Flowers were not an important thing for us so this was one of the last things we organised. We knew since the beginning that we wanted to have jam jars on the table with flowers in them, for a more relaxed and summery feeling, and we also wanted to make sure that it looked as if someone had just gone round on a meadow and picked them.

R booked in three different florists on a Saturday when we were in the area so we had a bit of a chat and a look at millions different flowers. Luckily, I had brought in a couple of photos of what type of flowers and bouquets I liked the look of and by the time we went to the third florist, I knew a lot better what I wanted.
Both R and I are both very much against the idea of having something just for the sake of it so when some of the florists told us that we wouldn’t have a great wedding unless the flowers were right, we both decided silently that they were definitely not for us. In the end, we went with the florist who were half the price of the two others and who realised that us getting married was the main thing – not the flowers.

Laura who helped us, put together a couple of mock bouquets to show me how big they would be (it’s so hard to imagine how it will all look) and she was just amazing. In the end, she sent us more flowers than what we paid for as they had many roses that they weren’t able to sell due to them being slightly damaged. Arranging different sizes and colours of flowers in the jam jars which we had decorated with silk ribbons worked very well and made the tables look less empty. A tip if you have plans of something similar – make the flowers quite short as you want people to be able to see each other across the table! (We had a couple of tables where they simply put the tall flowers on the floor for easier conversations.)

These past six months have been busy with planning a wedding. We had the attitude that as long as we had the major things sorted out, everything else would fall in to place and we wouldn’t have to be stressed the weeks up until the wedding.
Of course, many things changed our plans throughout the way – R went away to Boston for work a couple of weeks before the big day which meant that the 10 days leading up to it were filled with list upon lists to complete.

My plan was to blog the process of the wedding fairly regularly, kind of like a journal, in order for me to look back at it and see how it all went but also as a bit of a help for our other friends who are now in the process of going down the same route. As that plan just flew out the window – I thought I’d just do it retrospectively instead!

As our official wedding photos are on the way in, I can also post some pictures of our wedding to go with the blog post – exciting stuff!

Things have been so busy lately that I haven’t had time to do my blogging!

I had a long period when I was applying for jobs, going to interviews and trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. This question has of course not yet been answered, but I think I am a bit on the way! I’ve now been in my job for over two months and it has been hectic, learning, remembering and getting to know people.

On top of this is the wedding planning. Me and R thought that if only we knew what we wanted and did things methodically, it would be fine and we wouldn’t need to stress. Of course, a lot harder than we thought!
As we are so busy with planning the wedding, it would feel strange if I wouldn’t blog about it, so I will try to start updating the blog with everything we get up to as there is a lot of baking, sewing and flower arrangements to be done – just what this blog is all about!

Usually when we make roast dinner with chicken, I feel it’s a bit of a waste to just throw away the chicken carcass once it’s been cleaned of all the meat and try to make stock out of it. I don’t make stock every time we’ve had roast as it needs to be looked at from time to time in the kitchen. I can be lazy like that.

But, it does mean that the 80% of when I do have the strength, I boil the chicken carcass with carrots, parsnip, onion and what ever I have at home. This time it was a bit different as I wanted to make more stock for my freezer stash but was too tired. So I just used all the drippings and juices from the chicken, let it sit in the fridge overnight so that it solidified – making it easy to remove all the excess fat in one swift movement (just lift it off like a lid). I then chopped up the few veg I had at home, put it all in a pot with water and let it simmer until it had reduced by half.

Can’t give any measurements as it’s all down to how much chicken juice you get and how much veg you have. But just look at those pictures of the solidified chicken juice. It looks so wrong and yet so lovely!

Today it has felt like spring and when walking to the food shop I saw people without coats, eating ice creams and enjoying the sun. I, on the other hand, still had my long warm coat. I don’t really trust it to be spring yet and dislikes being cold. A lot. So I’m playing it safe!

As I came home and started preparing the food menu for the week a head, I remembered the rhubarbs I bought the other day from the reduced section. It was time to cook them, but I wasn’t sure just want to do. I didn’t have time for a crumble or something complicated. So I just made some simple rhubarb jam.

I washed them and chopped them up finely, put them in a pot with a bit of water and a couple of squeezes of Madhave’s Vanilla Agave and boiled it down until it was just mush. I also added a tiny bit of the home made vanilla sugar I have in the cupboard, just to calm down the tanginess of the rhubarb, but not as much to make it too sweet.

After it had reduced in to a mushy jam, I poured it in to a jar. It will be perfect with some of the Greek yoghurt I have in the back of the fridge, or with some fluffy whipped cream if I can be asked to whip it up. Even just the smell is divine and makes me think of summer nights and swimming in lakes.

Just the colour of the sliced rhubarbs makes me think of caramels and pretty dresses, just look at it!