AK Studio | Behind the Scenes of Alexandra Kaehler Design

Last week, on Wedding Wednesday quite a few people requested some post-wedding advice. Take it with a grain of salt, of course, every bride is different.

Today I’ll share what I learned about my actual wedding day. I will spend another post, on a different day, on things I learned about planning if you guys are interested.

(Our first dance)

I learned that you tip your vendors. I had absolutely no idea. I was the first of my friends and family to get married and somehow my planner never mentioned it. I was struck with this information a month after my wedding and was really upset that we didn’t have budget left to tip our amazing vendors. Instead I wrote thank you notes (still have a couple left to do) to everyone we worked with. They were truly amazing and I wanted them to know it. Budget for this. They deserve it!

I learned that things will go wrong. Your definition of wrong. Your guests definition of wrong. Your planners definition of wrong. It doesn’t matter whose definition. Shit happens.

I learned that things that you think you will care about, you won’t care about (at least not in the moment). For example, every square inch of my wedding was white but for some reason some purple flowers snuck into our chair garlands. I looked at them when I walked in, thought to myself “ohhhh I don’t really like that” and kept walking. Its your wedding! Who cares about your chair garlands?

I learned that you have to make an extremely conscious decision to spend the entire night with your husband. It won’t just happen. There are so many people there for both of you, you will get pulled into a million different directions if you let it happen. I had my planners assistant on “Spencer Patrol” every time we got separated. I wanted to have my memories of our wedding night be together. I wanted to remember my wedding WITH Spencer. This one was huge for me. I can’t it emphasize enough.

I learned you can’t control the weather. It sucks, but you can’t. Our entire ceremony and cocktail reception was planned to be outside but a week before, when I saw the forecast, I knew it wasn’t going to happen. We ordered outdoors heaters and pashminas for our guests, but that morning I woke up and it was 50 degrees. There was no way people were going to be comfortable outside. It broke my heart. We chose our venue for the amazing scenery, but there was nothing we could do.

I wish I had an “after” picture of this delicious meal, but I was a bad blogger and stuffed my face instead of taking a picture.

Vegetable + Chicken Sausage Lasagne

Ingredients Needed:

Lasagne noodles (I buy the no cook ones)
Marinara sauce (my favorite is Rao’s)
1 yellow squash
1 zucchini
5 fresh chicken sausage links
Non-fat ricotta
2 chopped garlic cloves
Baby spinach
Fresh basil
1 egg
Salt & pepper
Mozzarella cheese
Parmesan cheese

How to:

Use a mandolin to cut the squash and zucchini thin.

Combine the container of ricotta, with the chopped garlic, a couple handfuls of baby spinach, chopped basil, one egg and salt and pepper.

Take the sausage out of the casing and brown on the stove while breaking up into smaller pieces (use a touch of olive oil so it doesn’t stick to the pan)

Take a pyrex dish and put some tomato sauce on the bottom of it. Then put a layer of the lasagne noodles. On top of the noodles put a layer of the ricotta mixture. Next, put a layer of cooked chicken sausage on top of the ricotta. Last, lay down a layer of the thin cut zucchini and squash so that it almost acts as a layer of noodles. Pour tomato sauce over this layer and start again.

Your top layer should end with noodles and then top with copious amounts of shredded mozzarella cheese.

Cook at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Top the lasagne with tin foil while cooking.

When the lasagne is finished, remove the tin foil and place the lasagne below a broiler for a minute to brown the cheese.

And thats it! You end up using half the amount of pasta that you would normally use because of the thinly sliced vegetables and its an incredibly filling and delicious meal.