Sneak Preview
July 15th, 2010
Here’s a sneak preview of the menu for the day…
Mixed Sushi with Wasabi, Pickled Ginger & Tamari
Thai Chicken Skewers
Potato Pancakes with Goats Cheese & Red Onion Jam
Spinach Roulade with Cream Cheese and Smoked Salmon
Main Course
Relihans Spit Roast Pork with Spiced Apple Sauce, Tomato & Chilli Jam and Homemade Mayonnaise
Sides
Celeriac Remoulade
New Potato Salad with Mint
Broccoli, Cherry Tomato & Feta Salad with Toasted Hazelnuts
Carrot & Multi-Seed Salad
Salad of Green Leaves with Balsamic Vinegrette
Vegetarian Option
Goats Cheese & Roasted Vegetable Quiche
Butternut Squash, Feta & Pine Nut Quiche
Desserts
Dessert Buffet of Homemade Cakes, Brownies and Cookies
Hair Trial – Success!
May 15th, 2010
Just back from my hair trial in Le Chocolat in Limerick. In the end the look is actually a combination of the two styles pictured in the post below. I’m really happy with it and it feels comfortable which is always a bonus. I went to Le Chocolat because the head stylist there Katie was recommended to me by my make-up artist Miriam as they work together on lots of events. But here’s a good one for you, almost three years ago I wrote a post on my old blog Style Treaty about attending a press night in another salon in Limerick. In that post I mention a trainee called Katie who styled my hair that night, well in a strange twist of fate, it was the same Katie, only now she’s a big shot at the cracker factory (or to give her full title Head of the Bridal Specialist Team). We had a few moments at the start where we kept saying “I know you from somewhere” and eventually Katie remembered, how mad is that?
RSVP
May 11th, 2010
With three weeks to go, thankfully we now have our final numbers so the RSVP function is a bit redundant but I decided to leave it up in case you want to contact us for any other reason.
PS: The button themed invites (which you might recognise at the top of the website)
were designed by Mike's cousin Patrick Cusack
PPS: The (new and improved) website was the creation of our good friend Keith Moloney.
All Systems are Go!
May 7th, 2010
The invitations are printed, they have been placed in stamped addressed envelopes ready for postage early next week. The handmade elements of the table settings are nearly finished and great plans are being made to decorate Daghdha’s beautiful windows with flowers and candles. A trip to the East this weekend should provide us with the last of the bits and pieces for the table setting that are not being hired. Our eager dessert makers (Mags, Marilyn, Marie and Margaret) are beevering away picking out recipes and getting organised. Mike is working on the music and some other cool ideas for making the space our own. He has added a lovely map to the Information section of the website and a rough itinerary for the day.
So, all in all, things are looking pretty good.
Vintage Earrings and Place Cards
April 7th, 2010
I’ve just ordered two pairs of Vintage Earrings from Etsy, they are in the style of these one, as modeled by Betty Draper and Trudy Campbell of Mad Men.
I love Trudy’s hair here too (the brunette), this is something I’m definitely considering for the day itself. I love Betty’s hair as well, but it really does seem like a look that only works with blond hair.
On a completely different note, today I learned that it is four time the price to order place cards ready made than to make them yourself. I checked the Daintree website and these place cards were working out at about €40, I checked the same card stock to buy it in sheets and my total came to about €10. I know there is a lot of cutting and folding involved but I have the tools you need so it shouldn’t be a problem! Should have called this blog, the Frugal Bride.
Anyone for Pimms?
April 5th, 2010
On arrival at the venue at 3pm we want to have a little drinks reception for our guests, however we want to veer away from the usual punch. We did consider Prosecco but again that seems a little standard. When Ronan at Cater Hire suggested Pimms we weren’t too sure, neither of us had tasted it and in fairness it’s not very popular in Ireland at all. We read up a little about Pimms and since it’s such a summery drink we decided to try it out for ourselves. Although the weather is pretty crap today we made up some Pimms as per the classic recipe, one part Pimms, three parts lemonade (we used Nash’s White Lemonade), cucumber, orange and strawberry (although we used apple instead). It’s a winner, so summery and refreshing! I’ll just pretend it’s sunny and make another glass I think.
Hens and Eggs
April 5th, 2010
I hope everyone has had a great Easter, mine has revolved around wedding stuff as is to be expected with less than four months to go! I seem to have developed a one-track mind where all I can think and talk about is the wedding. I seem to have no space left in my brain for anything that doesn’t involve work or the wedding so please don’t be offended if I forget anyone’s birthday between here and July!
This is what has been filling my mind for the last few weeks……
It’s a bit of a teaser picture, all will become clear eventually.
As I mentioned before, Mike’s cousin Patrick has very kindly designed our invitations, which will be printed professionally so all we have to do with them is put them in envelopes and post them. Some people have been surprised that I’m not making the invitations by hand since I make a lot of cards and made the invitations for Margaret’s wedding last May. I did think about it, but in the end I wanted something a bit different and when you have a brilliant graphic designer in the (soon to be) family why not take advantage of that. However I absolutely love handmade invitations so I decided to do something a bit unusual and make invitations for my Hen Party. My Mother is hosting the party in her house and it’s mostly family (both sides), including three children under 10 so it will be a very civilised affair. I ordered supplies for a very girly invitation from daintree and here are the results.
I added a little decoration to the envelopes too.
If I ever needed convincing that we made the right desicion to go with the printed invites, now I have it. It took me all day yesterday to make 15 invitations! Obviously, you can get much simpler invitations, these ones were particularly fiddly, if you are thinking of making your own, here’e the one I recommend. We did these for Margaret’s wedding and they were lovely and a lot less time consuming.
Inspiration
February 18th, 2010
No major updates this week so I’ll just post some inspirational pictures. I have a folder full of these type of pictures on the laptop but I haven’t kept a record of where they came from and I hate posting pictures without crediting the owners. Here are some pictures I found this week on Alicia Hanson’s Design Blog.
I love this table setting, the combination of the pink, white and grey is gorgeous.
Found here.
This bouquet made out of brooches is fantastic, I’m not into bouquets anyway but if I was it would be something like this rather than fresh flowers I would go for.
Found here.
23 Weeks to Go
February 13th, 2010
So, we’ve definitely made some progress this week, my dressmaker, aka my friend Margaret’s Mom, visited me and I kind of cheated by handing over a dress I bought last year that I love and asked for a recreation, seems like that will be no bother so I know in advance that the dress will suit my body shape!
We’ve also been looking at some quirky takes on table decorations, Mike is in discussions (by email) with a fantastic company that have links to the Irish Blog Awards, can’t say too much or I’ll ruin the surprise 
Last but not least our invitation designer, aka Mike’s cousin Patrick Cusack has sent us some amazing options to chose from, we have a clear favourite and the plan is to chat to Pa next time he’s home from London Town to finalise the wording and last few details. Then we just need to find a printing company.
All in all, a productive week. I’m going to try to post an update weekly, hopefully that will encourage us to have 23 productive weeks.
Event Management 101
February 9th, 2010
Wedding planning has been on the back burner for a few months now because of Christmas, work commitments and the general feeling of “sure it’s ages away yet”. Well, we’re back into it, full swing now. The next big thing on our list is arranging the hire of the banqueting equipment for the church/reception. This is a daunting task since the building is completely empty bar a handful of tables and benches. On the list of things to hire are; tables, chairs, linen, crockery, cutlery, glassware and assorted other bits and pieces like water jugs and salt and pepper shakers.
Mike has a lot of work done on this already by measuring every inch of the building and doing a computer drawing of the room, perfectly to scale so that we can decide on the layout. This was a great help when we started discussing it with the cater hire company. This is still a work in progress but I have a feeling it will remain as such until the 22nd July!