Wedding ideas – deep purple and mauve

September 21, 2016September 20, 2016Leave a comment

Bouquet

After choosing your dress the next important step will be to choose the wedding bouquet.

Reception

Entrance

When people arrive at your reception hall they should be in awe. It is important to create an entrance that reflects the rest of the reception. Whether your reception is held inside or outside these ideas can add that extra little something you’re looking for.

Lights

The importance of lighting can never be underestimated. Purple flowers aren’t always in season and spraying everything mauve might prove too expensive. Therefore when all else fails always remember that lights can create any kind of atmosphere from dramatic to romantic.

Table arrangements

Mauve is such an easy colour to work with, by adding some green to the arrangements, it will really make the colour pop.

Bridal Party

Insert your theme colour in all aspects of the wedding

Other wedding favours

I hope you enjoy planning your purple wedding as much as I enjoyed putting this together.

Types of wedding bouquets

September 16, 2016September 11, 20162 Comments

Nothing says wedding like flowers…The wedding bouquet is an extremely important wedding accessory. It adds colour to your wedding dress. It is the main prop in the bouquet throw and it gives the bride something to do with her hands on her big day.

When choosing a bouquet, there is a variety of shapes to choose from. You can choose between round, starburst, crescent, presentation, cascade, biedermeier or even a single flower depending on your own personal style and the style of your wedding.

Round

Originally referred to as the posies bouquet. This round bouquet is a traditional and simplistic yet elegant style.

Starburst

A cascading style bouquet made from stargazers and other lilies.

Crescent

Made in the shape of a crescent moon. The flowers are arranged to the outside of a round bouquet to create the crescent shape

Presentation

Refers to the type of flowers given at a presentation. It is arranged with longer flowers at the back and shorter flowers at the front.

Cascade

Also referred to as the shower bouquet, tail bouquet or the teardrop bouquet.

Biedermeier

Named after the German style of interior decorating is a round bouquet arranged in round rings of various flowers and colours.

Single Flower

Single flower bouquets are becoming more popular. Instead of a whole bouquet of flowers the bride may choose to have a single flower like a Protea or a peony

Beach themed Anniversary Party

August 25, 2016September 21, 2016Leave a comment

More than a few years ago my parents asked me help them organise their 25th wedding anniversary. My mother was already sick by then. She wanted the whole family to be there and she wasn’t looking for something over the top but rather for something casual with some dancing at the end of the night. My parent had a roomy house with a seperate entertainment room and an outside pool. We then decided to have a beach party in the back yard. We wanted a real summer feel to the event so this is what our menu looked like

Entree- Fruit kebabs

Main – Home made chicken and beef hamburgers

Dessert – Ice-cream cones.

To drink my dad made us some sangria in a watermelon

. We threw Gerber’s and candles in the pool to give it that romantic holiday feel.

We further had cocktail umbrellas for the drinks. Crepe paper flower necklaces for each of the quests and we made little palm trees out of carrots and green peppers for table decorations. Our serviettes were in pink, orange, yellow, green and sea blue.

Although my father initially thought that having such a casual party wouldn’t work out well… the party was a huge success and everyone had a wonderful time. We even got to catch up with some relatives we haven’t seen in a while.

From Pinterest to Reality -No-bake blueberry cheesecake

August 2, 2016September 11, 20162 Comments

Pinterest always has so many brilliant ideas, you can browse, cakes, picnic ideas, clothes, anything actually.

I saw this amazing picture of a No-bake Blueberry Cheesecake and decided to try to make it myself.

Pinterest Cheesecake

My Cheesecake

Mmmmm… close enough??

It tasted amazing the only thing is that we were sort of in a rush to go to our picnic and I only kept it in the fridge for about 30 minutes.It was really easy to make too.

For the crust

1 packet tennis biscuits mixed with some melted butter

For the cheesecake

1 cup whipped cream

1 tub Philadelphia cream cheese

2 tablespoons icing sugar but you can add more or less according to taste

For the blueberry syrup

1 cup frozen blueberries

2-3 tablespoons honey.

You have to keep it in the fridge for about an hour.

I hope you give it a try and tell me what you think.

Come dine with me, the family edition

July 26, 2016October 24, 2016Leave a comment

A few years ago, our family decided to host our own come dine with me. Come dine with me was in South Africa and we decided that although we can’t be on TV we’ll do our own little Come Dine With Me. We wanted to do it with people we love and trusted and who will give honest opinions without screwing you over… We each gave $20 as prize money. The idea was that at the end of the day your event should not cost more than $80. Therefore if you win the BIG prize, your event would not have cost you anything. But of course we all wanted to win so we had to make our tables look stunning. We borrowed, bought and exchanged plates, glasses an even flower pots.

We decided to do it on a Saturday afternoon so that everyone could participate. Two days before the event we had to share our menu. We did it over 4 weeks, each week for each couple.

and this was the result

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

It was interesting to see how each one’s decor represented their personalities and the way the approach life, the colours were definitely a reflection of each ones style.

There are also some reasons why you should not do this kind of thing with your family, but I’ll leave that for a later post.