But wedding after wedding that I go to I see champagne go to waste since everyone doesn't partake in the goodness of the bubbly. And to tell you the truth, I think that is blasphemy. I personally love me some sparkly wine. But then again there really there is a never any kind of wine that I turn my back on.
But Mr. Sweets isn't exactly into champagne. He likes his one the sweet side, just like his women I guess... ;)
Since we were having our wedding at a winery, we had to partake in their wine choices only, which meant that the sweet bubbly we had to get from them would cost a pretty penny. And with cost, the fear of champagne waste & Mr. Sweets' sweet palate against us, I wanted to figure out another option.
No worries, besides champagne I actually love vintage bottles.
Such pretty bottles...
Image via My Sweet Savannah / Credit: All About You Magazine
...would not only make a great centerpiece...
Image via Maine Seasons
...but a great show-stopper element for a toast!
Image via Tracie Mobley / Credit: Martha Stewart
(FYI: The last pic is the oh-so-genious Martha camp's reuse of vintage bottles for dishwashing suds. So creative I know.)
So as the summer months went by I soon had a collection of assorted bottles to put the "toast juice" in. While my mind was originally leaning towards homemade limoncello, to go with our yellow & grey color scheme, I soon realized that this was super silly since what does Italian lemon liquor have to do with mouth watering BBQ anyway.
Needless to say with the craze of Sweet Tea Vodka not getting old any time soon (well at least not for me), I thought that that would be just the perfect "toast juice" for any kind words about us where people raise their glasses.
DIY Iced Tea in Vintage Soda Bottles with New Corks = Adorable
Image via Country Living / Photo credit: Burcu Avsar
I think that combining Sweet Tea --or as Dolly Parton's character in Steel Magnolia's puts it, the "house wine of the South" -- with some vodka in a vintage bottle, whipping up a cute tag in my very favorite font and using some yellow twine, would be the perfection I was looking for for toast time.
So I delved into cookbooks and scoured the Internet in search for the perfect Sweet Tea recipe....
I read about tips about using a pinch of baking soda to take out the bitterness and about how you must dissolve the sugar when the water is piping hot. I saw some recipes use 2 cups of sugar & other recipes make a sweet simple syrup. A couple say to ice it up right away & others argue that it dilutes the tea too quickly.
During my quest to find the perfect Sweet Tea for my homemade Sweet Tea Vodka, I wisely realized that I was from Pennsylvania. What the heck does a Philadelphian know about Sweet Tea? Cheesesteaks? Yes. Tea that can babies bury their head into a glass and not come up for air? Not so much.
Am I the only bride out there not using champagne for toasts? What did you use?
I'm asking all the Southern Belles (and any other Belles above the Mason-Dixon line), what the heck is your Sweet Tea recipe that you swear by?
Bring it to me, hive!
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