And finally the second installment of our wedding photos series! Thanks to everyone for being patient. The last two months were insane as we were out of town every weekend for various trips (Big White, Vegas, Seattle, Hawaii) and we’re still trying to catch up

In this post, I will be covering the various food, drinks, and dessert we had at our wedding. For those of you that have been following my blog for a long time, you know that food and drinks are really important to us. The planning of this portion of the wedding was actually very tricky, as… for one — it was in a remote destination in Tofino, and two — it was being catered offsite. We actually had to bring over a lot of supplies and people over from Vancouver to Tofino via the ferry and highway, so it took me a long time to plan and sort out all the details. Some of my friends who are getting married have asked me to describe all the details so bear with me as this is a long one!

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(Photo courtesy S. Ritter) Pictured above are the welcome drinks that we served just before our dinner reception before guests were let into the main hall. We also used these as our escort cards, which let guests know which table they were sitting at. We made these “escort cards stir sticks” ourselves, I picked up these cute green striped straws on Etsy (our wedding colours were ivory, green and champagne), and our bartender prepared these himself with fresh ingredients. These non-alcoholic drinks were modeled after my favourite cocktail at West Restaurant. The drinks are a mix of fresh apricot puree, peach puree, honey and ginger with a squeeze of lemon and ice.

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It took us some time to put these together at home. I designed all the stationary, logos and designs for our wedding in vector format on the computer, including these escort cards. We printed out these designs on glossy paper, carefully matching each guest’s name to their table number. Then we sandwiched these on wooden stir sticks and used food-safe glue to bind them together. It was neat — some guests actually hung onto them afterwards and stuck them in their pockets as name tags.

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(Photo courtesy A. Flower) Pretty!

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The welcome drinks table were all setup outside the main dining room. It was a warm day in Tofino that day, so guests were able to sip on the cold drinks before heading in for dinner.

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Here’s a photo of our AMAZING bartender David Wolowidnyk and his wife Nancy who helped him out. David is the Bar Manager at the prestigious West Restaurant and has been named Bartender of the Year across all of Canada several times. He’s also won a number of international and local competitions. David and I have been friends for many years and so it was such an honour that the person who makes my favourite drinks of all time was able to come out to our wedding from Vancouver.

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David brought his own special collection of bitters and also made his own fresh fruit purees, syrups, and garnishes for the drinks at our wedding. We got a lot of compliments from guests on the drinks and I know I drank quite a few! I can’t say enough good things about David and his bartending. Not to mention — the cost of the all the drinks, bartending services, and alcohol was a LOT less and WAY more unique than it would have been if we had gone through a local provider or the resort.

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Here is a shot of our drink list. This is one of the things I am most proud about of our wedding. Allan and I took a long time to personalize, name, and craft the ingredients for our own special drinks in collaboration with David. The “Bride’s Drinks” consisted of The Longboarder, Whistler Pow Pow (a blended green tea mojito!), and An Afternoon at Granville Island. The “Groom’s Drinks” consisted of The Hardtail, Tamarindo Swell (with homemade ginger beer!), and Incinerator Rock. Click on the photo to see all the ingredients.

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Friends enjoying the cocktails.

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Another aspect of our wedding was the “Champagne Reception” at Black Rock Resort, which took place right after the ceremony and right before the dinner reception. Guests went downstairs from the ceremony into the wine cellar room which was lit with candles and a patio that overlooks the ocean.

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Here’s the view the guests had from champagne reception. You can see the ocean waves breaking and spraying up through this rocky surge channel. Guests could choose either to stay inside where the food was or get some fresh air on the balcony.

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Champagne (organic!) was passed to guests as they came down the stairs into the room.

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Guests could either help themselves to side tables set up with food such as a cheese plate, croissants, fruit and vegetables, salad… and more!

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(Photo courtesy A. Flower) Or pick from passed appetizers such as Albacore tuna, bocconcini and heirloom tomatoes atop smashed peas on a crostini, crispy yam fries, and more.

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(Photo courtesy A. Flower) Oh, or have more champagne!

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After the champagne reception guests headed over to the Ucluelet Hall where we had our dinner reception. One of my favourite parts of the wedding decor was our custom clear acrylic menus. I did the typography and layout design in Illustrator myself for these. I’m super stoked with how these turned out! We got these screen-printed by a printer in Richmond on thin acrylic pieces (custom milled by a glass company in Surrey) and I think they ended up looking really cool against the candlelight at our reception. They also went well with our “transparency” decor theme (will be featured in a separate post).

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Although Black Rock did off-site catering for the event, Allan and I crafted each and every food item on our menu, right down to the presentation, plating, and garnishes.  The majority of the food featured was locally sourced. First Course: Choice of West Coast Seafood Chowder (with locally caught seafood) or Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

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Second Course: Choice of Qualicum Bay Scallops with Apricot Puree or Wild Mushroom Ravioli

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Third Course: Choice of Herb Crusted Tofino Halibut, Braised Beef Short Rib, Crispy Duck Breast in a Golden Raison Sauce, or Spicy Smoked Chicken Tagliatelle (also available veggie)

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Fourth Course: Choice of Denman Apple Crumble, Key Lime Pie, or Sticky Toffee Pudding

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A note/review about Black Rock Resort and their catering for weddings: We were not happy overall with the quality and service for their catering and food. We spent a lot of time doing tastings and meetings to get the menu and flavours right (and everything was perfect in the tastings!), but unfortunately on the day some of our family members noted a couple of their dishes arrived cold and/or tough. Although many guests really enjoyed the food, the lack of consistency really disappointed us. We really stressed we wanted the food to come out hot, and even paid extra for more staff in the kitchen and the reception room for this purpose. I have already provided my feedback to Black Rock but I would caution future brides against Black Rock Resort for wedding food aspects if you are a foodie

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Our wedding cake was provided by the fabulous Ganache Patisserie in Yaletown. Ask my maid of honour Kim about our crazy adventure transporting the cake ourselves through the bumpy wild roads on the way to Tofino. It was a lot of fun though and a funny memory to look back on. And hey, it made it!

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Plus, it tasted delicious. The cake was dark chocolate ganache with a crispy hazelnut praline and a real raspberry filling sandwiched between moist chocolate cake layers. Yum! Thanks Ganache!

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And finally, the last edible piece of our wedding was our wedding favours! Guests were encouraged to take home their selection of chocolate from our “Chocolate Tour of Vancouver”. We really wanted to incorporate Vancouver somehow into our Tofino destination wedding, so we brought along several collections of chocolate from various Vancouver chocolatiers.

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I made custom little stickers and placed them on clear favour bags.

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Chocolate selection from Chocolate Arts, including vegan chocolates, native art chocolate sculpture box and a “Cheers” chocolate champagne bottle…

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… the meticulous chocolates and truffles from Thomas Haas, Chocolatas on Granville Island chocolates, a box of Mink chocolates (Allan and I used to go there on secret dates when we first started going out), and not pictured some Purdy’s chocolates.

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Perhaps one of my favourite parts of the whole wedding was our custom wedding chocolates! They were dark chocolate mint filling (both our favourite flavours) and printed with our wedding logo and colours. We still have a few in our freezer and I’m desperately trying not to eat them!

Thanks for reading and putting up with my ridiculousness! Love you all lots! Till next time…

All photos unless otherwise noted courtesy of our amazing wedding photographers JONETSU Studios.

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For the very first time since we’ve moved in together (that’s 4 years now!), Allan and I decided to decorate our little apartment with Christmas decorations. And let’s face it, when I say “Allan and I”, I really mean me, since Allan would much rather be playing video games than doing holiday decorations Plus, I’ll be honest — I’ve been suffering a little bit from wedding withdrawal, and I’ve been dying for an excuse to do floral arrangements, place settings and entertaining

Over the past two weeks, I’ve decorated our home space, the common room at work, and my parent’s house. I’ve been elfing it up this year for some reason! Normally we do Christmas completely over at my parent’s place as they have space to do the big tree… and while Christmas will most definitely still be over there, we are having my folks over for Christmas breakfast this year and wanted to prep the apartment in advance. I decided to do a silver and champagne Christmas theme with red accents.

 

We hosted a holiday dinner party this past weekend with Trev & Crista and Mat & Ali and managed to find some space for our pop-up table. Seating 6 around this table in our apartment is difficult, so swapped our normal computer desk for a “rolly” desk that we can roll into a different room when we have people over. Awesome! Then it was time for new place settings! I also did all the floral arrangements with fresh roses and Christmas greens.

Low flower arrangements with large red roses and berries.

I really like the way our place settings turned out and I think they are versatile enough to use all year round. Or do you think it would be too much for normal entertaining?

Here’s a silver wreath we used to bring some festivity to our kitchen.

And my favourite… a fresh wreath with peppercorns, pinecones and tons of greens… smells so good!

Our side table was replaced with some silver Christmas trees and mercury glass candle holders…

… a couple other accents here and there with reindeer and more candles.

The aftermath of our dinner party with some holiday decor on our coffee table and a festive throw blanket.

I find cooking for 6 people really hard to do with plated dinners, so we did quite a bit of prep the previous night. I learned how to clarify butter for the first time (awesome for searing scallops at an extremely high temperature). I also toasted the pumpkin seeds, prepped the chocolate decorations and the veggies to give the pasta some colour.

The next day, we put the kobe-style marbled beef short ribs in the oven for four hours and got the butternut squash soup going. Some photos of our prep with making the sage sauce, and the minted pea puree.

Allan did a really nice job with the striped raviolis. We did beet-coloured ravioli for the butternut squash filled ones, and spinach-coloured ravioli for the wild mushroom filled ones.

First course: Butternut Squash Soup with Roasted Pumpkin Seeds and Pumpkin Seed Oil, finished with a Parmesan Crisp … we always seem to make this one when other people come over! (recipe)

Second Course: Seared Scallops in a Minted Pea Puree with Applewood Double-Smoked Bacon

Third Course: Braised Beef Short Rib in a Red Wine Reduction with Cauliflower Puree and duo of Wild Mushroom and Butternut Squash Ravioli in a Brown Butter Sage Sauce (recipe)

Fourth Course: Tiramisu Cheesecake with Chocolate Decoration and Strawberries (recipe)

Overall I think our dinner party went well and our apartment is looking festive! I think we’re all set for the holidays…. can’t wait for Christmas! Can you believe it’s only 2 weeks away now?

What are your holiday plans this year? Are you going to decorate your place?

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