Farm Wedding Details

Yesterday I posted about the environmentally-friendly flowers from the wedding we attended on the weekend (which you can read about here).  Not only were the flowers gorgeous, but the wedding took place on a farm so it was such a pretty setting. We were under the trees for the ceremony which made it a little cooler and thankfully there wasn't any rain.

The chairs were set up near the edge of a field and coloured ribbon were wound around the edges of the chairs near the aisle.

Across the front of the area for the wedding ceremony there were garlands of hearts hung from the trees.  They also had made fans out of the programs which were glued onto painted stir sticks.

When it was time for the bride and bridesmaids to come up the aisle they were driven in a tractor-drawn wagon with a sign that said "Here Comes the Bride".  They each had a white umbrella that hid them until they arrived.

The tables were decorated with a carafe of candy and a huge lollipop in the middle with the table number on it.  We were encouraged to nibble snarf the candy during the speeches.  Each place-setting had a small pot of homemade strawberry jam for everyone to take home.  I love strawberry jam and have been enjoying mine on toast.

The shed where we ate dinner was hung with balloons in the wedding colours and strings of mini-lights.

After dinner we were taken on a wagon ride around the farm which had some lovely views from a cliff overlooking the city of Hamilton.

This is why you chose to have your wedding on a farm - what a gorgeous pastoral scene with the sunbeams peaking through the clouds!

I tell everyone this couple's "how we got together" story because I think it is so funny and so them.  I will call the couple Anne and Michael.  

Anne and Michael met and became friends at university. One summer when Anne went home to Thunder Bay to work for the summer, Michael thought he and some of their other friends should drive up and visit her so she wouldn't be lonely.  Micheal had the use of his grandmother's car for the long weekend so, despite his mother's warnings that it was a 16-hour trip EACH way, they made plans to drive up and visit her. On the Thursday before the long weekend Michael's mother came home from work to find their son and a bunch of his friend's around the kitchen table getting ready to go.  There was one person she didn't know and when she was introduced to the new friend named Anne, she said "Anne! The Anne they are going to visit?" To which Anne replied "Yep the road trip sounded like so much fun I flew down here to join them on it".  It was on the road trip that Anne and Michael took a little more notice of each other and soon became a couple - and the rest is history.

Isn't that crazy? You would have to know Anne and Michael to know how well suited they are for each other.  When Michael and Malcolm (our son) were in high school together, Michael said to Malcolm "hey do you want to go for a walk?"  It turns out that his idea of a walk was to walk from where we live in the suburbs to Toronto - a distance of 46 kilometers!  Since Malcolm was game for a "walk", they started planning their route.  I suggested that they should raise some money for a charity - so they did. Together they raised $1500 for AIDS orphans in Tanzania and were even interviewed for a local cable TV station and were in the newspaper.  See what I mean - Michael and Anne both love crazy schemes.  Life isn't going to be boring for them.

A Green Wedding Bouquet

On Saturday we went to my son's friend's wedding.  They incorporated a lot of unique and creative ideas into their wedding - many of them environmentally-friendly.  One of the things that I was looking forward to seeing at their wedding was the flowers because I had read about the concept behind the florist and loved the idea. 

The bouquets were made by a one-woman business in Toronto called My Luscious Backyard. The woman who owns My Luscious Backyard, Sarah Nixon, grows organic flowers in residential back and front yards around Toronto.  It is a win-win situation as she gets the use of many small plots of land scattered around her neighbourhood to grow the flowers she uses to make beautiful fresh bouquets for offices, dinner parties, and weddings.  In return the owners of the plots of land have beautiful intensely-planted flower gardens to enjoy, maintained by someone else.  
My Luscious Backyard is a part of a new wave of urban farming, known as SPIN - small plot intensive farming.  SPIN farming is gaining in popularity in cities across North America as a result of the eat local movement.  Growing flowers for a local market is a natural extension of the intensive urban vegetable gardens.  I had never heard of anything like this, but am captivated by the ingenuity of this unique urban land use.  Have you heard of SPIN farming in your area?  
According to Sarah, the bouquets are best for people who are willing to be flexible about what flowers are used.  When flowers bloom depends on the season and on mother nature and can therefore be hard to predict.  The advantage of a small local business is that in addition to the usual flowers, sometimes non-traditional flowers can be used in the bouquets creating a unique look.
Sarah has gone out of her way to create an environmentally-friendly florist company. The flowers are:

• grown organically
• germinated in coconut husks  rather than "unsustainable" peat moss
• arranged in vintage or locally-made vases rather than using flower foam (which is not biodegradable) 
• wrapped in minimal packaging 
• grown locally so they haven't used a lot of fossil fuels getting to their destination
• tended, harvested, and delivered locally by Sarah using a bicycle with an attached trailer

The colours at the wedding we attended were purple, orange, and green.  You can see the bridesmaid's bouquets in the photos below.  The bridesmaids wore purple dresses (each one was different as the attendants were free to pick their own dress as long as it was purple) and their bouquets contained orange dahlias, white flowers and green berries.  I'm not up on the names of all the flowers used, but as you can see they were gorgeous.

The bride's bouquet was a little larger than the bridesmaids' and was tied with a trailing white ribbon.  In addition to the orange dahlias, the white flowers, and green berries, her bouquet also had lovely purple alstroemerias to tie in with the bridesmaids' dresses.  

Stay tuned for tomorrow as I'm posting more of their wedding ideas as well as how the couple met - it is seriously one of the best "how we got together" stories.  

Canada Day Weekend

I'm kind of working backwards here and am only now getting around to posting about our Canada Day weekend. It was a lovely weekend, though, and definitely worth remembering. 

The weather was amazing so we went swimming and canoeing. There was a lot of lounging on the new dock and even some yoga was happening down there by yours truly. I relished in having the warm sun on my back and the cool water to jump into when I got hot. 

I read the latest issues of my two favourite magazines and even started reading a book.   

Weekends at the cottage always seem to involve a lot of good eating and this weekend was no exception. The desserts alone included some of my favourites - chocolate chip cookies, strawberry shortcake, and Prince William's Chocolate Biscuit Cake (you can find the recipe here).

We had a campfire too.  Don't you love how the campfire ring is tucked away at the end of my Mom's garden - which was looking fantastic.  We had s'mores  ... and if you missed my tip on how I have perfected making s'mores you can read it here (I wouldn't want anyone to miss out on how to make a good thing better).

It really was a great summer weekend. I'm hoping there will be a few more like that before the end of the summer.

WISH Wednesday #38

Summer is here and the weather is steamy so a beautiful porch seemed just the thing for my WISH (Weekly Inspiration for a Seasonal Home) Wednesday photo.

There is so much I admire about this porch which was decorated by Michael Penney (love his style) and appeared in Canadian House and Home. I adore porch swings - we have the exact same one in our backyard which you can see here. The vintage furniture gives the porch a cozy country feel. And finally, I love the aqua and tomato red colours used in the pillows and throws and the sweet little table.  Did you notice that I couldn't resist a little red, white, and blue for a July 4th post.
This looks like a front porch to me and although we have furniture on our front porch, I never sit there.  I wonder if the owners of this porch actually use it.  Are you a front porch sitter or do you usually sit in the backyard?

Michael Penney, Canadian House and Home

The Best S'More Tip Ever

We had s'mores on the weekend. Do you love them as much as I do?  For me it's all about the melty chocolate. I've come up with the perfect way to make s'mores and just because I'm such a nice bloggy friend I thought I would share it with you.


First gather together the makings:

• marshmallows (we tried the giant ones this time as well as having some of the regular size.  Turns out I prefer the regular size so there is the right proportions of marshmallow to chocolate and graham cracker)
• chocolate squares
• graham cracker wafers 

Light a campfire - having guitar accompaniment definitely helps the ambiance. 

Cook your marshmallow over the lovely glowing coals.

When the marshmallow is golden brown and puffy and the insides are melty, then it is time for the most important step of making s'mores - insert a square or two of chocolate into the holes where the marshmallow was stuck onto the fork.

The heat inside the cooked marshmallow will melt the chocolate in the most delicious way.

Then put the marshmallow-chocolate combo between two graham cracker wafers.

And enjoy the yumminess!

Linked to Delightfully Inspiring Thursday Party at Delightful Order,
Inspiration Friday at At the Picket Fence,
Flaunt it Friday at Chic on a Shoestring,
Summer Fun Party at Alderberry Hill