photos from the day can be seen here.