-Oh dear god. Is that a bridal party doing a cycling wine tasting trip?
-Look how miserable they are.
-Holy hell. That is my nightmare. You know half of them haven’t been on bikes in a decade.
-The sporty maid of honor was all, “I know! We should go wine tasting! And do a cycling tour!”
-Well, she was just hoping some of the girls would consider losing a little weight before the wedding.

The afternoon before everyone arrived, we arranged posies of Dahlias, orange tea roses, and green hypericum berries. We used pint-sized Mason jars as vases, and made a few dozen small arrangements so we could move them around to decorate various event spaces.

I love working with Dahlias because they’re pretty tough, easy to arrange, and stay fresh for quite awhile — even if you’re transporting them from place to place. We had a full day of wine tasting planned on Saturday, so we kicked off right after breakfast with a tasting class at 10:30 a.m., which was… ambitious.

Our team rose to the challenge.

The Wine Sisterhood brought in Leslie Sbrocco, author of The Simple and Savvy Wine Guide to walk us through some food pairings and offer some wine education. My favorite tip was to freeze leftover sparkling wine to use as ice cubes in orange juice. Insta-mimosa.

Moshin Vineyards helped us set up lunch and a tasting in the cask room, which was the most romantic lunch I’ve ever had with thirty other women.

Boon’s restaurant catered our lunch, including their signature homemade parmesan potato chips, which haunt my dreams.

At Arista Winery, we tasted outside with a view of the vineyards.

Finally, we headed over to Hop Kiln, where Helen Jane set up a Cheese Whizzes tasting for us. Word to the wise, Rogue River Blue Cheese from Oregon. Holy holy.

We wanted to leave the Broad Summit prints on the ladies pillows, but realized belatedly that guests would need a way to get them home safely. Guerneville doesn’t exactly have an Office Max, so we clipped some prints to boards and left others in pretty office folders on guests pillows. I especially loved how the clipboards looked.