Weddingbee

Most people like to brag about their hometown and its unique delicacies or traditions that make it stand out from the rest. Here in Philly (no one from here actually calls it “Philadelphia” ), we’ve got Rocky, the Art Museum, the Iggles (that’s “Eagles” to you non-Philadelphians), soft pretzels, The Declaration of Independence, the Mummers Parade (a strange but absolutely fabulous New Year’s day tradition), the Liberty Bell, Tastykakes, da Phightin’ Phils (the baseball wielding Phillies), and, of course, the mouth-watering Philly cheese steak (I like to call it a “heart attack on a roll”).

While our wedding isn’t actually in the city of Philadelphia, I have lived in the area my entire life, and it’s just, well, home. The city is also where Mr. Cupcake and I met, it’s where we fell in love, and it’s where we got engaged…so it’s only natural that we would try to incorporate some aspects of Philly culture into our wedding, particularly with a little tasty late-night treat for our guests. Read more…

Our taste-testing adventure continued in Polebridge at the Northern Lights Saloon. The saloon is Polebridge’s one and only restaurant, run by the daughter of the merc’s owners. Occasionally, they hire an outside chef for the season, but this summer it looks like she will be the one cooking for us.

The Northern Lights is another of Polebridge’s great vintage buildings, complete with a front porch for kickin’ up yo heels:

You can’t see it in that photo, but there is a sign on the porch that says “unleashed dogs will be eaten.”
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A friend of mine who was unable to make it to the wedding came by this past weekend to check out the wedding pictures* and see how her wedding gift works in action. (For those of you thinking about a shower or wedding present for friends- this ice cream scoop is awesome, and is definitely in our top 5 list of most used wedding presents.)

In preparation for the visit, Mr. Dahlia and I headed out to get some ice cream, and I whipped up a little hot fudge sauce. Because nothing is better than ice cream and hot fudge.

Image available here.
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We picked our caterer very carefully. It is, by far, our biggest expense. There are quite a few good caterers in Chicago, each with a unique perspective on cooking and serving. After emailing the ten caterers on our venue’s preferred caterer list, we requested sample proposals from the six that responded. We read through all of their materials and menus and considered the customer service that we had received thus far. We narrowed the list down to two.

Both were large catering companies, well known in Chicago, with very experienced head chefs. One of my bridesmaids worked for Company A at the time, although she was in their marketing department and we were assigned a different sales person. Company B’s sales person blew me away with her customer service and their take on fresh, local products really impressed me and Mr. Peacock. They also have an “assistant” who is, basically, at our beck and call that evening- setting up place cards, making sure that Mr. P and I have drinks and appetizers and packing up our gifts at the end of the night. Sweet, right?

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After visiting with our rental company and florist on Saturday morning, the three of us ladies headed up the road to Cimmaron Cafe & Catering to taste a sample wedding menu.

We really wanted our catering to be provided by Polebridge via their saloon kitchen, but a series of rather bumpy miscommunications and delays with Polebridge staff and residents led me to decide that it was probably wise to have a backup caterer on standby… at least until we were sure that Polebridge could provide what we needed. This meant potentially forfeiting a $200 deposit, but given how essential food is for a wedding reception and how (sadly) small $200 is compared to a total catering bill, it was worth the cost.

I was really excited to meet with Cimmaron. They’d seemed incredibly receptive to all of our ideas, including using local and organic ingredients where possible. They were also very accommodating and allowed my mom to take part in the tasting even though they were only expecting two of us.
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(Minus the most important ingredient… cake!)

In all honesty, Mr. Candy Corn and I were a little nervous about our wedding tasting. We had no other choice but to go with Museum Catering, so we were crossing our fingers that the food would live up to all of the great hype we had heard. Luckily for us and our guests, it totally did! We couldn’t be more happy with the catering staff and the food is absolutely amaaaaaaazing. The sesame almond coated chicken was to die for. There are no words. I even loved the vegetarian entree, and I am not a fan of mushrooms, so I was pretty shocked that I was asking them to pack up some leftovers for me.

*Note Mr. Candy Corn’s very clean plate. Also note how much I resemble a muppet.

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One of the main reasons we chose our venue, was because of the food. We had never eaten there ourselves, but we had heard wonderful things! Mr. Pineapple took me to the Rivers Club for Valentine’s day giving us our first official taste and we were thrilled.A couple weeks ago Mr. Pineapple’s father and step-mother traveled to the big city to join us for our menu tasting.

First up: hors d’oeuvres
Miniature crabcake with chipotle aioli
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After our centerpiece mockup at Commerce Flowers, Mr. Jasmine and I rounded out our exhausting day with our tasting at the InterContinental Hotel. This was probably the appointment I was most nervous about because I had no idea what to expect. We never tried the food before we booked the venue and I was worried that we wouldn’t like it. Fortunately, the food was out of this world and the tasting went better than we could have imagined.

When initially thinking about the kind of food I wanted for the wedding, I gravitated towards an Indian buffet which is standard South Asian wedding fare. It definitely has its advantages– who doesn’t love comforting Indian food? But I decided I wanted a menu that was different and unique, but still paid homage to our culture and background. My coordinator Angel (whose name truly befits her) came up with some really amazing Indian-American fusion menu ideas and presented them to our chef. We were able to work with the chef to create a contemporary, delicious menu that honors our background and still introduces our guests to something new.
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I’ll be the first to admit, I am a very excitable bride. Put a wacky idea in my head and nine times out of ten, it gets stuck there. Unfortunately for me (and poor Mr. Hum who gets carried off on these crazy whims with me), a lot of the time, with the momentum of the wedding, this enthusiasm overrides all my logic and I ended up getting invested in something that just does not make sense. Finnish ice dancers? A herd of Peruvian alpacas? A rapping klezmer band? I can get behind it all if I’m feeling silly enough.

Well okay, maybe not those specific examples, but I have had three big wacky thoughts, the first of which involved renting a bouncy castle to set up in the yard where the wedding is taking place.

(A picture from www.biha.org.uk of the world’s largest bouncy castle. Oh the delightful jumping goodness!)

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I’m very proud of myself, this is my second post in months! I’ve been busy with work….that’s my excuse. Anyway, back to the post at hand. For about two months, before I got my current gig at the radio, I worked as an event planner for a catering company and event venue–Foodz Catering and Acalia Events. They did the most amazing things with food. Besides tasting incredible, their presentation was out of this world. Don’t take take my word for it–check these out.

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