Hot water

There was a bit of disagreement with regards to whether or not we would require an urn for the engagement party. I thought that it would be convenient to not have to keep boiling the kettle, E and C both thought it was over the top and a kettle would be sufficient! In the end it was $16 for the hire of a 9L urn so we went with that.

(Previously I have made use of the urn belonging to SCC however the lid has gone missing and she has not had a chance to replace it as yet.)

In the office this week there has been a trolley for tea and coffee set up outside one of the training rooms. They have several pump action insulated flasks and it made me think of the alternatives to hiring an urn; perhaps ideas that I should have thought of earlier.

Firstly, using my Stelton Vacuum jug. Using this 1.0L jug as well as the 1.6L kettle may have been enough to keep the punters happy.


Buying one of the pump action thermal flasks, a desirable volume would be around 2.5L to 3L, so that we could have it out without being required to refill.


One of these labelled Vacuum Beverage Jugs would be a bit different, these ones come in a 1.9L size and that would suit most parties, especially if teamed with the kettle!!


via here

Engagement surprise!

My friend N has been living and working in Melbourne for the past year. I have used it as an excuse to go and visit her a couple of times, and to make use of her "local" knowledge in ferreting out the interesting shopping areas.

I did not expect N to make it to our engagement party, as I did not expect her to shell out the cost of a plane flight, and also she had told me that she would not be coming. Imagine my surprise and delight when I saw her on Saturday night. Just the best present ever!



N's dress is a limited edition Flutterby by Sprinkle. My dress is by Ink Clothing. Both are Melbourne labels.

Engagement Celebration

C and I were engaged in October last year, however the restrictions of his work roster plus the close proximity to Christmas and the craziness of December meant that we decided to push our engagement celebrations into the new year.  So last weekend we had a party for our closest friends to celebrate our engagement!  We decided on an ambitious plan of catering ourselves, and having the party at home.  Our backyard is not the largest - living in a townhouse includes some space restrictions - but we utilised the carport area as well and managed to squeeze everyone in.


Our party space before the guests arrived!

We called in favours from friends and family to help with the catering; my friend MC made two HUGE bowls of salad, and MB made some ultra cute hosomaki style sushi.  Yum!  C's mum made some lamb kofta balls, three salads and a yummy cheesecake slice.  My mum made spinach & ricotta rolls and coleslaw as well as helping out by cutting carrot sticks and assembling canapés and taking charge of the kitchen and making sure that all of the finger food went out.  My sister-in-law-to-be K also rolled up her sleeves and helped with decorating the white chocolate mudcakes as well as assembling canapés with Mum and making sure that food left the kitchen.  My sister E helped later in the night in getting the urn set up and tea and coffee and cakes out, although she begged poor with her shoes and made sure that she did not carry anything breakable!!  S helped by being our canapé waitress and ensuring that people were well fed. Lots of the ladies were in and out of the kitchen at various stages helping to keep the food flowing. Thank you to all!


Mum and E; D, P and N; N&D and K; N&C

K and T; T&G, C; R&L, T; M, M and L

D, K and N; Dad & Mum; R&S; L&C

D and KC; M & SCC; C&N and S&D; E and K

M&D and Little K; SJ and M&R; C, S&R, C&B; T, B and L

C&J; D&S and C&K; K and KC; Dinner!

The menu included Avocado Dip and Goat's Milk Feta & Ricotta Dip with carrot, celery, capsicum and water crackers; Mini quiches, tomato & basil and mushroom & feta; Spinach & Ricotta rolls; Lamb Kofta balls; Small sushi; Barbecue Rotisserie Beef; Gravy; Fresh Bread Rolls; Lots of salads!; Mushrooms with ricotta and pesto (thanks N!); Short Black Cupcakes; White Chocolate Mud Cupcakes; Cheesecake slice; Fruit platter of Strawberries, red grapes, green grapes, pineapple, rockmelon; Ferrero Rocher; A selection of teas and instant coffee (neither C nor I drink coffee so it is pot luck!!)

We managed to have excess amounts of everything except the beef and gravy and mushrooms!

Bio plates

My work Christmas function is usually a barbecue on the river foreshore. It's a lovely spot, and they do really well to get the hundreds of hungry families fed! This year the plates that they used appeared to be of an organic nature, and C commented that we should remember the name and get similar for our engagement party. The wonders of google and I tracked down several different versions of plates made from the leaf of the Areca palm. I have ordered a stash of them from Biome, who claim that they are "Totally biodegradable, with no chemicals or synthetics used in the manufacture, they can also be mulched, given for animal fodder, or used upside down on garden beds as a mulch". Hopefully they will be good to use as well!

Decorations and fripperies

My sister E has been sending me lots of interesting items relating to weddings! I do find it a little difficult to keep up, there are so many ideas floating around, and I need to be more dilligent in recording them in this blog. Here goes...

One of the themes is that of decoration, in our case for the engagement party and for the wedding ceremony.

We are thinking that we could use decorations for the engagement party and then reuse them for the wedding. Some of the ideas require a bit of construction! There are lots of lovely ideas out there.

wrenhandmade

Jordan Ferney

Pretty paper by Paper tie affair


Tutorial for Flower Garland via Once Wed

Free pattern for garland from Dandi.

The dress rehearsal...

We are organising an engagement party with our friends and immediate family. It will be great to catch up with everyone and share our excitement!

It would have been nice to have the party closer to when we were engaged, however C works on a roster and Christmas was getting closer so we ended up postponing it until the new year. Even then we were constricted, we are invited to a wedding in early March and had to adjust our party date to work in with celebrations involved with that wedding.

Hopefully everyone will be able to make it, most of C's friends live out of town so will have to find accommodation for the evening. We will have room for some but not all, we shall see how many we can fit!

Invitations were sent out this week, and we have already had RSVPs from friends looking forward to the party!

For the invitations I wanted to do something simple, and we have ended up with silver paper, black ribbon and black writing. I will try and get a picture to upload.

I have started to put together the menu for the evening. We would like to do food that is tasty but also minimal effort on the evening to prepare and serve. I have some great cookbooks for party finger food, so we shall see how we go! One of my favourite sites for recipes is Exclusively Food, and I might use a recipe or two from there. I will have to experiment a bit, but there should be a few parties coming up over the next few weeks so I can guinea pig people there!!