Tuesday 23 February 2010

Our Wedding!

So I didn't exactly manage to keep up with blogging in the run up to the wedding. I certainly intended to but when you set yourself tasks such as stamping every ones names letter by letter onto place cards & the table plan there isn't much time for anything else!

We decorated the venue ourselves the day before with a little help with lighting from a professional decoration company.


I incorporated place cards and favour bags into one thing by filling little bags with Raspberry Ruffles and tying people's names onto them.

One of the things I found hardest was finding the dress. I'm not overly girlie when it comes to clothing and usually wear skate shorts & t-shirts so even getting my head around the idea of wearing a dress was difficult! I toyed with the idea of wearing shorts & a tux t-shirt but I ended up deciding that I wanted to feel a bit more special than that. I also knew I'd never find anything I liked in the shops so I asked my amazing friend and bridesmaid Tabitha to make the dress.

We spent SO long shopping for fabric, partly because I'm fussy but also because every fabric I was totally in love with was silk! It was really frustrating partly because we really didn't have much time to plan the wedding (we did the whole thing in 6 weeks) and partly because I'm used to veganism being easy! This is the only time I've even found it remotely difficult, eventually we found something I liked and Tabitha made the dress in just a couple of weeks.


Our wedding was totally awesome even if I do say so myself. I couldn't stop grinning at my wonderful husband all day! Here's us using the photo booth...

The ceremony was really relaxed and lovely and at the reception we had awesome music, games, guitar hero and all the food was vegan! Having only been to all vegan restaurants a couple of times being able to eat (and drink) anything was super fun.

Our caterers were Veg Out who were absolutely amazing, I'd recommend them to anyone. They came up with an amazing menu...

...and even included a couple of my favourite picnicey dishes, my friend Kip's Blue Sheese Dip and my slightly adapted version of the Veganomicon Brooklyn Deli Macaroni Salad. Most of the photos below were taken by Kip from Messy Vegetarian Cook as I didn't manage to take a single photo on the day!

Before dinner there were canapes to go with the champagne. They included a totally delicious broccoli & cream cheese mini quiche and some filo pastry tarts with an amazing creamy mushroom filling.

Here's the Macaroni Salad and in the foreground you can see one of my favourite dishes from Veg Out their Cauliflower and Asparagus tart. More than one of my omnivorous guests said that they couldn't believe you could make something so creamy without cream or cheese, as a vegan I know that of course you can but it was awesome to be able to show other people this! I had about 3 slices and am certainly going to be trying to get hold of the recipe.


Here are a few more pics, Potato Salad...

...Dolmades...

... Tofu and Vegetable Kebabs...

...Red Quinoa Kedgeree with Tofu...

...Green Bean Salad with a lemon, mint and parsley dressing ...


...and Sausage Rolls.

After dinner there was dessert, my favourite part of most meals! We had a chocolate fountain with Dandies marshmallows, chopped Go Max Go bars & fruit for dipping.


Veg Out also made a totally delicious Lime Mousse which was made with avocado, although we didn't tell people this until after dinner! Even my dessert hating dad enjoyed this and I had two.

Of course their had to be cupcakes! We used The Vegan Cake Girl for these as I'd read great reviews about their cakes on my friend Melisser's blog and their prices were insanely reasonable! The cupcakes were beautiful, sparkly and really delicious...

... we ordered Mint Chocolate, Chocolate Fudge, Chocolate Orange, Raspberry, Lemon Kiss & Chocolate Cherry. My favourites were the Mint Chocolate and the Chocolate Cherry and Nick loved the Chocolate Orange. We also ordered some of her Blueberry Muffins to take to the hotel for breakfast the next day, we put a few out at the wedding in case some people weren't into cupcakes but I didn't try one until the next day. I was SO glad I'd decided to order some, they are seriously the best muffins I have ever eaten and another thing I'm going to be trying to get the recipe for that's for sure!

We stayed at the Kemp Townhouse hotel for a couple of nights after the wedding, it's not very far from our house but it was nice to pretend to be tourists in Brighton for a day! The room we stayed in was gorgeous and the owners were happy to make us vegan breakfasts as we let them know our dietary requirements in advance. The full English breakfast was great with Sausages, Vegi Bacon, Mushrooms, Tomatoes, Baked Beans, Hash Browns and Toast. Unfortunately I didn't manage to get a picture. We also dined out at Terre a Terre but boringly I ordered something I'd had and also blogged about before!

We're just getting towards the end of our mini-moon, we took a week off work as we can't afford a proper honeymoon just yet but hopefully we're going on a day out to London tomorrow. We really want to try out the new veggie restaurant Zilli Green and visit Vx the Secret Society of Vegans new London store. I'll be writing about them soon!