Glory, Glory to Old Uga (Cake)!

Well, here he is! We had such fun putting him together and Uga-fying him! I printed a picture of Uga and was very careful to get the details right.


He got a studded black collar, and I even decided to include the Nike swoosh. I really wanted to make his little pendant too, but too little time. That might have been a little overboard.

Josh did his face, and even though it's super simple, I'm happy with it. Rather than try to make it look realistic and risk making a mess with black icing, we just decided to keep it simple. His eyes and nose are made out of gumpaste, and the mouth is just black icing. Josh really wanted to make a pink gumpaste tongue, but we decided to leave it alone.

His collar is black gumpaste with silver dragees. Dragees are those little silver things that look like bb's. They're made of sugar, so they're completely edible. I ate my fair share at Montessori when I was little. They had an activity in which you were supposed to spoon the dragees from one bowl to another. Who knows how often they had to refill that bowl. We all ate them.

The rest of him is vanilla flavored buttercream. Although the red probably didn't wind up tasting too much like vanilla. You wouldn't believe the amount of food coloring we had to put in that stuff to make it the right red! And it still probably could have been a little darker, but it was starting to mess with the consistency of the icing, so we said good enough.

Like I mentioned in an earlier post, the cake starts at the back of his head and goes all the way to his butt. There is a flat spot on the form that the cake sits on, and then we carved the cake to look like his actual back and bottom. Even his little tail is cake.

We have a boxwood that we clipped in order to get the "hedges" that he's standing on. Are the hedges at Georgia actually boxwood? I don't know, Google it.

Anyway, we were pretty proud of our boy. Anybody need an Uga cake for an event? We'd love to recreate him! I would be MORE than happy to make him for any of you Lovvorns! You know you love him! :)

Uga Cake

*Updated 05/2009 to include latest version of our Uga cake - the best yet!

e-mail mmg13@comcast.net for info about ordering!

Anybody remember the groom's cake at mine and Josh's wedding? If you were there, how could you forget? It stole the show.

Josh made this cake. And it's not just a cake. He got the idea to make a 3 dimensional bulldog for his groom's cake, but knew you couldn't just carve a cake into a bulldog. That would be nearly impossible. So, he carved a bulldog out of a giant piece of styrofoam. My brother was working at a sign fabrication shop at the time and was able to help Josh create an abstract bulldog form. He then had to shape it by hand to make all the curves and details. The last step was covering it with a liquid plastic that hardened (we couldn't just serve a cake on top of styrofoam).

Once the form was completed, on to making the cake. Mama helped with the recipe, but Josh and our friend Derrick pretty much made the entire thing themselves. They put me to bed at my parents' house the night before the wedding (Josh and I couldn't see each other past midnight... you know, bad luck). Then Josh, Derrick, Mama, and my maids of honor Miranda and Kiesha stayed up until the wee hours of the morning putting this cake together. It wasn't just a matter of baking the cake, sticking it on the mold and that was it. Josh made the mold so that it had a cut-out on the back of the bulldog, so that the actual cake could be set there. So they baked the rectangular cake and set it on the form. It then had to be carved and shaped so that it meshed with the rest of the dog. Then it was iced. He chose to just do the white icing, rather than trying to make the face, sweater and all that. One, because it was 3am and he had to get up and get married the next day. Two, because we generally prefer more abstract versions of things. Leave something to the imagination, you know?

Here is a picture of the cake once it was cut. See how the back is flat so you can just cut and serve the actual cake easily? Josh is so smart. :)

Like I said, this thing totally stole the show that day. So many people thought it was a statue. Others thought it was entirely cake and couldn't figure out how we did it.

Leading up to the wedding, some were doubtful that Josh was going to be able to pull this off. Even the guy that did my wedding cake said to me, "A 3 dimensional bulldog? Holy shit." And then he gave me his home phone number and said that if there was a disaster and it didn't work out to call him and he'd make us a groom's cake. He wound up putting a picture of the finished product in his photo album in his shop. He was impressed.

(By the way, if you ever need a birthday cake, wedding cake, groom's cake, or are just really in the mood for a good cake (and Mama is all booked up because our bakery is just booming ;) ), call Martin. I highly reccommend the Strawberry Chantilly, White Chocolate Mousse (my wedding cake), and the Paris Brest. Amazing.)

Anyway, so Josh pulled it off. Well.

A few days after our wedding, Mama was at a shower somewhere downtown Douglasville and was telling someone about the cake. Another lady happened to overhear Mama. She said, "I have been searching and searching for someone that does a 3 dimensional bulldog, because that is what my son wants for his groom's cake in a couple of months." Mama wound up walking the lady down to our house and showing her (the remains of) the cake. Yes, it was still sitting in the same place. Hey, we needed some down time after that big event, give us a break. It got cleaned up soon enough. And yes, our reception was at our house, for those of you who didn't know.

Anyway, the lady loved it and wound up renting the form from us. The wedding was in south Georgia, so we didn't actually do the cake for her. She took the form to a bakery in the town where the wedding was, and they made this for her:

After the wedding, the lady called me and asked if it was okay to give out my number to a couple people because they were interested in using the form. I said sure, and we wound up renting it 4 or 5 more times.

The next year, we made another cake for my cousin Carla's wedding. Again, we kept it more abstract, without the face and sweater. We were able to spend a little more time on theirs though, and added the grass and the Georgia "G" to the base. I really love the way it turned out.

So the whole point of me posting this (other than bragging on Josh's artistic abililty) is because the lady has called me yet again and we are doing the actual cake for her son's wedding on May 16th. She does want the face and sweater, so we're a teeny bit nervous about that, but we're confident that we can do it (and hopefully do an even better job than the other bakery did)!

Wish us luck, and I'll post a picture when we do it!

DJ For Hire

If any of y'all need or know of anyone that needs a DJ for an event, my brother Greg is a DJ and happens to be a great one. I have written about him before - he is the sweetest guy ever and is incredibly honest and takes pride in the work that he does. His sound system is amazing. It is definitely not what a typical DJ brings to an event site. It is a kick #@* set up that sounds great. He even has intelligent lights that he uses now that makes for a really fun atmosphere.

He has been DJing weddings, parties, school dances, etc. for a while now (he was the DJ at my ten year high school reunion this past year). It has always been just a side job, but he is now trying to really get his business up and going. It is what he loves and what he wants to do for a living. So, check out his website and please pass it on to anyone you think could use a great DJ!

And it doesn't hurt that he's a hottie! :)

Four Score and Seven Years Ago...

... I was not alive.


But Four Years and Seven Days Ago...


... Josh and I were married. September 4, 2004. What a day. Man, what a day. The best day of my life. I remember every little detail of it, and I give credit to my sister-in-law, Lauren, for that. She and Matthew got married earlier that same year, and her advice to me was to make sure I took it all in. She said that with all the excitement, stress and chaos of the day, her wedding day was a blur. So she told me to take it easy and make sure to take in every moment and don't let it be a blur. I remembered that advice and really did stay calm and take in every last moment of our day. The whole year, really. I just love everything to do with weddings. The showers, engagement parties, rehearsal dinners, decorating, giving and receiving of gifts, and just having all of the people you love around non-stop. So with Lauren and Matthew's wedding being in June and ours in September, 2004 was a blast for me. So many showers and fun parties, and so many family members and friends around throughout the year. I loved it.

So as not to write a book, I will touch on a few key memories of mine from that year.

*December 31, 2003: Josh proposed to me. It's funny that he chose to do it that night, because I told him that if he didn't ask me by the end of 2003, I was history. We had been together nearly 6 years - it was time. What a procrastinator!

*January 2004: Grandpa not only says that we can have our reception at the house he owned on Price Avenue, but offered for it to be our home after we were married. And so starts the hardest and most stressful thing I've ever done: completely gutting and renovating a house while planning a wedding, all in 9 months.

*March, April, May of 2004: Lauren's showers and luncheons begin and I am able to attend 5 of the 6 events (I was her maid of honor).

*May 2004: As soon as Lauren's showers concluded, mine began. The first two were in the same day, one at the old Le Jardin Blanc and one at Sandi's house in Smyrna. That one was especially fun for us because it was a Jack and Jill shower for all of our friends. Friends from high school as well as college.

*June 19, 2004: Lauren and Matthew were married in Snellville, Georgia. I had no idea I would be so emotional! My stomach was in knots as we lined up and got ready to enter the church. And when I saw her coming down the aisle, my bottom lip began to quiver. The tears didn't come then, but when Josh sang during the service I couldn't hold them back. It was amazing.

*June, July, August of 2004: My showers continued, and I continued loving every minute of it.

*September 3, 2004: One day left. I so clearly remember everyone being at the house working that day. My aunts (Judy, Nancy, Joan and Sarah) were all working on the flowers (the flowers that almost didn't make it due to Hurricane Charlie), and uncles Ricky and Andy were cleaning up, painting, placing pots of impatiens around outside; whatever needed to be done. Me, Josh, Mama, Daddy, Steve, Lynn, Miranda, Kiesha and her boyfriend (now husband) Derrick, Jeff, Greg, Grandpa, Mary, you name 'em - everybody was doing something. It was hustle and bustle around there, and it was great. At least for me. Everyone else might have been cursing me. I remember that Derek (another Derek - Josh's best man) went at the last minute and got our programs printed for us, and I rode in the backseat of our car to the rehearsal dinner so that I could wrap the girls' gifts that I was to give them that night. After the dinner, back at Mama and Daddy's house, they locked me in my room at midnight so that Josh and I wouldn't see each other when the clock ticked over and it was September 4th. Josh and Derrick were at the house making the groom's cake. The 3 dimensional bulldog groom's cake that wound up stealing the show. They were up until 3 or 4am working on it while I snoozed in my bedroom.

*September 4, 2004:

*I remember waking up that morning and having Virginia fix my hair at about 7am and then having a Mimosa toast with Mama, Kiesha, Miranda, Ashley, Derrick and Greg. After that, Mama very calmly asked if I was ready for her to hem my wedding dress, and I very calmly said yes. Talk about waiting until the last minute! We never got stressed or nervous, though.

*I was just taking it all in, and I don't think anything could have upset me that day. Except maybe if Josh had seen me before the wedding when our wedding directors led me right past the room in the church where Josh was standing with the preacher! I saw him, but he didn't see me, thank goodness.

*Speaking of him seeing me, I was nervous about him seeing me. I was so afraid he wasn't going to like my dress. I had nothing to worry about, though. He said I took his breath away, literally. He got choked up as soon as the church doors opened and he saw me standing there. He loved the dress.

*The service was wonderful. Derrick sang and played guitar; it was beautiful.

*I remember that Mama was distraught because she kept looking out the window before the service and didn't see any cars in the parking lot and thought that we were going to have a very low turnout. She never said anything to me, but it was breaking her heart. When we got to the sanctuary, it was packed. All of the cars were in the lower lot that she could not see. She was quite relieved.

*The reception was the most fun I have ever had. It's funny, because Josh and I hardly saw each other. He stayed inside for the majority of the time, and I stayed outside. Stay inside and miss the 10 piece Motown band? No way! Give me a peach daiquiri, bustle my dress and let me dance! I had a blast. I think everyone did. My little cousin Owen actually wrote about it in a report he had to do for school about a "favorite family memory" - 2 years later! My cousin Tammy sent me a copy of it; it was adorable. It proved to me that it wasn't just me that thought that day was terrific. A fun time was had by all.

*It took a few people dragging us out of there, but finally at about 2am, Josh and I left for our hotel in Atlanta. Little did we know that Dragon-con was going on at the Marriott Marquis that night. It made for an interesting trip to the room!

*And how can I talk about our wedding day without telling this story. When Josh and I arrived back at the house the next day, we sat down with Mama and Daddy, Greg, and Grandpa and opened our gifts. Well, Grandpa is famous for going to sleep sitting in a chair. No matter what is going on, he almost always nods off. Well this day was no different. So we're all sitting around and Josh and I start telling everyone about the wonderful breakfast we had in our hotel room that morning. I was telling them that we had scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, toast with butter and jelly, sausage, bacon, pancakes with syrup, etc. When I finished listing off everything, Grandpa, with his head on his chest, asleep, blurts out, "and an egg biscuit." We all turn and look at him, he wakes up, looks around at us, realizes what he has done, and we all burst into laughter. It was hysterical. I think he laughed the hardest. I can hear that laugh as I'm sitting here writing this. He thought he was ordering his breakfast. So funny. We actually named our trivia team "and an egg biscuit" in honor of him one time, a couple years later.


On that note, I will end this one. We miss you, Grandpa. Thanks for everything. You would be proud to know that after 4 years, Josh and I are happier than ever, and we have a beautiful baby boy named after your family that was conceived about 5 days before you passed away. I wish he could have known you, and you him.