Hen Party 1: 4 days to go

The preparations for Bride 1's hen party have hit fever pitch. With the Chief Bridesmaid en route from New Zealand the majority of the work has fallen to us lesser mortal bridesmaids. My week is shaping up to look like this:

Monday

• Job interview for really good job that I'd love

Tuesday

• Get up early to buy tax for car which ran out two days previously
• Pick up parcels from Post Office (for hen party 3)
• Go to two different supermarkets to buy ingredients for baking for hen party
• Get bridesmaid dress fitted 
• Go to different shopping centre to try on potential dress for Wedding 2
• Learn how to make meringue
• Practice baking for the hen party

Wednesday

• Make up mix CDs of cheerful songs to play at the hen party
• Finish sorting out my room and do laundry

Thursday

• Bake butterfly cookie lollies for the hen party bags
• Bake mini chocolate cupcakes
• Fill party bag with goodies for the hens

Friday

• Prepare mini lemon meringue and strawberry cheesecake pies
• Decorate butterfly cookies
• Ice cupcakes
• Buy helium balloons
• Drive to Rugby with baked goods and balloons safely in the boot
• Distract Bride whilst we sneak surprise mystery guest into her house (her sister who is chief bridesmaid and supposed to be travelling in Asia on her way home from living in New Zealand for the last two years)
• Bridesmaid sleepover
• Freak out because I haven't heard about the perfect job yet

Saturday

• Get up at the crack of dawn
• Drive 4 complete strangers to the canal
• Have a lesson in driving a narrowboat
• Decorate said narrowboat with balloons and banners
• Drive narrowboat for 3 hours to the nearest pub for lunch whilst the hens drink pink fizz and eat cupcakes
• Drive narrowboat back again
• Drive 4 not-so-strangers back to Bride's house
• Cook BBQ and mix cocktails for the hens
• Be a gracious hostess (ie try not to get drunk and embarrass self in front of new friends or fall asleep in the corner)
• Wrap Bride in toilet paper wedding dress
• Play other cringingly embarrassing hen party games that I am yet to research
• Wash up and generally clean up
• Collapse into bed (hopefully!)

Sunday

• Bridesmaid day of fun (yet to be determined fun)
• Drive home again

Shouldn't be too hard or much work, right?! What could possibly go wrong?? Well I was thinking about this in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep before the job interview and wrote a little list:

1. Bride thinks it's all a lame idea, hates it and is disappointed
2. Mystery guest surprise goes all wrong or someone lets the cat out of the bag
3. Hens don't get on and are stuck on a very small boat for six hours of awkwardness
4. Boat crashes or sinks or refuses to move
5. We balls up the locks and have to get rescued, and end up looking ridiculous
6. Canal is ugly, boat is horrid and pub is non-existent
7. All the baking gets destroyed in the car or is just generally vile
8. Being unable to drink all day because of driving duties will make me very in need of a drink by the time we get back to the Bride's house and I get sloshed whilst cooking the BBQ and embarrass the Bride who promptly disowns me
9. So tired from all mad preparations, sleepless nights of worrying, getting up early and rushing around like a blue arse fly that there will be no energy left for small talk - will be miserable antisocial cow with eyebags the size of shopping trolleys and will probably cry
10. We give all the guests food poisoning with the BBQ food

Surprisingly enough writing this list didn't cure the insomnia, I expect it made it worse! To top it off I had a chat with my bridesmaid counterpart who will be joining me in this list of joy, she has chewed off all her fingernails. We make quite a pair but at least we're in it together! 

If I survive this weekend I will be giving a full report next week!

Domestic goddess-ing

So today I took a leaf out of Kirsti’s book and decided to do a bit of baking. I’ve been helping out the lovely folks at my old office (for my sins) mostly as a way of catching up and having a good gossip. Ever since I got back, my ex-colleague Jordane has been bugging me to bake her cupcakes. Tomorrow I’m going in to deal with a massive mailout and taking these with me: 

Hopefully yumptious marshmallow cupcakes

From the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook, they are ordinary vanilla sponge fairy cakes but you melt some marshmallows in a bowl over some hot water, pink ones of course, scoop out a bit of the cake fill it with the melted marshmallow and then ice with buttercream icing mixed with mini-marshmallows. Turns out that it’s easier said than done to get melted marshmallow to behave itself in any way, shape or form. I ended up covered in sticky pink mess along with every item of cutlery in the kitchen and there wasn’t much marshmallow inside the cakes at all! 

Melted marshmallow

Big sticky spidery marshmallow mess!

The long and short of it is that I was planning on making these for Bride 1’s hen party but considering the mess they made, I may have to come up with another wee plan! Suggestions on a postcard please....