We are less than a month away from the big day, and in the throws of finalizing preparations. We’ve picked up the dress, flowers have been ordered, and vendors have been paid… mostly. But that’s not what has prompted me to sit here and tell you a lovely story. No, it’s the utter silliness of the things I do to myself.
Travel back with me to the lovely month of April, when I placed an order for… you ready? Flatware. Yep. So, I have a silly hangup, I like to eat with real utensils. I wish I could give you a bit more reasoning, but I can’t, I just like real utensils. At the time, my beautiful daughter, the bride-to-be, was looking into a food truck to handle the catering for the event. I was fine with that, of course; but, what was I going to eat with? This is where my head went. Were they going to serve the food in those white Styrofoam containers with plastic cutlery? I simply was not having that. So… before my daughter even finalized the “food-truck” I went ahead and ordered flatware, plates, and cups. Shortly after the order was placed…
She decided to hire a caterer, not a food truck. I’m fine with that too, of course.
The very professional caterer offered to supply all the plates and flatware. Isn’t that sweet? By this time, I’ve received about 3 boxes from the internet restaurant supply store I ordered from. In other words, we’re on this horse people, and we’re gonna ride it.
Any whoo…. I finally decided to sit with these utensils and begin “artistically” wrapping them in napkins. I had been receiving boxes from the restaurant supply store but never really “dug in” to them. Guess what? I was missing the dinner forks, and dinner knives. Well, I immediately called the vendor and found out that, “due to supply chain issues” they cannot guarantee when they will have flatware. Well, it was time to call in an audible and find a local store with supply, and cancel the internet order. Done and done.
Time to start rolling/folding/wrapping: I mean how hard could it be?
I don’t know what I was thinking.
I ordered 12 dozens of each item. That’s 144, desert spoons, salad forks, dinner forks, and knives. A total of 576 pieces, that I volunteered to wrap into napkins. 576.
My daughter (silly girl) wanted to help me. I’m of-course grateful.
First, she wisely reminded me to wash all the utensils before wrapping them.
I, unwisely emptied all 576 pieces into a box, in my den. That was a heavy box. My daughter proceeded to carry said box to the sink in my kitchen, where we honestly thought washing and drying 576 items would be, “easy”… it wasn’t. I suggested putting all the flatware in my dishwasher, my daughter gazed at me with the most dumbfounded look and said, “really mom, you think these are all going to fit in there?” She was right of course. Those little utensil baskets in dishwashers weren’t designed to hold 576 of them.
After washing the knives, which were surprisingly quite sharp, another painful reality set in. I may actually get injured. See, when the knives are wet and you’re trying to grab them… all 144 of them, cuts happen. All I have to say is, Thank God they weren’t steak knives, and the cuts were less painful than paper cuts .
Once all the flatware was washed and dried, it was time to make things look pretty. My daughter asked me, “mom, how are we doing this?” I replied, “oh, I have no idea”.
Did you know, that I have no clue how to properly roll/fold utensils into a napkin?
We had to YouTube it.
And, after multiple times… multiple times, of watching the same video, I kind of got it. Kind of. They look ok now.
In summation, if you ever need to make not-so-pretty rolls of napkins with flatware enclosed, I’m your girl.