Tag Archives: catering
Naturally, I inisisted on doing all the honeymoon packing. The Fiance didn’t really care, and I love packing. I graduated to packingmeister years ago, when every summer holiday or Christmas my mum would get distressed, so I gradually took over the whole project. Like my aunt, I have a kind of packing “gene” – I not only love packing, but love minamilaist packing, whilst catering for every eventuality.
People are always surprised by what I manage to confine to my mini handbags.
At first, however, the packing was daunting even for me.
5 minutes later the cat got in the bag and made herself comfortable (the Fiance hoovered the bag shortly before I started packing it, because whilst it was living under our bed, it had become hers). But she wasn’t there for long.
Believe it or not, all this stuff does actually fit in the bag, with perhaps the exception of my hat, and that only because I was cautious of squishing it. I may have to wear it down to Oxford, protective plastic packaging and all. Plenty more fits in as well, because in addition to this lot is several shirts of the Fiance, our wedding day shoes, or wedding night “picnic” (in the fridge) and the bits and bobs we need in the meantime, as well as flatter things like remaining usher goodies, our tickets, passports, and emergency medical supplies (mostly plasters: my mum was very insistent we packed plasters).
And here’s the proof that it fits!
The pile of clothes that you see in the foreground consists of swimming costumes and wedding day underwear – all of which I rolled up inside the Fiance’s smart wedding day shoes. Yes, yes I did. All of it. Careful use of space makes a lot of difference to the ease of packing, and I always stuff shoes as full as possible.
Here in this neat and beautifully arrayed image you can see that I have stuffed every piece of underwear and all pairs of socks that I am taking on honeymoon inside my new brown shoes.
Space efficiency rocks.
Also important was ease of access packing. On the day of arrival we will need our evening meal packing items available, and bathroom bits, et cetera. The next morning we need wedding day bits – everything from clothes/grooming equipment to shoes. Then that evening we will need our picnic, and the following morning access to “normal” clothes and toiletries. And thus here is the finished article (my parasol only fits diagonally and at a specific range of depths) – or at least as finished as it can be with the stuff we can’t yet throw in.
Leave a comment | tags: 5 minutes, access, asteroid belt, aunt, bag, bed, black shoes, careful, cat, catering, cautious, Chirstmas, clothes, clothing, comfortable, daunting, day of arrival, diagonally, difference, distressed, ease, efficiency, efficient, evening, eventuality, every eventuality, exception, fiance, finsihed, fit, fits, foreground, fridge, gene, graduated, grooming, grooming equipment, handbags, hangbag, hat, hoover, hoovered, hoovers, important, insist, insisted, later, love, love packing, medical, minamilist, mini, mini hangbag, mum, night, normal, oxford, pack, packing gene, packingmeister, parasol, pascking, passports, picnic, pile, plasters, proof, rock, rocks, rolled up, shirt, shirts, shoes, shortly, smart shoes, space, squish, squishing, started, stuff, summer, summer jholiday, supplies, swimming costumes, the Fiance, tickets, toiletries, travel, under our bed, under the bed, underwear, wedding day, wedding night, yes | posted in Clothes, Honeymoon
Yesterday we started sorting out our cranes and putting together table “packs” so make our wonderful caterer‘s life as easy as possible.
Iris wanted to play too.
To wrap up the cranes in safe little containers, we resorted to an old favourite – beer cans. The top cut off, the cans cleaned and dried, we decorated them by wrappin them in blue paper, making cardboard lids secured with ribbon and sellotape, and attaching labels, just because.
These were put into plastic bags with the menus, place names and other table bits.
Leave a comment | tags: 100 cranes, beer cans, bwrightons, caterer, catering, cranes, food, sellotape, wrightons | posted in DIY, Food and Drink
Today we posted off our deposit to Wrighton’s for the catering. So that’s the last “big thing” officially booked. Now just down to the fiddly details!
Mmmmmmmm, cake.
No! No more fantastising about cake!
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Leave a comment | tags: budget, cake, cake naughtiness, caterer, caterers, catering, catering company, chocolate cake, deposit, food, happy, lemon cake, pay, Wrighton, wrightons, wwrighton, yummy | posted in Budget, Food and Drink
We’ve just received our finalised menu from our wonderful caterer, Cathy from Wrightons and are about to pay the 20% deposit on our wedding breakfast meal.
Here is menu with random associated images found on google. What do you think?
Starter
Apple and Wensleydale Pate with melba points, accompanied by mixed leaves, walnut oil and red onion marmalade.
Palette Cleanser
Blackcurrant and Creme de Cassis Sorbet
Main Meal
Confit of Duck or A Troop of Mushrooms and Walnut Wellingtons
complimented by a Sauce of Port, Redcurrant and Oranges
Baby Potatoes with Butter and Fragrant Rosemary
Garden Peas and Assorted Caramelised Root Vegetables
Dessert
Wedding Cake
Coffee and Tea with after dinner mints
I’m more than happy with this menu – and also with Wrightons. We seem to be getting an awful lot for our money, whilst other caterers couldn’t manage half so much for the same price – not after the word “wedding” at least!
Wrightons is a family butcher in Oxfordshire who do catering events, run by the amazing Cathy. Unlike all other caterers we spoke to (!) Cathy is enthusiastic about food, and has lots of ideas.
She is very enthusiastic about food, and has lots of ideas. When we told other caterers our starter and sorbet ideas they didn’t seem keen. When I explained that we wanted the main meat and vegetarian dishes thematically similar, they responded dubiously and tried to explain that what we’re imagining isn’t a very good idea and that we’ve misunderstood the catering business. Cathy, however, was not only happy to take this on board – she got excited! And started coming up with menu plan and sound advice!
We had a call with her last week to discuss our menu, and she also explained how we should get everything ready for the tables and give her a clear plan so that she could arrange everything to be set up for us – declaring it was her job to make sure everything went smoothly for us on the day. Just… wow! Not having a hotel or a package deal or wedding planner or anything, I really felt we had to do everything ourselves, and designate ushers to move every detail of decorations about, et cetera, and now, one phone call later, everything is so, so much easier…
From the Wrightons website:
We are pleased to be able to offer you a wide selection of menus for your function,
For more details please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Every menu is personalised to your requirements and we carry out the preparation with as much care as you would yourself for a special occasion.
We are fully HACCP aware and have food hygiene certificates in abundance
Cathy spent two years at catering college and, although that was some time ago, now the phrase “quality ingredients prepared with care and attention will produce quality dishes” has never been forgotten.
We do not stint on quality or quantity but we do believe in value for money.
Why not give us a call?
Leave a comment | tags: after dinner mints, apple, apple and cheese pate, apple and Wensleydale pate, assorted leaves, assorted vegetables, baby potatoes, blackcurrant, blackcurrant cassis sorbet, blackcurrant sorbet, butter, cake, caramalised onion, caramalised vegetables, cassis, cassis sorbet, caterer, caterers, catering, cheese pate, chocolate, chutney, coffee, coffee and tea, confit of duck, cranberry and orange sauce, cranberry sauce, creme de cassis, dinner mints, duck, duck and orange, duck and port, duck confit, family butcher, food, garden peas, good caterers, google, iced, icing, leaves, lemon, marmalade, melba, melba points, mints, mleba toast, mushroom wellington, oil, onion, onion chutney, onion marmalade, orange sauce, pate, peas, port and cranberry sauce, port sauce, potatoes, reception meal, red onion, red onion chutney, red onion marmalade, root vegetables, rosemary, slice, slice of cake, sorbet, tea, vegetables, vegetarian dishes, walnut oil, wedding breakfast, wedding cake, wellington, wensleydale, wensleydale pate, Wrighton, wrightons | posted in Food and Drink
We’ve been working with Lamb. They are friendly, compromising and their food looks great. But maybe not that comprmising. We asked them to try and find ways to reduce the price (e.g. by cutting some service, et cetera)… and it crept UP.
Since it’s now nearly twice what we wanted to pay, we decided to have another look for Oxford caterers from scratch. We’d been tipped off that smaller caterers will have lower prices (though they are harder to find out about), so we started hunting through lists to find more obscure ones.
In the end 4 caterers got back to us, but only two were really interested in helping us and giving us a low price, and sent us menus tp peruse. We asked for quotes. One of them was even higher than Lamb!
However, the other was lower than the Lamb quote, and, unlike the others, was INC VAT!
We have a WINNER.
We haven’t booked them yet, so I won’t link you to them, but here is a little taster…
I have given some thought to your main course requirements and have listed a few suggestions that you may like to consider or that may spark some ideas with you.
Butternut squash and sweet potato Tagine with dried fruits, honey and Moroccan spices
Lamb strips or Chicken Fillet Tagine with similar fruits and spices.
Served with a timbale of tomato scented cous-cous and a selection of steamed vegetables.
Slow cooked British Beef Steak in Red Wine with a hint of horseradish
Or a Pastiche of baby Roots braised in Burgundy
Both served under a herb scone
With a selection of potatoes and seasonal vegetables
Turkey Cranberry and Brie Wellington
Or Portobello mushroom cranberry and Brie wellington
Both served on a bed of wilted spinach
With minted new potatoes and steamed garden vegetables
Old Town Smokie
Salmon, smoked haddock and tiger prawns cooked in a creamy cheese sauce
topped with golden sliced potato
Or broccoli, courgette and almond bake topped with golden sliced potato
Served with ratatouille stuffed tomatoes and glazed chantenay carrots
This list is by no means exhaustive or exclusive if you are happy with the price and would like to go ahead and decide on your choices a little closer to the date please let me know and we can put the booking into the diary.
I do hope that we can share your special day with you and look forward to hearing from you.
Leave a comment | tags: ate, baby roots, beef, brie, burgundy, butternut squash, cassis sorbet, caterer, caterers, catering, cheese sauce, chicken, cook, cooks, cranberry, cream cheese, delicious, dried fruits, duck, eat, eating, eats, events catering, exciting, food, garden vegetables, good food, herb, herb scone, honey, horseradish, lamb, mmm, Moroccan spives, mushroom, nom, onion, pastiche, portobello mushroom, potato, red wine, scone, sorbet, spices, spinach, squash, steak, steamed vegetables, suppliers, sweet potato, tagine, tiger prawns, tomato, turkey, vegetables, wellington, white wine, winner, wrightons, yummy | posted in Budget, Food and Drink
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