Another day another......wedding fayre

So, the hotel where we are having our reception held a fayre on Sunday so me and my mom went down for a look. My friends mom was there as she makes cakes and i got to see the cakes for real where i had only seen them on pictures before and i think i have pick one. I say i think i have picked one because i originally picked a different one from her which was a pile of suitcases with the bride and groom sat on the edge, but then i thought i wanted something taller so this is the one i am more than likely going to have.

We are thinking of having the tiers with the wiggly piping on to be lilac cake with white piping then maybe the plain ones just plain white, with purple decorations.

The best part is she is advertising this cake for people at £300 but as i am friends with her daughter since school she is going to let me have one for £200.....ding ding ding we have a winner lol. I know i may sound cheap sometimes but in our situation the more money we can save the better so by saving £100 on a cake is great. (My mom is paying for the cake but she said she was budgeting £350-£400 so i could have the extra!!!)

Then we saw something that would be so awesome to hire as a surprise for Dave, Random and Dave's, dad and here it is.

A replica A-Team van. It has lights and a TV inside and was actually quite comfortable. This was £190 for the hour then i think he said £40 each hour after that, but i thought they only really need it for the hour to get them to church. My brother was going to go in it but he is boring and said he wasn't going in it so that's fine by me.

While we were at the hotel i asked the coordinator about a few things, like the projector and we could use that for free as long as we sort out the laptop and slide show ourselves, There is no limitation on decorations as long as it doesn't require a permanent fixture and the menu has changed slightly. We now have a selection of food we would like to have instead of a set menu.

Soup.

Home-made Vegetable soup

finished with fresh cream and chopped herbs

Tomato, roasted red pepper and basil soup

sprinkled with green pesto croutons

Carrot and coriander soup

flavoured with a hint of orange

Roasted wild mushroom and tarragon soup

laced with cream

Leek and Potato soup

topped with croutons and snipped chives

Minestrone soup

with Parmesan croutons.

I am thinking either the vegetable, the leek and potato or the minestrone soup.

Main course.

Slow roasted belly of pork stuffed with apricot and sage stuffing

with cider gravy, honeyed parsnips, thyme carrots and roast potatoes

Japanese breaded turkey escalope

on slow roasted tomato and basil confit with a medley of roasted vegetables and potatoes

Chicken chasseur

a chicken breast smothered with a mushroom and white wine sauce

Seared Tuna

served with lemon and Parmesan spaghetti

or what we were offered before which was

turkey roast dinner.

I am still undecided if we will just stick with the turkey roast or go for something different but i know it wont be the chicken chasseur or the tuna.

Desserts.

Profiteroles

filled with vanilla cream and topped with chocolate sauce

strawberry cheesecake

with fresh cream

tropical fruit salad

or she also said if it was a chocolate fudge cake and ice cream we could have that because its not going to cost any more than the others to get.

Evening buffet.

I think we get a selection of 6 from the following,

Selection of filled sub rolls

Rosemary and lemon chicken drumsticks

Selection of assorted quiche slices

Puff pastry sausage rolls

Potato wedges

served with sour cream and chive dip

White fish goujons

served with tartare sauce

Vegetable spring rolls

with sweet chilli dip

Cheese and tomato pizza slices

Selection of Indian appetisers

with masala dip

Mini sausages wrapped in bacon 

Breaded button mushrooms

with garlic mayonnaise dip

Crudities with a selection of dips

Tempura battered prawns

Out of these i will probably go with the, selection of filled sub rolls, Selection of assorted quiche slices, Puff pastry sausage rolls, Potato wedges, Mini sausages wrapped in bacon, crudities with dip and if i am able to i will add on the pizza slices. I am not really that bothered about having a lot to eat at that point in the day as i will be having my candy buffet which i asked about and she said it was OK to have that with chocolates, sweets cookies etc as long as its not anything that they could provide so i am have the all clear for that. I am going to bake some shortbread heart cookies and hopefully have them half dipped in dyed purple white chocolate and some plain with chocolate chips, then i found this article in the magazine for valentines day cookies that looked lie a cookie version of a jam tart but in a heart shape and they looked great so i will be testing these out.

I am still at a loss what i am going to do about the photographer. My mom is planning on having one of the new Olympus pen camera (or a better one if one comes out by then), And she said my brother could do the pictures but i might not get the quality of a professional and I'm never going to have a picture with everyone in them, but when we looked for  photographer at the fayre they were charging so much money that its just not worth it. I don't think paying £1000 for a photographer to capture my day up to the reception and only have the photos on a disc and a small album is great value, i would like someone who is very budget conscious, where they know that they may not have different effects on them but that can be done by my brother or Dave who has experience with photo shop. I know i have to figure something out soon as they may be booked up is i wait but i still don't know what to do. We have Random who has a professional video camera which will be used by his brother probably for the church and around the rest of the day so that part is ok but i cant keep asking our friends to do everything for free.