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Did any of you have any idea that there is a ingle enjoyable second of weeding planning?  I didn't, until this weekend.  Up until this weekend, I was convinced that wedding planning meant stress, more money spent, more dieting, more time, more effort, more, more, more.  And then this weekend happened.

We have been having the beverage conversation all along, and believe you me, the beverages we serve at our wedding are going to be pretty dang special.  So special, in fact, that we have already put 5-6 hours worth of thought into said beverages and have made very few concrete decisions so far.  Yes, you read correctly: 5-6 hours of thought, discussion, and debate.  About beverages.  This should clue you newer readers in to just how detail-oriented I am.  It's obscene.

So on Saturday I went to my mom and dad's house to do more wedding stuff.  To plan and consider options that I hadn't yet even begun to prepare for.  And beverages came up again.  My parents had ordered a half of a case of a Riesling, with the intention of using it for the wedding (as long as Ammon and I were okay with it), but given the number of guests, that left 1.5 cases of wine, champagne, beer, sodas, and lemonade still to be determined.  So I did what any self-respecting stressed out bride-to-be would do, and I demanded that my mom and I high-tail it to a liquor store to do some research.  After she fed me some lunch, of course.  Brides have gotta eat, despite their proclivity for diets, after all.

So to the liquor store we went.  I didn't know what was going to happen on this trip, just that we wanted to scope out pricing on some wines.  We know that we want half of our beer to be microbrew, and the other half to be draft, and that part we are leaving up to the men.  We decided that the lady-folk should have the honor and privilege of checking out the wine options.  And boy, were there a lot.  In the end, I bought 2 champagnes, 2 pinot noirs, and the riesling my parents already purchased for sampling.  We decided that sampling is the way to go.  And man, was this my favorite bridal-related shopping trip yet!  Let's face it... alcohol is only moderately important... so long as it's available and not disgusting, nobody is going to care.  Except for me, of course, so why not pick something we love???

My pick

My Mom's pick

So for two nights in a row, Ammon and I rejoiced in suffered through wine tastings, for the sake of our wedding.  We couldn't stand the idea that someone would complain that we served the wrong Pinot with our chicken.

The two we had narrowed down to were the Mirassou Sun Pinot Noir, and the Parducci Small Batch blend Pinot Noir.  Mirassou winery holds a special place in my heart, as we visited the winery often when I was very small.  It's also my favorite Pinot of all time.  But my mom recommended the Parducci, explaining that they're another great California winery.  It came down to Ammon's favorite, as he is not usually a red wine drinker.  And my heart broke to pieces when he picked the Parducci.  He cited that the Mirassou had more tannin, and was slightly more dry.  And while he enjoyed drinking 2 glasses, he didn't enjoy the first half glass.  He loved the Parducci from first taste, telling me that it was "the best red wine he'd ever had".

Sorry Mirassou.  If it were up to me, you would be our wedding red.  You'll get 'em next time, and know that I'll still be buying you on the regular... you just have to share the love with the Parducci from here on out.

In other news, my mom told me that some of my dishes that I had intended to register for were just discontinued.  Eff.  Fiesta-ware, please stop making me cry.  You are hurting my heart by discontinuing the chocolate color.  It would've worked so incredibly well with my color scheme, and now I have to start over.  Not that I've started the gift registry... you would think that I would've, given that it's the funnest part, but nope.  Not so much.  Whoops.

I promised myself at the onset of wedding planning, I wouldn't talk about all of this here.  Then again, this really was a post about wine, with wedding thrown in here and there, so I'm going to call it kosher.  Also, I'm writing this after having split that Mirassou Pinot with Ammon, and man is it hard to type accurately when you're tired and relaxed.  Anywho friends, I hope that your Monday is relaxed and fantastic.  And if it isn't, do yourselves a favor and grab one of these Pinots on your way home -- unless you're pregnant or Mormon.  Then ignore this suggestion, and drink some lemonade instead.