Dessert Fit for a Princess

Since the Royal Wedding is just around the corner, I thought I would publish a post about a wedding we did last year. It was the first time, believe it or not, that we were asked to create a Fairy Tale Wedding for a bride-to-be. She had found her Prince Charming, the castle was booked and now it was up to us to coordinate the details that would bring her dream to life.

One of the first calls I made was to the dashing caterer Rick Rowe, formerly with Daniel et Daniel, and now with Presidential Gourmet. Rick immediately got the vision and hit a home run when he suggested white-glove, cloche service and a Fabergé Egg for each guest, sitting under a cage of spun sugar for dessert.

The Egg itself was rich, dark chocolate, molded into a delicate egg form (in two halves to make the whole). These were filled with the lightest dark chocolate mousse and flavoured with a hint of Triple Sec. The spun sugar cage was molded and created in advance of the mousse. An entire week was spent creating the masterpiece, as the timing and order of the multiple steps (sugar cage, chocolate base, chocolate egg mold, mousse, egg decoration, dragées) was key to producing this fragile and beautiful indulgence.

I was so proud of Rick when he wrote to tell me that his creation won a Catie Award (the International Caterers Association), a few months after this magical evening. Working with such creative and professional people in this industry is one of the best parts of my job. I love when I give a colleague a nugget of an idea and then see them run with it -- in this case, Rick soared to new heights. This dessert made guests' mouths drop open when presented to them and went far beyond anything our Fairy Tale Princess ever imagined when she dreamed about her wedding...
Images courtesy of Storey Wilkins Photography

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

We did a blowout wedding last summer in cottage country at a beautiful, lakefront property. Our bride and groom got married on the boathouse deck and as the ceremony was drawing to a close, the massive Wenonah II pulled up at the dock below to whisk all the guests off for a 2-hour cocktail cruise around the lake.

We brainstormed to come up with a fun and creative way to tie this cruise into the rest of the wedding and -voilà- little floating boats became our escort cards for the night. Poor Barb at Fiori had the tedious task of folding close to 150 of these little charmers, but it was worth the effort to see the look of delight on guests' faces as they fished around to find their own names.

Finally, here's a little snippet of video that the wonderful Luis Moreira of Images Film and Video shot for us. It makes me laugh every time I see it:

Thank you to Storey, as always, for the great pictures, Lidia for the amazing decor and Luis for documenting the festivities so fabulously.