Catering Ideas

I have been spending a lot of weekends at the Brooklyn Flea lately (I'm writing a piece about the food vendors there). After sampling too many of the treats and interviewing several vendors, it occurred to me that several of the dessert products would be wonderful edible wedding favors.

My favorite are Nunu Chocolates:

The husband-and-wife owners, Andy Laird and Justine Pringle make super delicious organic chocolates. Their best-selling salt caramel choc is pictured. In addition to vending at the weekend flea market, they recently opened their own store, a coffee shop-wine bar hybrid in Boerum Hill which is cozy and cute. You can order or find out more here.


I also think the mini cupcakes from Kumquat Cupcakery would be super delish favors. Owner Keavy Landreth comes up with all kinds of unique flavors like Peanut Butter Banana Honey, Coffee Caramel Bourbon (pictured above), and for the adventurous couple, Maple Bacon. Yes with real bacon, see photo below!

Kumquat's mini cupcakes are $15 for a dozen here.

Wouldn't these tasty gourmet treats be so much fun than a knickknack favor? Would you ever have edible favors at your reception?

Q & A with a Bride-to-be

Would you ever wear a non-white wedding dress? A pretty cream or champagne colored frock could be lovely. What about something bolder? Like deep red, say?

Last week I interviewed Kelly M.-K., 31, from Berkley, CA about her upcoming June 5th nuptials and she told me that she plans on wearing a bold, red gown when she walks down the aisle. Kelly’s future in-laws have no idea about her sartorial risk, so she asked that I keep her last name confidential on the blog.

Q: How did you decide on such an unconventional dress?
Kelly: I tried on a few more traditional dresses but they didn’t feel like me. I went shopping with my sister and she saw this fancy, red dress and said that I should try it on for fun. I did and I fell in love with it immediately. I knew straight away that I was going to get married in that dress, I just had to break the news to everyone else.

Q: How did your fiancé respond?
Kelly: He was incredibly supportive. He said ‘that’s cool, you should wear what makes you happy.’ He knows me though.

Q: What about your family? His family?
Kelly: Well in the store, my sister’s reaction was “whaaaaat?!!” My family wasn’t surprised at all. But his family doesn’t actually know yet. I decided not to tell them, so it’ll be a surprise on the wedding day. I’m a little worried that his mother is going to have a heart attack when she sees the dress, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to wear it.

Q: What does it look like?
Kelly: It’s formal: floor length and silk with a train.

Q: Do you think you’ll regret not wearing white?
Kelly: I hope not. I wasn’t ever the type of girl who pictured myself in a white dress so I don’t think so. I’m also not a fan of wedding conventions so I don’t feel the need to conform to them.

Q: Are there are any other offbeat aspects to your wedding?
Kelly: There are a lot actually. We’re not having a traditional cake, instead we’re going to have 10 mini cakes of all different flavors from a local bakery. We aren’t the same religion, so we’re having a Presbyterian minister and a Catholic priest conduct the ceremony together. That was pretty hard to pull off. Also we worked in a hand binding ceremony into the service.

Q: What’s that?
Kelly: Our attendants will literally tie lengths of fabric around our wrists. None of our grandparents are still alive, so we’re using fabric that used to belong to them, my grandfather’s tie for example, we thought it would be a way to honor them and to literally show our families being bound together.

Q: Interesting. Anything else?
Kelly: The reception is going to be in my parent’s backyard. My aunt and uncle who are musicians will be playing music. We’re also having a juggler, a belly dancer and a fire-eater. Oh and my five-year-old nephew is performing a dance.

Q: Are you joking?
Kelly: No! I’m completely serious.

Q: That’s amazing.
Kelly: I know! It sounds crazy, right? But I’m thinking it will be a really fun day if nothing else. I’m a little worried about my nephew’s performance, but I mean he’s 5, I couldn’t say no.

Q: A juggler and a fire-eater sound more like a circus than a reception!
Kelly: Yeah. It’s going to be the best party ever though. We both knew going into this that we were going to make unconventional choices, so we were open to anything.

Thanks Kelly!
Thoughts? Would you ever consider having a fire-eater at your wedding? They kind of freak me out, so I don’t think I would!

Green Wedding Tips

Last week I posted my five top money-saving tips for planning an affordable wedding. This week I am talking about my top three tips for reducing the carbon footprint of your wedding.



1. Go Paperless:
Use virtual invitations: it is cheaper, faster and more convenient. What's not to love? Wedding evites can be customized just like a paper invitation, without killing trees. If the idea of not holding beautiful, thick cardstock in your hands, gives you hives, then get invitations made from recycled paper.

2. Go Vegetarian:
Not only are meat catering options far more expensive than vegetarian choices, they are also worse for the environment. It takes 24 gallons of water to produce one pound of lettuce, as compared to more than 2,000 gallons of water needed to produce one pound of beef. A meat-free menu is just better for the planet. If your carnivorous guests would balk at pure rabbit food, have a chicken option instead of the ubiquitous and pricey skirt steak option.

3. Location, location, location:
This is the one piece of advice that all green wedding experts agree on. The best thing that you can do to reduce the carbon footprint of your Big Day, is to select a location that is the closest to the majority of your guests. Sorry, but that means 300 guests can't fly out to your destination wedding in the Bahamas. One green expert says that if you MUST have a destination wedding, then the eco-conscious bride should elope there.

What do you think of these suggestions? Too extreme or would you consider adopting one or all of them?

Bride on a Budget

Weddings are expensive. Very expensive. If you live a big, metropolitan city and you plan on having an "averaged-sized" wedding (150 guests by US standards) you could easily be spending upwards of $60,000 if you wedding is staffed by experienced professionals, is held in a fancy location and takes place during the popular summer months.


But there are options. It is completely possible to have a budget-friendly but sophisticated soiree. It's simply a matter of prioritizing. Here's my top 5 favorite money-saving ideas:

1) Consider getting married off-season
Everyone, myself included, wants a summer wedding. The weather is lovely and the summer always feels celebratory. But having a wedding outside of the peak season could seriously slash your location fees. Plus don't fall weddings with changing leaves or snowy January weddings seem appealing too?

2) Say no to Vera
Everyone wants to get married in a dress that makes them feel beautiful, but that doesn't mean that you have to drop serious dough on designer duds. Consider a pre-owned dress from eBay or OnceWed. Other possibilities include wearing a short dress (you're so much more likely to re-wear it) or if you don't think white is your best color (lots of brides don't) get a fancy cocktail dress in a different color - it'll be cheaper.

3) Have a DJ instead of a wedding band
This could just be a personal preference but wedding bands generally aren't very good and I would prefer to hear the real song than a washed-up wannabe Sting's version. You'll save big bucks on your music budget.

4) Nix favors
Chances are your adorable monogrammed knickknack is just going to be collecting dust in your parents' homes. Everyone else will probably toss it after 6 months- tops. I say skip it entirely.

5) Limit the open bar
I understand the hesitance to go the route of a cash bar: it looks stingy and guests hate it. That said, open bars are expensive and who wants to be presented with a (partially) surprise tab at the end of the night? A good compromise is serving only beer, wine, and champagne at the open bar. You'll save tons on pricey top-shelf liquor. Also forget that champagne flute at the table thing. Most guests simply toast with what they have or take one sip of champagne. Guests who love the bubbly can get it at the bar.

What do you think of these ideas? Would you use any?

Profile of Asema Ahmed, owner of Magnolias Linens

In 2003 Asema Ahmed planned a large-scale family event at the Plaza Hotel. She was dissatisfied by the limited selection of available fabrics, so, with the help of her mother, she decided to design all the linens herself and had them custom-made in India. Her gorgeous creations drew an immediate response and Ahmed quickly realized that she had stumbled upon an untapped market. So in late 2003, she partnered with her mother and her sister, Talaiya to launch their own textile business, Magnolias Linens.

On an overcast February morning, I met Ahmed in the Magnolias Linens’ showroom on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The vibrant fabrics filled every corner: saffron yellow, deep burgundy, warm chocolate, dark gold and iridescent pink. With their intricate beading, elaborate embroidery or hand-painted details, the samples bring to mind colorful saris. Ahmed designs the linens and then has them produced and imported from a factory in New Delhi, her parents’ hometown. Outsourcing the production to India and dealing directly with the factories – there is no middle man – keeps costs down. As a result, Ahmed’s company is able to provide high-end linens for upscale events at reasonable price points. Brides-to-be can rent a Swarovski crystal-encrusted table cloth for as little as $25.


Growing up in Scarsdale, NY, as the daughter of two physicians, Ahmed had ambitions of following in her parents’ medical footsteps. She graduated from NYU in 2000 with a religious studies major on the pre-med track. Instead of applying to medical school immediately, she enrolled in Georgetown University where she earned a Master’s degree in International Business Development and began considering an entrepreneurial field instead of medicine. It was her mother who saw the potential of Magnolias Linens. “My mom is the rainmaker,” Ahmed said. “She knew this was something I would grow and prosper in but I would never have gotten it off the ground alone.”
In 2007 she was married in New Delhi. The wedding was featured in InStyle Weddings, and Ahmed designed the tenting for the ceremony and the linens for the reception.
“It was perfect,” she said. “Exactly what I wanted.”



Magnolias Linens has expanded into other events, including bar mitzvahs, birthday parties and home decorating. Ahmed provides all the linens for every Plaza Hotel event, works with the Pierre Hotel and is preparing for her first event with the Four Seasons. Ahmed said that while business was affected by the economic downturn last year, their hotel accounts helped to keep them afloat. She explained that Magnolias was less affected than other wedding businesses because linens are a cost-effective way to decorate an entire venue.
“People are paying more attention to textiles because floral arrangements are so expensive,” Ahmed said. “When you walk into a room and see tables covered in floor-length blue linen that gives a more dramatic look.”
While it requires an incredible amount of motivation and self-discipline to run a company, Ahmed loves being her own boss. She enjoys meeting with new clients everyday and nurturing her creative side.
“I’m so lucky that I get to do this,” she said.