Our Engagement Party

Last night was our long-awaited engagement party! Though we got engaged back in December we waited until now to have our celebration to give my sister and her fiance time to enjoy their engagement festivities as they were engaged three weeks before us.

We held our party at the local community hall and had approximately 80 friends and family members come to celebrate with us.

The night flew by and I feel like I barely had a conversation longer than five minutes with anyone, but it felt so lovely having our dearest friends there to celebrate with us.

I had a ball doing a lot of DIY decor (practice for the wedding!) so I thought I'd share some pictures with you. I love to save a buck and I love crafty stuff, so it was only natural I'd go the DIY route!

1. The cute chalkboard I had fun decorating with a handmade pom pom and some gorgeous flowers I got from the flower market

2. Our gift table complete with birdcage wishing well

3. I picked up some cheap frames on clearance from Target and made little signs instructing our guests to have a damn good time. Another one said 'Let them eat cake' and it was on the cake table. Teehee.

4. Our guest 'book' - a little scrapbooking paper stack + some cute gel pens + a board from a discount store = our DIY guest book station. I plan to make a guest book by using scrapbooking paper and sticking the cards and some photos in it

5. I made the pom poms out of tissue paper - each one cost me $1 to make, compared to $7 if I bought them online (save!)

6. I made the bunting that ran the whole way around the hall out of kitchen twine and scrapbooking paper. Chris was recently away for work for a month so I was lonely - the bunting project kept me occupied!

So anyway...I know you're here for the cake...

This cake was one of my most complicated ever. It's only two tiers but holy moly, it was time consuming. If you've followed my blog for a while you'd know that macarons and I have a love/hate relationship, in that I love them, and they hate me. I piped these at about a centimetre in size and I think that the fact they were so tiny was what made them fail miserably. Half of the macarons I made rose like volcanoes and EXPLODED. It was wretched. I lowered the temperature, I added extra baking trays underneath, I tried everything. Thank goodness I'm mental and made double the amount I needed, so I had enough smooth, flat ones to use on my cake. My hat goes off to anyone that can make macarons because I surely can't. And it makes me very, very sad.

Anyway, I digress...

It was a last-minute decision to make the bunting for the top of the cake - I thought it needed some extra cuteness (because it didn't have enough already!) I made it by cutting some freehand triangles out of scrapbooking paper (I have an addiction to the stuff) and writing our initials on them with a black fineliner. Grabbed some kitchen string and a couple of small wooden skewers, and hey presto! Cake topper.

The top tier was white chocolate mud with vanilla buttercream. It had a sneaky surprise inside - honeycomb! I added it to the buttercream between the layers. The bottom tier was dark chocolate mud with crushed Peppermint Crisps inside. Mmmm.

A lot of my guests had heard about the macaron craze but had never tried them, so I made sure everyone got a handful (there were sooooo many on that cake!) By all reports the party-goers loved them!

I felt like I had the paparazzi with us when we cut the cake - I've never had to smile at so many cameras simultaneously before! Eek!

I adore this pic of the cake. We found this dodgy old table in the hall when we got there and I desperately wanted to include it in the party. It's so old and decrepit but beautiful all the same.

Thanks again to everyone who made our night so special. We were so spoilt with the gifts we received and we've been reading and re-reading our cards all day. We are truly blessed to have such amazing friends and family <3