Archives for March 2010

How about another glimpse into the Barkers’ wedding planning journey? I’ve tried not to overdo it and post all things bridal all the time, but some things are just meant to be shared. I’d say chocolate fits into that category :)

Being a mother of the bride definitely has its perks — at least when the bride wants to offer truffles as favors like Kelli does. Of course, those of you who know me or who’ve followed my blog for awhile have already figured out who suggested truffles in the first place :)

As you can see from the photo above, Kelli and I found ourselves in truffle heaven the other day. We had to conduct a taste-test. After all, we can’t in good conscience offer our guests chocolate chosen in a haphazard fashion. It’s our duty to taste any potential truffle flavors and select only the ones we think everyone will enjoy the most. Yes, it’s a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it. And one of those somebodies is me :)

To be honest, there’s a bit of backstory to our truffle tasting. This was our second trip to the Candy House Chocolate Factory. Believe it or not, we had to go back this time to rectify a truffle tasting mishap. Remember a couple of weeks ago, when I told you about our last wedding planning day — the day when my handy little tape measure didn’t prove to be so handy after all? Well, we had truffle troubles that day as well.

Since it was the Friday evening before Valentine’s Day (Sunday), customers packed the store. Not exactly the best time for us to be waffling in front of the candy counter about which truffles we wanted to try :) Feeling a bit rushed and not wanting to go into our wedding planning explanation while Valentine’s Day shoppers awaited their turns, we asked the clerk to give us one each of the flavors that looked good to us. We paid for our purchase, snapped a photo on Kelli’s camera (which she hasn’t emailed me yet, by the way!), and scurried out to the car for some private taste-testing.

As I opened the bag, I realized we had a truffle mishap on our hands. The clerk had put all the truffles in the same bag, and now we didn’t know which flavor was which. Leave it to us to forget to ask her to bag and label them separately. We groaned and then giggled at the absurdity of the situation. What else was there to do but taste them all and try to guess the flavors? :)

Talk about a comedy of errors. Kelli would take a bite, then I’d take a bite, and then we’d linger over each taste, trying to remember the flavors we’d chosen and come to agreement on which flavor each was. And like any good mother of the bride, I took notes all the while :) Know what was even sillier? We tried to save tiny bites for Jake so he could taste them, too. I wish I could have seen his face when Kelli presented him with a bag of half-eaten candy. Yes, we are that crazy :)

I’m happy to report that our second trip to the candy store proved successful. We now know the six flavors of truffles (yes, six!) we want to serve. You’ll also be happy to hear that I even carried a little plastic knife in my purse so our covert truffle taste-testing in the car could be slightly more dignified this time. Hey, I learn from my mistakes! :)

Hope you enjoyed sharing in this chapter of our wedding planning journey. Sometimes it’s just good to share the fun stuff of life with each other, isn’t it? Be blessed this week!

“We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.” 1 Thessalonians 2:8