Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Hi guys!

My fiancé and I are starting on the extremely confusing journey of planning our wedding. Aside from the fact that we don't really know where to start, we're wanting it to be as vegan as possible.

So, things like...catering, cake, etc will need to be vegan. Also we'll be looking to go on a honeymoon where we can eat vegan but that's a different part.

Anyone got any tips on planning a vegan wedding? Recommendations for bakers, caterers etc? We're in Leicester if it helps.


Cheers :)


-Vixki

If I was in Leicester I'd totally get one of the big Indian places to cater it. And probably some cake from Vegan Cakery for anyone who cares about that sort of stuff. But others will have other more sensible and appropriate suggestions, I'm sure.

I ended up doing it all myself, as we couldn't afford it any other way! I know Jojo was in a similar vein. One of your biggest problems will be finding venues that let you do your own thing - so many of my friends have had it prescribed that you had to choose one of their three recommended caterers - no way! We were lucky in that we fell in love with the first barn we looked at, and they were so flexible they spent most of the weekend bent backwards.

Food: DIY! It's not a scary as it sounds, although having the summer holidays (a weekend or two would do) and my mum's enormous chest freezer helped - we did almost all the cooking before hand, leaving salads until the day before. So long as you plan your menu right, no-one knows. Happy to share my menu ideas if you want to go down this route!

Cake: this was the major one I didn't want to do as I wanted it to be perfect, but I ended up doing and it turned out fine, and I was SO proud of myself! All the quotes I had were around £400 for a three tier vegan cake - jog on! I bought polystyrene rounds and iced them for the bottom two tiers as a lot of vegan cakes are too heavy to stack, and then made a light fruit cake which was iced and put on top. Out back I had enough iced cake to feed an army, so after doing the 'first cut' on the fruit layer, our cake was whisked away, and a few minutes later trays of 'cut' cake appeared - most people were none the wiser. Cake freezes and can be defrosted two days before, and iced the day before. Easy peasy.

Honeymoon: everywhere we go, we make our own guide book from Happycow.com. All you need!

I kinda wish I'd blogged more about the wedding at the time, although truth be told, I was too busy to! The write up I do have is here: http://vanillasugarblog.blogspot.co.uk/ ... dding.html
All the pictures have broken and I don't know why, but the text tells you what you'd need to know!

Dress: most wedding dress shops I went to were relly helpful in finding all the ones without lace/silk in. Just ask, they all know their stuff.

Table decorations: we used seasonal fruits in Kilner jars (from Asda, which are now all in my kitchen holding rice, choc chips etc) rather than buying loads of cut flowers, and my bouquet was mainly made up from flowers our florist had grown on site.

Thank you all :)

Rachwins - I thought about doing a cake myself because it seems so ridiculous to pay so much for cake when I'm a pretty good baker myself...however my problem is I cannot decorate to save my life. My fiance even says to me that my cooking looks terrible but tastes great. So that won't work for a wedding cake :P My mum is exactly the same, I get my baking and (lack of) decorating skills from her! But apparently she knows people who decorate cakes, so maybe I will contact them and see if they can decorate a cake of our baking!

I was kind of thinking of DIY food. We're looking at doing a buffet probably...we'll get in some Indian stuff from one of the millions of Indian places round here but it'd be nice to have a mixture with not so spicy food as well (Don't want wedding photos with a runny nose from spiciness :P). What sort of things did you do? I do have some family members who are staunch meat-eaters but we're adamant that there'll be none of that at our wedding!

Appetizers: tartex paste and bread, inspired by our summer trip round Europe last year. We lived off tartex salad sandwiches, munched on the side of far too many European motorways to mention.

Hot mains:
Empanada-style pasties - from Another Dinner is Possible by Isy from the Cowley Club, Brighton
Sweet potato en croute - this was the filling from the Sweet Potato Crepes (from Vegan With a Vengeance - don't pretend you don't know it) wrapped in puff pastry in a big log. Fancy fancy.
Moroccan tagine - another one from VWAV.
Mushroom, aubergine and chickpea chimchurri - the chimchurri recipe from Appetite for Reduction, but with the tofu subbed for mushrooms, aubergines and chickpeas.

Cold mains:
Pad thai noodle salad - from Appetite for reduction, again
Carrot cayenne coleslaw - from Bryant Terry's Vegan Soul Kitchen
Mint lime rice salad
Potato salad.

Pudding:
From the wedding cake...
Chocolate raspberry cake
Lime coconut bundt cake - from Veganomicon
Fruit cake - by me

And for those that don't want cake...
Apple pies
GF option - Silken chocolate mousse from My Sweet Vegan - you're right, I reviewed this recipe a few weeks back. I told you it was good.

Evening food:
Sausage rolls
DIY sandwiches
Leftovers

Lace isn't vegan?

It's sometimes made with silk...not so often these days though!

Congratulations. We had a small vegan wedding in 2009, and found it wasn't too troublesome at all. These are the caterers we used: http://www.veg-out-sussex.com/, though they're way down in Sussex so I'm not sure that's too helpful. I"m pretty sure there is a vegan caterer based in Nottingham but I cant remember what they're called. Maybe someone from this site could help: http://www.vegan-nottingham.co.uk/. There are these folks too: http://changekitchen.co.uk/

On the subject of dresses, the flower girl and I got ours from eBay. I had it refitted, but it was still a steal, and I got something unique and perfect for me. :) The man got a suit new, but mostly because he needed one anyway.

We're in the final stages of planning a vegan wedding this April.

After an extensive search we found vegan / vegan friendly suppliers for the main things (though several will be travelling 200+ miles) and will DIY the rest (partly for personal touch, partly cause we're picky).

You can get synthetic wedding attire off the peg - we decided to cut costs in other areas and have ours custom made. With men's in particular you run into the same problem you do with any smart clothing - good quality non-wool/silk/leather options are virtually nonexistent in the UK.

We'll blog our suppliers etc after the wedding, but if you get particularly stuck on anything then send me a PM and I'll point you in the right direction.

Do you have a rough date set?

These Nottingham folks cater. The food I've had from them has been good. http://www.veggies.org.uk/
They often get their baked goods (pasties, sausage rolls, cakes) from Screaming Carrot who also make celebration cakes http://www.screamingcarrot.co.uk/products/celebrationcakes.htm.

Vegan Barbecues & Buffets by Linda Majzlik is a good book, it's my first stop whenever I'm cooking for a party buffet and need easy to pick up and eat food (pates, pasties, dips and little savouries). You can pick up a used copy on the internet for £4-5 incl postage.

Love the tiered cake trick Rachwins!

How's the planning going?

Our's went rather well - pictures and list of suppliers got blogged this week here:

http://www.rocknrollbride.com/2013/05/d ... ah-steven/

We chose a 7 day restaurant binge in NYC for our honeymoon. We ignored practically all the tourist sites, opting for 12 v*gan places instead - Candle Cafe, 79, Blossom, Pure Food & Wine, Peacefood, Lulus, Dunwell, Brooklyn Mac, Beyond Sushi, Angelica Kitchen, Moaz. There was one more, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was ;)

Are you reviewing the eateries on your blog Mr F? Which was your favourite and least favourite? I'm eating my way round NYC til Thursday!

Your wedding looks lovely, I love all the little details.

Many congratulations, Mr Flibble. Cherryvalentine's dress is gorgeous!

Your pics are lovely! I love your wife's hair piece and her dress.

That sounds like a great honeymoon to me too!