Wedding flowers storyboard

With regards to my wedding flowers, I had always wanted a whimsical, wild flower, just picked from the garden type of feel. I respected but did not like the more traditional posys of roses or tulips. I'm not normally too pedantic about flowers and my budget for our flowers were about $1000. This isn't because we can't afford anything more, but I was just sort of hoping we could get away with a nice round figure. I also wasn't fussed about having particular type of flower-for example, expensive florals such as roses and peonies (although I do love peonies).

Anyway, below is a storyboard of flowers provided by the florist I consulted with recently. Basically, I said I didn't have a particular colour theme for the wedding but the two above pictures I posted here (and also showed to her) were probably the types of colour and style I was going for. 
 

Arabs Eye

Amaryllis

Dahlia

David Austin Roses

Billy Button

Native Grasses

Overall, I'm very happy with the suggestions she made. I think the flowers are gorgeous and with tones of white, pink, green and coral will be perfect for the style of wedding flowers I want. However, I was given a quote of $1930 which is just about twice the budget I was happy to pay initially.

For $1930, I get:
1x bridal bouquet
3x bridesmaid bouquet
9 buttonholes
3 Corsages
6 Pew hangings of mixed floras on the sides of the ceremony chairs.
2 floral arrangement at the start of the aisle
10 centrepieces (divided amongst 3 vases of flowers per table)
Set up and travel fees included

Looking at each itemised version of the quote, I don't feel that what she is charging is unreasonable. Perhaps I was just expecting a lot but not willing to pay for it initially. Although I thought the corsages and button holes were a bit steep ($22 per buttonhole). For example, $109 for bridal bouquet and $60 dollars per table of centrepieces sounds quite reasonable to me. However, now I'm a bit torn because it's twice my budget. Mr HSH asked whether I was happy with her service, style etc and I said that I was. He was very happy for me to go ahead with the quote...

A few people have told me to search around for some more quotes, but to be honest, I can't really be bothered and a lot of florist are too traditional for what I want. Hmm...what to do?

Chicken Liver Parfait Recipe

I made the best parfait yesterday! I'm so excited about it. Normally a fan of the pate and parfaits that you can get a local Deli's, I was tempted to make this recipe from Billy Law's (Masterchef contestant)'s website A Table for Two. Especially since it sounds so easy and the ingredients so easy to find. Although I love Masterchef and other similar franchises, I find a lot of the ingredients in their recipe very expensive or very hard to find. In this recipe, besides the chicken liver (which are not easy to find in Supermarkets, you'll have to try your local butcher about 5 dollars/kg), all the other ingredients are often stored at home or easily found in supermarkets.

The taste of this parfait is just divine. It tastes as good if not better than lot of the parfaits and pates available on the market at the moment. Only after I made this parfait did I realise that the commercial products they charge on the market is way over priced. What I made here cost between 5-10 dollars and there is probably about 400 grams there.

Anyway, below is my slightly altered version of Billy Law's recipe. All credits go to him.

Chicken Liver Parfait Recipe
(Makes 4 - 6 small round ramekins or 2 rectangular ramekins)
Time: 45 minutes.

Ingredients
500g chicken livers
500ml full cream milk
150g unsalted butter (for blending with liver)
25g unsalted butter (for cooking)
1 large eshallot onions, roughly chopped
1 garlic clove, roughly chopped
1 sprig of thyme
1 fresh bay leaf (I used dried bay leaf)
2 tablespoon Olive Oil
25ml Cognac or brandy (I used brandy as that was what was in my pantry)
100g Cream
1 teaspoon of salt
Freshly cracked pepper to taste
50g unsalted butter, melted (to seal the parfait)

Method 

1. Clean the chicken livers, trim off any sinew and cut roughly into smaller pieces of approx 2cm.

2. Soak the chicken liver in milk and thyme and bay leaf. Billy Law suggested soaking for

6 hours but due to lack of time, I probably only soaked for 4 hours. Not really sure what the role of the milk is...

3. Clarify butter by melting butter in a saucepan under low medium heat. The butter will separate into three layers, with impurities on top (they look like little white floaties). Using a spoon, remove as much impurities as possible then set butter aside to cool.

4. After soaking, strain the milk off and keep the thyme and bay leaf. Pat chicken livers dry with

paper towel (otherwise it'll splash like crazy when you fry them).

5. Heat a large frying pan with olive oil and seal livers on both sides. Billy suggested cooking the liver until firm but pink inside. But I didn't want to eat offal that is only semi cooked so I made sure they were well cooked in the next step.

6. In the same pan, melt 25g of butter and sauteed the eschallot and garlic until they are soft

and translucent, return the livers to the pan with the thyme and bay leaf. Pour in brandy and

flambe (I only poured in the brandy, was not game enough to flambe and also didn't have matches).

7. Allow livers to cool

8. Place contents of the pan into a blender with the cream, clarified butter, season with salt and pepper and blend till smooth.

9. Once parfait is smooth, add another table spoon of Brandy.

10. Pour parfait into ramekins or bowls (whatever you like. Probably something rectangular is better) and decorate the top with sprigs of thyme and a few peppercorns.

11. Melt remaining butter and pour over parfait to seal.

12. Leave parfait in fridge at least over night to let flavours develop (Billy suggested a week but I think that's too long to go without trying it). It tasted just divine even after 1 night in the fridge.

13. Serve with crusty bread.

Soy bean Sushi Sushi

I was wandering though Chadstone by myself the other day when I ventured across the 4th (that I know of) Sushi Sushi store to open at the shopping centre. Being quite a fan of Sushi Sushi, I found myself drawn to something new in the counters. Soy bean sushi!

That is, pink and yellow coloured wrapping (in place of the traditional seaweed) encased a good selection of their sushi. So...I had to buy one and try! I bought a traditional raw salmon sushi to try. Pictured above.

Verdict? Pretty and interesting to see and stimulating for the taste buds but the seaweed wrap is definitely my preferred taste. The pink wrapping doesn't really taste like anything at all.

In other news, I thought the picture below was sorta cute. I took my over sized cavalier king charles spaniel Scooby to the groomers at Chadstone. Here he is below waiting to be "admitted" inside the gates of pet barn. I thought it was hilarious how there were two massive dogs hanging over the edge of the railing looking at him forlornly.

Dress Fitting 3

I had my third dress fitting a couple of days ago. It was so exciting! Unfortunately, none of my friends could go with me as it was during a weekday, so I had to drag my 19 year old brother along to snap some photos.

I had a major dilemma for a while about whether I should post pictures of this fitting or not. This is because the dress maker made a few comments as I was being fitted that the photos should be for my private keepsake and that the value the secrecy of their work. To me, this sounds like-don't post pictures publicly and don't blog about it.

Now...I love blogging about my dress experience and I personally find the process of making a gown very interesting and love documenting the process. However, I don't want to piss her off or cause any trouble. I thought about it for a while and have decided to make the dressmaker anonymous and post pics that don't give any details (unless you are intimately acquainted) of the dress maker. Hence why I'm no longer naming the place I'm getting the dress made. I've also gone back and edited a few of my old posts. I'm also not going to show any close ups of the dress.

I love my dress. I'm growing more and more in love with it every day. When I tried it on, it fitted like a glove. Also, although I'm a size 8, the last few years I've gained a lot of fat around my belly area and it's always been an area I've been self concious about. Well, the corset made sure that this was history! It gave me a well defined waist without the pot belly and I look well proportioned. It also had the perfect balance between sleek and princess (not too much of each). The silk was super comfortable and the 6 layers of tulle was pulled over my head  and temporarily pinned to assess it's location and how it looked. We also tried on various laces, french and not french. I went back to the original one (non french one) suggested by the dress maker and was very happy with my decision. Yay to not going over the budget!

Anyway, I really hope I have offended anyone by posting pictures. I think this way, it will be very hard for people to search for the dress maker and come up with my relevant pictures.

Tasteful way to asking for money contribution at a wedding

A while ago, I posted a thread on Vogue asking for what the general consensus is re: tasteful ways in which the bride and groom can ask for money contribution at a wedding.

Coming from a Chinese background, the giving of money as a wedding present in the form of the obligatory red packet is the norm. As Mr HSH and I live together, and have yet to purchase our first home, it was more tangible for us if the form of gifts from guests be in the form of cold, hard cash.

Of course, in our etiquette riddled anglo saxon society, I suspect that our preference would be socially shunned by some, especially those who are more traditional. In our experience, as most of the weddings I've been to have at least one of the marrying individual as someone of Asian descent, we have generally given cash in red packets as wedding gifts. I have also given a personally chosen gift, and also one from a bridal register for a couple of other weddings I've been to. The two weddings I have chosen to buy gifts for were for friends who we are less close to.

Our wedding will have quite a large varied group, and although we have a preference for money contribution, we did not wish to offend anyone, especially Mr HSH's corporate colleagues and bosses. Anyway, I wish to summarise the opinions of Voguettes who put up  long and colourful arguments detailing the for and against.

In general, they conceded that there were no "tasteful" way of asking for money.

I was advised not to include a cutesy poem. To this I must say, i've seen a few tacky once going around but there are actually several poems re: money contribution in wedding which I thought were quite nicely written. It certainly wouldn't have occur to me to recoil in horror if i recieved one.

Bridal registry seem to be an acceptable alternative (but probably not one I would consider as we live together already and didn't want new gifts sitting at home for two years before we will use them in our new house)


Some feel that it is not only what the couple want, but also what the giver want to give. Etiquette aside, I think realistically, people who go to weddings generally bring gifts and the couple would generally expect to recieve gift. I think the mentality is a nice thought but if you've got guests bringing you toaster after toaster etc, well, it can get touchy pretty quickly. 

A few people, I felt arched their backs a bit too much about the ettiquette around giving wedding gifts. My view is that the couple should recieve what they want. I don't mind whether this is in the form of money, bridal registery or at the guests's discretion. I do think that gifts and money should be welcomed graciously and never demanded.

Ultimately, Mr HSH and I have decided to not include any requests or details re: gifts or money in our invite. If asked, we'll spread through word of mouth that money contribution is preferred but otherwise, we trust (and are happy to take the risks) of gifts chosen by our guests.

Mr Hives Kitchen and Bar

amouse bouche

black and blue tuna

smoked rainbow trout

crispy little pig

asparagus and smoked egg

48 day aged grass fed rib eye

special-beer can chicken

praline souffle

mr hive's chocolate bar

special-eton's mess

I had a wonderful night catching up with some dear friends yesterday. It was a gorgeous day and although I spent the better half of the day at work, I rushed home at 4pm for some express beautifying before heading out for a long overdue catch up with my best friends.

We went to Mr Hives at Crown for this special occasion. It was one of my dear friend's birthday and what better excuse to get dressed up for some fine dining.

BTW, I wonder if there are copy right issues if I use some of my friend's SLR food photos. They are so much better than my ordinary digital camera. I would credit her here except I think she'd like to remain anonymous.

Anyway, to begin-I love the dining area provided by Mr Hives. It was spacious, modern and very welcoming. We were sat next to the window and had the warm glow of the afternoon sun against us which was just glorious.

We basically decided to share the entire meal, opting to choose a few entrees, mains and desserts, all to share. Overall, we loved the entrees, the crispy little pig was something special and incredibly tasty. highly recommended.  The tuna was great and the rainbow trout was solid.

For mains, we had the special-beer can chicken which was served on a very impressive wooden board complete with wedges, chicken thigh pieces, gravy and  beer shots. I thoroughly enjoyed this main. The chicken especially was juicy, succulent and tasty. The beef was a tad disappointing. we paid about 75 dollars for 500g of beef and to be honest, I've cooked a better steak at home with ordinary supermarket cuts of beef. Perhaps we left the beef for too long before eating (we attacked the chicken first). In any case, we found it to be quite pedestrian, and lacking in flavour and finesse.

Dessert was generally a hit. I loved Mr Hive's chocolate bar and for anyone with a sweet tooth, it comes with my highest recommendations. Eton's mess and the souffle was also nice.

Overall, we were happy with the service provided at Mr Hive's. We had a great waiter called Sunny and he was welcoming, funny and helpful. No complaints there! Will I return to Mr Hives? Probably not in the near future. Mr Hives is a good, solid restaurant that I would recommend to anyone but Melbourne's culinary market is so saturated that I have a hard enough time visiting all the other restaurants beckoning for my attention.

Carla Zampatti chilli red georgette gown

not the best picture of the dress as it was actually undone around the back and i was trying to hold it together.

So...we ended up buying the Carla Zampatti dress. Mr HSH and I walked around Chadstone for ages on Friday and there wasn't a single dress that came even close to how much we liked the Carla Zampatti dress. So in the end, with me being somewhat concerned that the dress may go on sale not long after I buy it at full price, we decided to buy it anyway. I didn't want to go into Carla Zampatti enquiring about a sale as I thought they were probably too upmarket to offer one normally. However, I did ask casually as I was paying for the dress whether they ever went on sale. Luckily, the answer was a laugh and a "No". In fact, the sales person said she always feels lonely on VIP nights as they never go on sale. I'm not sure if this is true but I was also told they only made about 61 of the dress in this colour in Australia. This made me feel a bit better as besides the wedding dress, this was the most expensive dress I had ever bought. Anyway, the dress is a big long and loose around the shoulders at the moment as I'm so short, but I'll get it in a weeks so it fits better.

In other news, my sample of honey arrived from Mely's Honey! The jar was quite small but very cute! I loved the taste of the raw honey though. It tastes so much better than the ones you'd get from the supermarket. Anyway, I think we'll most likely go with her and will put in an order once I can be bothered getting off my lazy arse.

I also went a met a potential florist-Wunderplant, located in Elwood. The owner Amy Wright is a delightful girl, very nice and not condescending at all even when I told her I only wish to spend around 1000 dollars on flowers. I am eagerly awaiting her story board of ideas for our wedding.

Carla Zampatti wedding reception dress

Slight problem. Major Dilemma.

The Qipao arrived a couple of weeks ago and was a disappointment to say the least. My main problem with the dress was that I expected it to be a blue, whereas it's actually more of a green. Also, although I got it custom made, for some reason (possibly due to my own mistakes in measuring myself), it does not fit properly and will need alteration. The embroidary looks nice enough but overall, despite some positive feedback (as well as negative), I just don't feel beautiful in it. So the verdict is, I probably won't wear it as my reception dress. I may put it on for 10-15 minutes while we are doing the tea ceremony but otherwise I don't really want to wear it :(

A few days ago, I did find something at Carla Zampatti which caught my eyes. I've tried on several version of this dress, in blue, pink and a burnt orange/reddish shade and I found it to be quite flattering. I'm particularly interested in the burnt orange/reddish shade as it can pay homage to my chinese background. It's comfortable, makes me look taller and more curvy. The only problem is the price. It's $869 dollars!!! I may have felt a bit better about it if I hadn't bought the Qipao but since that was $260, it just seems like a lot of money to spend. This is a dress I will wear again in the future so it won't just be for the wedding. Mr HSH did say that I could buy it if I want but I am also feeling a strong desire to be responsible. Anyway, I'm going to go and try on some other dresses and see if I can find something equally nice and cheaper.

Dress:

http://www.carlazampatti.com.au/Shop/Shop_Garments/Long_Dresses_&_Jumpsuits/124250.2010/Aquamarine-Georgette-Jasmine-Gown.html