Last year Eric and I started along the journey of planning a wedding. At first, I had very romantic notions about the ceremony and party that I wanted (Eric was easy, for him the only thing was no church). I wanted an outdoor ceremony, preferably in a forest or overlooking the ocean, at night or dusk, preferably under the full moon, followed by a backyard/house party reception. This to me was the ideal wedding. Casual, romantic, unique, outdoors and simple, family and friends oriented. This obviously did not take into consideration any logistics howsoever and maybe if I had been more headstrong, more brave, I would have tried to see it through. But, upon mentioning my ideas to the older women in my life, I was met with lots of head-shakes and doubts.

“What if it rains?”

“Your Grandma won’t be able to make the hike into a forest, or up a hill.”

“Where will people sit?”

“Will everyone stand for the whole ceremony?”

“And what about photos? It will be too dark for good ceremony photos.”

So the woody/hillltop/night ceremony idea was thrown out the window. We thought about an outdoor daytime ceremony, but just couldn’t figure out where we could go with 100 people and whether we were willing to chance the weather (we were aiming for a late August or September wedding). Next it was the reception. Eric and I rolled this around in our heads for quite some time. Who did we know with a big enough house to have a proper reception? I have a very large family so we knew that the guest list was going to be close to, or over 100 people. We thought, ok we don’t know anyone with a nice big house and beautiful garden, let’s just have it at our house! Again we were met with the logistics.

From the parentals:

“You only have one bathroom, you’ll have to rent a porta-potty” (gross)

“Will you rent a tent for outside?”

“Who will cater?”

“Will they do all the clean-up too?”

“How about the neighbors and noise bylaws?”

“Do you really want the headache of having the wedding at your own house?”

The list went on… Maybe a more creative person would have found a way around this, someone who was more in-tune with alternative wedding sites and options, Eric and I however, had only been to a few weddings, and they were all pretty by-the-book or extremely low-key involving few guests and a nice big house with an established garden. More and more it seemed that logistics were really determining what kind of wedding we were going have, and not our/my romantic notions of casual house-party style festivities.

So after we got that through our heads, we decided to hunt for “proper” venues. We knew we wanted something with a homey feel so we started looking at B&B’s and wineries. Unfortunately, all of the B&B’s we looked at had a very low guest limit or a very high price. Wineries proved to be too restrictive with liquor rules, and that’s when we finally ended up visiting Sea Cider Farm and Ciderhouse. We liked the atmosphere right away. Small-ish, barn-ish, an outdoor reception area, a beautiful orchard, and a lovely wrap-around deck. We loved the big wooden harvest tables and the idea of having an “Apple Wedding”. After we talked with the event coordinator, we were pretty much sold. Sea Cider knew how to do weddings and we needed solid guidance. We decided to have the ceremony and reception at Sea Cider since we thought one stop for guests was pretty convenient. And since our ceremony time was later than most traditional ceremonies, 5:30pm, we could go right from ceremony to dinner to party. Perfect.

Check in next week for the rest of Jenn’s story! 

If you were a guest at the wedding you can check out all of Jenn and Eric’s photos here.

For the guests at the wedding, photobooth photos are up (same password as the other gallery)! And more photos from the day are here.

And you can see Kelsey’s photos from the wedding here.

Both of the dinners I made came from my all time favorite cook book The Gourtment Cookbook. Eighty percent of what I cook comes out of this book and I have yet to be disappointed with any of the meals I have made from it. For Le Creuset’s first meal I made Chicken with Forty Cloves of Garlic.

Ingredients:

1 (4 lb) chicken, rinsed and patted dry

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground pepper

1 scant cup olive oil

2 fresh flat leaf parsley sprigs

1 fresh rosemary sprig

1 fresh thyme sprig

1 fresh sage sprig

1 Turkish bay leaf

1 celerey rib

40 garlic cloves, peeled (from 3-4 heads)

Instructions:

Put rack in middle of oven and preheat to 350 F

Sprinkle chicken inside and out with salt and pepper. Tie legs together with kitchen string and fold wings under chickn. Heat oil in 6- to 8- quart wide heavy oven proof pot (enter the Le Creuset!) over moderately high hear until hot but not smoking, Add chicken and sear, turning it carefully, until golden brown all over, about 10 min. Transfer chicken to plate.

Tie the herbs and celery rib together with string and add to pot (I don’t have string, so I just threw it in the pot). Scatter garlic over the bottom of the pot and put chicken breast side up on top. Cover tightly (not a problem because the Le Creuset lid weighs about 5 pounds), transfer to oven and bake, basting twice, until thermometer inserted into thickest part of a thigh (without touching bone) registers 170 F. Transfer chicken to cutting board and let sit for 10 min. Reserve pan juices. Spread garlic on toast and cut chicken into pieces and serve with some of the pan juices.

Yummy!

Now I always eat my food before I remember that I am supposed to take a photo of it, but I encourage you to make this recipe yourself to see (and taste) how the dish turns out.

For the second recipe I made Black Bean Chile, which went great with the leftover chicken we had, and also made some killer Juevos Rancheros the next morning. I have made bean chile before, but honestly it wasn’t nearly as good as this one (and I know this as a fact because Kevin said “Hot damn, that is good chile,” or something like that.Whereas when I made the other chile and asked his opinion he said, “Well you seem to like it, but really I just think it’s okay,” again I may be paraphrasing).

Ingredients:

1 lb black beans (about 2 cups) picked over, rinsed and soaked

1 tablespoon cumin seeds

2 teaspoons paprika

1/2 teaspoon cayanne

1 teaspoon dried oregeno, crumbled

1 small dried pasilla chile, stem and seeds discarded, coarsely chopped (Now I live in Canada where Mexican food seems to be a foreign concept – so I just used a Chipotle chile – which I found dried at Market on Millstream)

3 tablespoons veggie oil (which I almost never cook with, so I just used butter)

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1 green bell pepper, cored, seeded and finely chopped

4 garlic cloves, minced (but since I used all the garlic in my house the night before I just threw in some of the roasted garlic that I had leftover)

1 tablespoon chapped canned chipotle chiles in adobo (again, I live in Canada, so I just grated a bit extra of the dried chipotle chile I had)

1 turkish bay lef

6 cups water

1 (14-ounce) can whole tomatoes in juice, drained (juice reserved) and chopped

salt (I found I needed quite a bit)

1/2 cup fresh cilantro

Oh, I also added corn and carrots to the stew. I often throw in extra veggies to stews/chiles. I take after my mom and with cooking, at least, I take the recipe as a rough guide not the end all of how something can be made. Baking though, I take very seriously and always follow recipes. 

Instructions:

Soak beans in enough water to cover by 2 inches, refrigerated, for at least 8 hours. Drain.

Toast cumin, paprika, cayenne, and oregano in a dry small heavy skillet over moderate heat (I just used the Le Creuset pot for all of this), stirring constantly, until fragrant and a shade or two darker, about 2 min. Transfer to bowl.

Finely grate pasilla in coffee grinder (or in my case just use my micro-plane grater and grate chipotle chile and toast with other spices).

Heat oil (again I used butter) in 5- to 6-quart wide heavy pot over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking. Quickly add onion and bell peppers and cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is golden, 6 to 8 minutes. Add garlic, chipotles, and spice mix, reduce heat to moderate and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 min. Add beans, bay leaf, and water, bring to a simmer, and simmer, covered until beans are tender, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Add tomatoes, with their juice and salt to taste and simmer, uncovered for 15 more min. Discard bay leaf and add cilantro just before serving (unless you are like Mrs. Child and hate the taste of cilantro).

I also threw a dollop of sour cream in my stew before chowing down.

Yummy!

Le Creuset I won’t neglect you in the next year, I promise. Cast iron pots/pans have found a way into Kevin and my life in a serious way – nearly every morning we use our caste iron skillet to make breakfast – and even though they are old school technology they are amazing and hold heat better than any other pot (or pan) in our house.

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Kevin isn’t a huge fan of sun-splosions near/on peoples heads, but I kind of like it, even though my hair looks about twice as big – being all backlit and all. 

Thanks Sharon and Kevin for making me feel extra pretty!

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I just want to take a moment to thank Abby at Style Me Pretty and Chantale at La Belle Bride for giving me the chance to reach a bigger audience. Much appreciated!

Les and Esme’s Shoot on Style Me Pretty :: My Post about Les and Esme

Kristian and Heather’s Wedding on La Belle Bride :: My Original Post From Their Wedding

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Christina Carrick and Patricia Kiteke are the two ladies behind Home for the Honeymoon:They were kind enough to answer a few questions for me as :

Q: First off I think this is a great idea, especially after I got one of the worst wedding gifts, ever! What was the worst gift you got when you got married?

Patricia: The worst gift we got when we got married was a chocolate fountain and like 10 lbs of chocolate.  It sounds strange and don’t get me wrong I love chocolate but I thought to myself what/when am I ever going to need this much of it.  The chocolate lasted like a year and anytime close friends or family were having a get together I would offer to set up the chocolate fountain just so I could get rid of the stuff. It was also very bulky and awkward to pack.

Q: Were bad wedding gifts what inspired this registry?

A: The inspiration came from a few sources.  Bad wedding gifts was certainly part of it but we also wanted to help people reach their goals of home ownership.  We know how hard it can be to save up enough money for the down payment on a new home, with rents being as high as they are it’s difficult to pay $2000 a month plus save up $20,000 for a down payment.

Q: I noticed in one of your tweets that you are going to be donating money to the relief effort in Japan.

A: It’s very important to me that Home for the Honeymoon does its part in helping those less fortunate.  We will donate 50% of our profits to the next 20 couples who register with the program to the Red Cross.  We’ll also continue to contribute to the Red Cross now through May on all gifts that these couples raise on the web site.

Q: What’s the easiest way to get registered with you guys?

A: Super simple just go to homeforthehoneymoon.com and click on the “create your registry” tab.  The web site will guide you through the steps.  We also encourage people to have fun with it while personalizing their free wedding web site. Post pictures of your wedding party, add accommodation information like great hotels to stay and restaurants to eat at for out of town guests and most of all input your wedding events like rehersal dinners, showers, stags, stagettes, reception.  This way guests can RSVP to the events that they will attend right on the site.

Q: Can you also find your clients the house that will become their home?

A: We can certainly help Victoria residents with all of their real estate needs!  We are licensed REALTORS® and work in a full service brokerage, however if people have their own REALTORS® that is just fine we’re fully respect that relationship.  We encourage Real Estate Agents and Mortgage Brokers to refer their clients to the web site. For those registrants who don’t live in Victoria we have a network of qualified real estate professionals that we can refer them to.

Q: What is the key to a successful down payment registry?

A: The key to a successful down payment registry is to let your friends, especially your wedding party, know your wishes.  Encourage them to help you spread the word that what you really want for a wedding gift is a new home.  It’s becoming more popular to include your wedding website url on your invitations. We also provide each new couple who registers with registry invitation inserts to include in invitations. Letting people know how special this gift is to you and making sure they know where you are registered is the key.

Q: And last, is there any other advice would you give newly engaged brides to be?

A: Have an amazing day!!! It’s your one special day so along with all the attention to details and careful planning each element make sure you have a blast.

Thank you Christina and Patricia!

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Although this is one of my all time favorite photos of Charlie, he is being bad. Pants do not equal chew toy!Yes, they are old shoes, but that doesn’t mean they are yours! This is “take me out to pee” in dog. Charlie has learned to tell us that he needs to go out. Yeah! This one takes a tad to explain. Most of the time Charlie plays well with dogs (especially Duke) but sometimes he goes to far and plays a little too rough. Charlie like to watch tv with us, though he will sometimes run into our room (which is “behind” the tv to see if that horse he saw on tv is lying on our bed), the first time he did it was cute, now it is old. Yes, I caught you (again!) taking something out of the laundry basket to drag around the house!He knows how to sit and stay like a pro at home, but we’re still working on it “out in the field.”
He pulls on his leash, though, this is something I am noticing he is getting a lot better at. Dog training actually works!Photo by Rebecca Wellman.

Notice a pattern? Sleeping dogs = no trouble. New goal: wear my dog out every day. This is a puppy approved chew toy, leave my shoes and laundry alone!

I love you Charlie, even though you can be a bad dog I know that most of it is my fault for not setting clearer boundaries. That said you do have a stubborn streak in ya that I am trying to reign in. Luckily I am stubborn too, and my brain is bigger than yours, so you will eventually learn “my way.”