Food, Glorious Food!

Deciding on a caterer is one of the most important aspects of planning your wedding.  I personally LOVE food, and so choosing a good caterer is of extreme importance to me.

With so many restaurants and caterers in Winnipeg, there are seemingly endless catering options available.  The tricky part about planning our wedding, at the Victoria Beach Clubhouse, is that there is no kitchen!  That's right - no kitchen.  So, how does one choose a caterer in a kitchenless venue?

Let's first take a couple of steps back and think about what you need to determine when choosing your caterer.  Much of this decision will be based on what sort of a theme you want for your wedding.  Are you going for a real white linen, high class affair?  Maybe some hors d'oeuvres of smoked salmon canapes and raw oysters in the half shell, followed by an entree filet mignon cooked to perfection served with crumbled roquefort cheese and braised asparagus.

Or are you more of a from-the-earth kind of eater?  Perhaps an appetizer table offering up portabello mushroom bruschetta, a main course of eggplant casserole with layers of couscous, spinach, and farm fresh vegetables.  And topping it all of, a vegan chocolate torte!

We are neither of the above, although I would be thrilled to attend either of those weddings and chow down!  But for my own affair, I am interested in a quality menu that tastes delicious. I love fish, so some sort of salmon or pickerel is a must.  I don't really want a buffet, because I just plain don't like buffets.  And although I love filet mignon, the price tag starts to get a bit heavy.  What we need is something that meets in the middle.

Now, back to that tricky part: the kitchenless venue.

Since we are avid VBers and have many VB friends, it just so happens that Jason and I have been to a couple of weddings at the lake.    So, I decided to take a poll of VB brides.  I emailed four women I know who all got married at the clubhouse, and asked them about their caterers.  Who did they hire?  How much did they charge?  How was the food?  How was the service?  And overall, did you like them?  Unbelievably, three of the four couples had all chosen the same caterer and were very happy with their choice!  The fourth was also singing the praises of her caterer, however I preferred the budget of the majority choice, so I contacted them, Prairie Cuisine Caterers.  The best part is that they travel with a kitchen hitched up in a trailer!  The kitchen conundrum is solved!

Brides and grooms, I highly recommend you get out there and ask people what they did for their weddings!  How are we in the wedding planning stages supposed to know anything about anything without asking.  Unless you've been married before and done the whole wedding planning thing, then you are not expected to have a clue.  So ask.  I did, and it saved a lot of time and headaches.

One of the brides I surveyed was married last June at VB, and Jason and I were in attendance.  The delicious food was all served "family style", meaning that they bring large platters and dishes to each table and let everyone serve their own portions.  Kind of a happy medium between a buffet and individual servings.  The first course was a variety of salads: pasta salad, tossed salad, spinach salad, etc.  Then came the main: lemon & dill salmon, steak, chicken, and potatoes.  I don't remember all the details, but I remember it was all delicious... except for the steak, which was overdone.  That's okay though, we won't make steak part of the menu at our wedding.  Finally they had a dessert table set up and guests could help themselves when they were ready, and the desserts were out all night, which means you could go back for seconds - or thirds!

I am looking forward to planning the menu and going for samplings of Prairie Cuisine's fabulous food...  Stay tuned for further blogposts regarding catering and menu planning as we get deeper and deeper into the wedding plans in the new year.  Bon apetit!

Is is raining out?

Nope, not raining!  It's a shower, of the bridal variety.

Being a bride-to-be means that, in all likelihood, there will be a shower or two held in my honor.  However, yesterday was my turn to co-host a shower for my maid of honor, Tara.  Another one of Tara's close friends, Megan, and I hosted the ladies event at my home yesterday afternoon, and a lovely time was had by all.

When Megan text messaged me about a month ago to see if I would like to lend a hand in planning the event, I jumped right in!  We decided to make it a surprise shower, and really throw our bride for a loop.  The surprise was a success, as we had decided to tell her we were planning for something in the new year to throw her off the scent.  The result?  A very surprised bride at my doorstep around 2:15 yesterday afternoon.

                               Tara's arrival at her surprise shower!

Co-hosting the event meant that Megan and I could divide up the planning details, which made the party planning a very reasonable task.  Megan was in charge of invites, corsages, punch, and paper plates/napkins -- as well as a to DIE FOR lemon meringue dessert.  I was in charge of picking up the gift from the registry, appetizers, and the venue (my home).  By hosting the event as a pair, Megan and I got to share in all the fun of party planning and not get overwhelmed by all the tasks.

                       Megan pinning the corsage on the bride-to-be

                              Bride and Mother of the Bride

       Co-hosts, Megan and me on either side of Tara in her traditional ribbon hat.

Tara and Tyler registered at the Bay, which gave guests an opportunity to pick out a gift that they were sure the couple wanted.  Registries are perfect for couples who are starting off and in need of all the household items that they currently do without.  However, as couples are getting married later & later these days, after living together for a few years, they often have already acquired many of the house and home items they need.  In this case, couples can get creative.  I know that Jason and I are planning on registering at the Bay for some household items, as well as Canadian Tire or Cabella's for camping gear.  To all you couples who are not in need of place settings and towels, keep in mind that there are other registries out there that may suit your needs/interests more than the traditional houseware registries.

Now to discuss shower food.  Let me start by saying that I love a good old fancy sandwich at a shower, but I sure don't love making them!  Instead of the fancy sandwich tray from my mother's generation, I opted for an easier route. I hit up Costco and bought a variety of cheese & crackers, a vegetable tray with dip, and some pre-made spanikopitas that just needed to be heated in the oven.  I love home made appetizers and snacks, but I am a full time student with a very busy schedule, so letting Costco do the work for me was perfect.  All I had to do was present the store bought food beautifully, and voila!  As good as homemade.

Desserts were up to Megan and the mother of the bride.  They brought a variety of treats, some home baked, some bakery bought, and all were delicious!

                                                Food Table

                        Jeannie's red velvet cake - YUM!

We had a lovely afternoon, keeping the longstanding tradition of female fellowship and fantastic food alive, as we helped send off another woman into her new role as wife.

Say Cheese!

I don't know if it's because I am paying attention these days, but it seems as though wedding photography blogs are everywhere.  I am at an age where a lot of my friends and peers are taking the plunge into wedded bliss.  After the big day of exchanging vows, brides and grooms promptly upload their wedding pics onto their Facebook pages for all their family and friends to see...  (with a photo credit at the bottom listing the name and website of their wedding photographer)

Personally, I love, love, love looking at people's wedding pictures!! I don't even need to know who the people in the pictures are! So, needless to say, when it was my turn to pick out a wedding photographer, I was excited to join the masses of newlyweds who are featured on professional wedding photographer's blogs and post my Facebook pics, with photo cred and all...

That is until I got the price list....  ouch.  Now let me just say, that the photographer I had in mind is a wonderful person and I believe wholeheartedly that she is charging market value for her services.  However, market value on wedding photography is insanely expensive!  Most photography companies charge anywhere from $3000-$6000 to spend the day with you snapping pics.  Unbelievably, this price tag does not even include prints of the photos, once you receive your disc of digital negatives, you can then pay more money to actually print the pictures you like.  That is a whole lot of cash for a few snapshots...

After receiving the shocking price package in my email inbox, I was left feeling a touch heartsick.  I had literally been anticipating hiring a wedding photographer for a time long before I was even engaged and now I felt I had a tough decision to make:  Follow the herd, and pay an arm & a leg for photos?  Or get creative?

I decided on the latter.

After brainstorming and wrestling with the wedding photography conundrum for a couple of weeks, I had an "a-ha" moment.  A close family friend of ours is a 25 year old artist, who holds a fine arts degree from U of M, with a major in photography!  She is planning on going back to school in the fall to get her education degree and become an art teacher.  Surely, a young artist in school could use a few extra bucks come September, right?!

I promptly sent the lovely young photographer an email explaining my predicament, and asking if she would do me the honor of taking our wedding photos...  She was a bit nervous in her response, having never been a paid wedding photographer in the past.  I explained that we are just looking for someone with a good eye and a decent camera to come out and have some fun with us.  After explaining to her that we are not looking for perfection, we just want to capture a few special moments and not feel as though we are being fleeced in order to do so.  She accepted!  Hurray!

The moral of this little wedding photography story is to be creative.  Just because all your friends and family are jumping off a financial bridge and paying through the nose for wedding pictures doesn't mean you have to as well!  There are all sorts of solutions to the wedding photography dilemma, you need only find the one that suits you best.  Perhaps for some of you with huge wedding budgets that is paying $5000 to hire a professional, maybe it's buying a whole whack of disposable cameras and letting your guests do the honor of snapping some shots, or maybe you too have a family member or friend who can share their talent with you for the day.  Regardless of what you decide, just be sure it matches how you feel you want the day represented, then you are surely going to be happy with your decision...  I know I am! :)

 A photo I took at my cousin's wedding two summers ago... 

Choosing a Wedding Party

In bridal parties across North America, we typically see brides surrounded by 4 or 5 girls in matching gowns: their lovely bridesmaids.  I've actually seen wedding parties with up to 8 or 9 girls and guys on each side of the bride and groom!  Yikes.  And what do we generally hear from these loyal, loving bridesmaids?  We hear about what a Bridezilla their BFF Suzy was for making them buy $400 matching dresses that they'll never wear again.  Or how Suzy gave her bridesmaid, Penny, the stink-eye when Penny showed up to one of her eight showers 25 minutes late.  Or how ticked off they are that they are expected to give $100 presentation, even though they've already spent upwards of $700 just to meet all the bride's demands. 

Sounds like a blast, doesn't it?

Over time the bridesmaids start wishing that Suzy didn't consider them to be such close friends, and they could be just one of the many guests whose only responsibility was to show up.

Jason and I are taking a different approach.  We have chosen to ask one friend each to stand up for each of us.  In Jason's case it is his best friend of nearly 30 years, Enzo (whom I don't think he has even asked yet, but it's kind of a given).  And I have asked my lovely, dear friend Tara.  Her and I have been close for about 5 years, and we have talked about our wedding day long before either of us were engaged.  Incidentally, she is getting married in Mexico at the end of January, and sadly I am unable to attend, due to my studies.  I have, however, seen her in her dress and let me tell you she is GORGEOUS!  A real life Princess Bride.

We have chosen to skip the massive bridal party to keep matters simple.  Once we start choosing some friends and not others, feelings inevitably get hurt.  Who do you leave out?  This problem is actually more Jason's than mine; I have a small group of intimate friends, and he is a real guy's guy with a lot of close friends and was having trouble on deciding who to ask and who to leave out.

Also, there is the matter of the matching dresses... If I were to have a bridal party exceeding all of one gal, would I enforce the matching dress rule?  To be honest, I couldn't decide.  My inclination was to let the girls pick out their own dress.  Something they liked, within their budget, and above all, something they could get multiple wears out of.  But what if I ran into the problem of not liking what they picked?  I know, this is a bit shallow, but in all honesty it did cross my mind.

Another reason we decided not go for a full on bridal party:  Our age.  I am now 32 and Jason is 40.  Next year, when we marry, we will be 33 and 41.  This is by no means old, but I believe that since Jason is over the 40 mark, our wedding should reflect this. I am not saying that having large bridal parties is immature, but I do think that opting away from it is a little more 'grown up'.

For us, the simplicity of having one person stand up for each of us feels natural and appropriate.  We dearly love our family and friends, and I don't think I need to throw six girls in matching dresses to prove it. 

So...  Tara can wear whatever she wants, as long as it's not her own wedding gown... that would be weird.

Jason (left) and Enzo (right) at Jason's 40th BDay celebrations, Me (left) and Tara (right) in Montreal last May.

Engagement on a Saturday Afternoon...

Just about a month ago, my partner and I decided to get hitched!  It was Saturday afternoon of the Thanksgiving long weekend, and we were at Victoria Beach preparing ourselves for a two day turkey eating extravaganza.  Jason asked me if I'd like to take a walk...  Little did I know a ring was coming my way! That evening we happily announced to our friends and family that we were indeed gettin' hitched.

Now, the task at hand is to plan a wedding... 

I'm not sure how much experience you have in wedding planning, but let me tell you, this industry is a MACHINE.  Jason and I are quickly finding that if retailers and service providers can charge you an arm and leg to purchase their product for your wedding, then they will.  Happily.

We have therefore decided to keep our wedding as fun and cost friendly as we can, without falling into all the pitfalls of what I will now refer to as "Wedding Gougers".  There are a few areas where we are happy to spend a reasonable amount of cash: food, flowers, and a dress(!!!).

The most important thing to us is to be surrounded by our loved ones while we declare a lifelong commitment to each other... Then chow down and party!

So, step one is to set a date. We have and it is September 10, 2011.  Step two is to pick a venue, we have also done that; we are getting married at the lake, where we got engaged.  Victoria Beach has a Clubhouse that it rents out for occasions such as this, and the best part of that is that it's a bargain at $700.

As I navigate the wedding planning stages, I am determined to stay true to my values and not let myself get carried away with the monstrosity that is the wedding market...  Wish me luck!