Marriage License, Morons, and Macarons

We were really excited to check "marriage license" off our to-do list today! During lunch, we went to the Arlington county courthouse to get it.

We were happy and felt like we accomplished an important milestone!!!! BUT when we got home and looked closely at the marriage license information, it read that it was good for sixty days. Then the two morons (that's us) counted the days til the wedding: over sixty days away. IDIOTS!!! So we'll have to either go back or get an extension or something. Surely others have made the same mistake!

However, one bit of very nice news came in the way of a surprise gift (with a thank you card) from Lindsey Ryan, our invitation designer: a box of macarons!! They were delivered (still chilled) today! So nice!!! I should be thanking her!

And it was fortuitous, because I was planning on doing another trial run (my third one in about a week and a half) of the macarons (they're going to be favors at my wedding); and the Payards version would be a good comparison. I had left out some egg whites to age...and the results: THIRD TIME'S THE CHARM!!! Success!! (More on those later). Here they are:

I just practiced the cookie part and added some red food coloring. Instead of a real stuffing/center, I just put blackberry jam between the two cookies. Here they are compared to one of the Payard macarons Lindsey gifted. What do you think?

Failures, surprises and success all in one day!