Forget this wet winter (if possible) let's look forward to summer!

We're so bored of this weather and at the moment it doesn't seem to be getting any better so we thought instead of thinking about winter, let's think about the summer! One of the best things about summer? Summery, refreshing cocktails. We're going to list 5 easy but delicious cocktails ideal for summer weddings, who are we kidding, ideal for whenever you feel like it.

1. Passion Fruit Mojitos

Obviously this one looks a bit swish, you don't have to make it look like this (you can if you have time!). Sounds delicious though.

75ml dark rum
1 tsp muscovado sugar
6 lime wedges
10 mint leaves
25ml passion fruit puree
50ml soda water
2/3 glass of crushed ice

Crush the lime, sugar, soda and mint with a little crushed ice. Then add the rest of the ice, passion fruit and the dark rum. Mix really well and then garnish however you like!





2. Pomegranate Margaritas

2 fl oz grand marnier
1.5 fl oz tequila
2 fl oz pomegranate juice
1.5 fl oz simple syrup
1 lime
1 pomegranate

Fill the glass with ice. In a shaker combine the tequila, grand marnier, pomegranate juice, syrup and lime juice. Make sure you mix it well. Pour it into the glass and put some pomegranate and lime wedges in to make it look snazzy. How delish do these look?!







3. Strawberry daiquiris

Very popular cocktails, this one screams summer to us.

4 strawberries
2 tsp white sugar
35ml white rum
1 tbsp strawberry liqueur
25ml lime juice

Put the strawbs, sugar, rum, liqueur and lime into a cocktail shaker and give it a mash with the end of a rolling pin or something similar. Put on the lid and and shake well. Strain the mixture into a glass or a mason jar (very trendy). Garnish with a strawberry.





4. Cherry cola cocktail

Looks pretty similar to the pomegranate martini but is very different indeed!

1 fl oz jack daniels
1 fl oz cherry juice or syrup
0.5 fl oz amaretto
2 fl oz cherry cola
0.5 oz ginger brandy (we're not sure if it needs this!)
5 maraschino cherries

Put cherries in the bottom of a glass and mash a little and add a bit of ice. In a shaker mix the jack daniels, cherry juice, amaretto and brandy. Give a good shake then pour into the glass and add the cola.




Now we're really thirsty...

Saturday's Winter Wedding

Yesterday, we worked at a wonderful wedding situated in a quiet little barn in the heart of the countryside. The barn was beautifully decorated by a company called Jane Lawrence flowers. Visit www.janelawrenceflowers.com to see her lovely work.

The theme for the wedding revolved mainly around winter and Christmas; with a large Christmas tree by the dance floor, lovely table decorations featuring pine cones and dramatic pheasant tail feathers. If you're having a wedding this close to Christmas, you have to be festive!

 Stag heads hung proudly in the hallway by the entrance and large blooms of roses and fir sprigs were suspended from the beams in the barn.

The food carried on the winter and country theme. The Pot Kiln Anywhere’s Canapés were circulated during the reception drinks; there were mini Yorkshire puddings with rare beef and horseradish, honey mustard sausages, carrot and cumin filo pastries, fish cakes with a chilli dip, lamb koftas with mango chutney and lime and garlic king prawns.

 

How delish? Don't think we could resist...

 The Pot Kiln Anywhere served a comforting feast of butterflied legs of venison with caramelized shallots, creamy dauphinoise potatoes and bowls of winter vegetables. The dessert was a choice of sticky toffee pudding or a classic crème bruleé, Tough choice isn’t it!

The evening food was a selection of cheese from the cheese tower, game terrine, carving ham, olives, sunblushed tomatoes and doughnuts sourced from a company called pippin doughnuts. We think cheese and biscuits is great evening food for the winter with spicy chutneys, reminds us of Christmas!

We loved the winter and Christmas themes of this wedding… Pine cones, fir sprigs and white roses are a must have for your weddings this winter. DIY is definitely an option with décor, pine cones are easy to source, team with red berries and gold sprayed twigs to make the perfect festive centre pieces! 

Our Wedding Mood Board!

We noticed the blog was a bit sparse at the moment so we wanted to get it looking all jazzy again. We thought we'd make a mood board of some lovely things we'd seen on pinterest to give you an idea of some of our favourite wedding styles!

As you can see from the mood board, we love vintage, boho, home made, upcycled, lace, pastels, creativity and lots of flowers! We've been trawling pinterest recently as it's our Auntie's wedding next September so it's been great for inspiration! We thought we'd pass on the inspiration to all you lovely people...

The mood board looks pretty small on the blog, just click on it to see it bigger!

November Wedding at Ufton Court

Please excuse the lack of pictures for this blog post but we were just so busy! It was a very traditional reception this weekend, except instead of the drinks reception being held in the archers hall it was held in the lovely grand house itself. We love Ufton Court as a wedding reception, it's so beautiful. This photo is of the room where the drinks reception was held and where the canapés were served, including mini yorkshire puddings, mini greek salads, duck pancakes, carrot samosas and red onion and goats cheese tarts in the shape of little hearts!

 As you can see in the photo, the room features a huge log fire which is perfect for your winter weddings! Very picturesque too!

We apologise for the next snap, we wanted to take a quick one to show you the table set up! Yes it's a little blurry but you get the idea!

You can kind of see in the photo that instead of just having one colour for their napkins, they had a selection. Loved the idea. They had a range of different purples which tied in with the pretty flowers in the centre.

This couple decided to go for smaller bunches of flowers dotted around the table which was lovely, very different to some of the other weddings we've been too but we liked it!

Only one course was served at this wedding which was a bit different! The guests had a choice between braised beef with mash and kale, monkfish on a bed of creamy risotto (looked lush) and a vegetarian option which was mushroom wellington.

Their wedding cake was served as dessert which was a lovely tiered chocolate cake with loads of chocolate decoration! Looked fab.

Due to our rubbish amount of photos, we thought we'd show you the wedding cake from last weekend at Ufton Court. Very lovely looking cake for those of you who want a cottagey themed wedding!

Pretty ey?

October Wedding at Ufton Court

Yesterday we worked at a refreshing little wedding at Ufton Court, we've been out of the wedding scene for a couple of weeks due to holidaying in Cornwall! This wedding was really different with bold yellows and colbalt blues. Instead of the usual vintage theme this wedding followed a Bolivian theme because the Bride and Groom met there on their travels (how sweet!). 

As you can see from the picture above, the centre pieces were very extravagant, they were so tall and filled with beautiful yellow gerberas and gladioli. We did not hesitate in removing these from the tables before we moved them about after the ceremony, as you can imagine it would be pretty risky leaving them on! They were the perfect height as the fuss of the flowers didn't get in the way of essential mingling, they were just above head height!

As well as the centre pieces, each table had a bottle of limoncello with shot glasses for the guests to enjoy after their meal which was really lovely and different. We really liked the menu for this wedding as it allowed the guests to have a slight say in what they'd be having! There were platters of cold meats, gradvalax, vegetable salads and olives for the starter. For the main the guests could chose between a selection of Vicar's Game sausages with cabbage filled with crispy bacon and mash, monkfish on a bed of mixed beans and a vegetarian option which was roast vegetable wellington. All of these made our mouths water, delish! The desert was either spiced stone fruits or chocolate caramel torte (one of our favourites).

This was our beautifully colourful drinks reception where champagne, peroni and soft drinks were served. The whole table added a really summery feel to the day, it was lovely. 

Please excuse the not-so-great photo but we had to show you the cake, it was so creative! It was a Bolivian mountain cake, something we definitely have not seen before. It even featured the lovely couple at the top, so cute. 

'My Mummy's Yummy Cupcakes' makes yummy brownies too!

We were lucky enough to be sent three beautiful brownies from from MMYC!

Two triple chocolate and one salted caramel; although both flavours were incredible, we've never had a salted caramel brownie before and we are now converts! THE most amazing brownie we've ever tasted, and they're gluten free. What a bonus. Highly recommend MMYC, lovely company and lovely cakes.

Rebecca has been doing some baking herself today; she baked 12 raspberry coulis and white chocolate cupcakes for The Great Pink Bake Off tomorrow for Break Through BC, a truly amazing cause.

How amazing do they look? Jasmine was very tempted to nick one, but the cause is too great. Plus a belly full of brownies was definitely good enough! ;)

North Hidden Barn

This Saturday we worked at a wedding in a really cute, small barn in Hungerford. As the name suggests we couldn't find it at first thanks to our not so trusty sat nav! As soon as we got in the barn we knew it would be a lovely evening, the decor throughout worked perfectly and the whole place had a really nice feel. We also knew it would be a fun evening; a section of the barn had been turned into a photo booth with loads of props and wigs (yes, of course we tried them on). We're sure the wedding album is going to be quite amusing!

The cute little purple lantern lights you can see in the photo (left were spread throughout the barn and were a really nice change to the typical fairy lights you usually see!

The centre-pieces were a bit different at this wedding, we very much approved! Each table had a wooden bucket with different gins in the centre surrounded by a ring of beautiful flowers. Around each centre-piece were individual tonics so each guest could have a gin and tonic - great idea! The table plan was really unique, it consisted of hand drawn pictures of the gins on the tables which acted as the table numbers, it was really clever!

As you can see in this photo there were curtains all the way down the barn which gave the room a really romantic atmosphere, all in all the whole place looked so lovely.

The bride and groom rocked up in this little vintage car, such a good wedding car! One of our favourite parts of the wedding!

Now for one of the most important parts of the day - FOOD. We really liked the menu at this wedding, we hadn't seen it before, it was Spanish themed starting with tapas for canapes. The canapes looked amazing on the wooden boards and included spanish meats, calamari, ham and cheese croquettes and patatas bravas! As you can imagine they were very popular. The main course was paella which Mark and Kev cooked in huge paella dishes with lots of sea food and other very very yummy ingredients!

The evening was definitely a success and every one clearly enjoyed themselves, towards the end of the evening the bar opened and the evening guests joined the bride and groom's special day!