Garden Wedding

You have heard me talk a lot about “the garden wedding” in the last few weeks as I have experimented with and shared with you different cupcake recipes.  The wedding was for the son of a good friend of mine.  Her son is also a good buddy of my son Clark – they played Lacrosse together in high school, roomed together their freshman year of college and played college Lacrosse together.  I figured helping with the wedding was good practice for the day that one of my children eventually gets married!

Here is the darling bride and groom – Jordan and Molly.

Molly chose teal blue, lime green, fuchsia and orange as her wedding colors.  Her bouquet was made of bright colored Gerber daisies and she accented her wedding dress with teal accessories.  I loved her shoes!

The wedding was Saturday and it was a great success.  It ended up being one of the hottest days of the year here in Portland!

Garden Wedding Decorations

When I heard what the wedding color scheme was I suggested we use blue mason jars as candle holders and flower vases.  I think they were a perfect choice.

They decorated all the tables as well as hung from the fence, some full of candles, others full of flowers.

They hung photos of the bride and groom growing up as well as a couple on a cute ribbon clothes line with teal and orange clothes pin along the fence too.  People were able to view them as they walked into the reception.

And just in case people were confused about how to get into the backyard we lined the grass with more canning jars, candles and bows!

Despite a last minute ribbon emergency when the hundreds of yards of ribbon that we had ordered didn’t show up, we quickly made a mad ribbon dash all over Portland Friday morning and bought up every roll of teal, lime green, fuchsia and orange ribbon we could find!

We tied bows of brightly colored ribbons on every other chair since we were a bit short on ribbon.

The cupcake bar looked lovely….

We used all my white serving pieces on a white table cloth. I found these fun green vases at Goodwill a while ago and they looked perfect on the cupcake table with a single gerber daisy in them.  Just a punch of color!

Garden Wedding Cupcakes

Lovely Lime Cupcakes were the most popular cupcake of the evening.   And the cream cheese frosting held up great in the heat.

The Banana Cupcakes with cinnamon cream cheese frosting were another big hit.  Everyone loved the frosting on these.

We also served Brown Sugar Cupcakes with Browned Butter Icing.  These were my personal favorite!

Because it was so hot out, I had to change the frosting I used for the Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes.  I used Sara’s  recipe over at Our Best Bites  and it too held up great in the heat!  I used natural cherry extract that I found at Whole Foods instead of vanilla and it worked beautifully.

The final cupcake selection was the Perfect Lemon Cupcakes .  They were yummy but the frosting on these had a hard time in the heat and the strawberries bled on the frosting. They didn’t look very pretty, but they were still delicious!

Garden Wedding Food

When asked what food he would like for the reception the groom, Jordan, suggested that we just throw some burgers on the grill and have some chips and salsa.  Not exactly traditional wedding reception fare but we did accomodate his wishes with a salsa bar.  Complete with three types of salsa and two types of chips.

We opted for Sliders and Sauces rather than full on burgers.  They were a fun addition to the party and everyone loved them.  The groom’s sister made up three different sauces for the sliders that were so yummy.  I will definitely be sharing those recipes with you too!

And of course there was lots of water!  Regular water and “Good” water.  If you have never had “Good” water before you have missed out.  It is made with lemon extract, citric acid and sugar and has a wonderful refreshing lemon flavor.  That recipe will be coming too!!!  Lots to share.

And then just in case anyone was still hungry or hadn’t had enough sweets there was a fun candy bar full of candy in the wedding colors!
Our friend Karen had decorated some darling little boxes for people to take their candy home in.

Even the groom’s little niece fit right in with the color scheme – isn’t she cute!

The groom’s sister added a festive touch of color with an orange flower in her hair.  I wished I’d gotten a picture of her orange flip flops too!

The mother of the groom was happy, the bride and groom were happy.  Their casual, laid back, fun loving style was reflected in the reception.  Everything looked beautiful and tasted yummy and the guests enjoyed themselves – what more could you ask for!

Cali has made me promise that I won’t make any more cupcakes the rest of the summer!  So we are on cupcake hiatus for now!!  Now I just need a nap!