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Finding ways to cut expenses for your wedding is completely understandable. DIY-ing parts of your special day is a natural solution especially when all of your bridesmaids agree to help, your Aunt wants to help too, and so do the Moms of the bride and groom! There are a lot of talented people who can do stunning things, but before you DIY there are a few things to carefully consider.

DIY Wedding Decor potential pitfalls:

1) A plethora of options: Information overload happens quickly when there are endless options of what you should do. A professional will help guide you in the right direction by using your idea to create something within your budget and will provide the staff to carry the mission through to the end.

2) Who is in charge of set up? Decor items typically must be placed after the caterer has arrived and has had time to unload their truck and place the linens on the table. You may be in a situation where you have to pay extra for someone to arrive early and get those linens on. Then, it is up to you or your family to get everything out when you could be relaxing and getting ready for the wedding!

3) What goes up, must come down. There you are at the end of an exhausting day – you’ve been up since the crack of dawn filled with anxiety in anticipation of your big day. Now the party is over and you have to figure out who is going to load up and take your alcohol home (if you provided it). Next, you must take care of the gifts that all of your wonderful guests were kind enough to bring you. Last but not least, don’t forget about your DIY pieces, centerpieces, and decor. Caterers and planners do charge for this tear-down service, but you have to determine what your time is worth as well as the memories of your wedding reception. After the excitement is over you may want to leave your reception stress-free. These are just some things to think about before you DIY!

Any other suggestions? I’d love to hear them.

Interactive food stations are becoming more common especially when caterers like Accomac Events consider the need to satisfy the entertainment component associated with today’s events.

We’ve talked about Bourbon tasting stations paired with your favorite BBQ sandwiches and sauces as well as stations offering wine pairings alongside small plates of ethnic and traditional foods. This fun tasting experience gives your guests a chance to sample dishes and beverages that they might not normally try. For those on a tight budget, we’ve suggested the “devil in disguise” station where guests can create their own deviled egg with various toppings and fresh herb seasonings.

Now to take things to the next level…Who doesn’t feel motivated to create their own masterpiece when given the tools to do so? I for one was always drawing with crayons intended for my daughter while waiting for dinner to be served at casual restaurants when she was young. Here’s your chance to let your guests run wild with their imagination with our new “spin art action station.”

How it works: Each guest will take their plate for a spin through our artful display of squeeze bottles filled with colorful, fragrant sauces displayed on a giant acrylic artist palette. These sauces will act as the base for your guests’ creations that will be capped off with fresh pasta made table side by our chefs. Their masterpiece will be finished with their choice of colorful toppings. The same concept can be used with a taco bar. Guests paint their soft taco shells with various chili & mole sauces. The action chef will then fill each taco with freshly sauteed pork or chicken and their work of art is finished with their choice of various toppings like fresh cilantro, diced jalapeño peppers, house-made salsas, and cheese. The same concept could work for Chinese and Indian food stations!

If you’d rather hold off on this idea until later in the evening, try it as a dessert bar concept. Start with something as simple as a dessert pizza with squeeze bottle toppings of dark chocolate, raspberry coulis, butterscotch and white chocolate. Get creative with your party!

Last night we held our first Culinary Garden 2012 meeting. Discussions included our plan for an expanded container garden at Accomac Inn as well as plans for Codorun Farms. We are so grateful for the participation & involvement of many of our chefs and servers. It is wonderful to have a staff that is excited to participate in this endeavor and passionate about local, sustainable agriculture.

We have a great plan in place with plantings of potatoes starting as early as March! We’re going to grow melons in a separate patch this year, as they were too invasive for the rest of the garden.

Swiss chard, kale, and beets will go in early April. zucchini and squash will be late April.

In May we will plant tomatoes, green peppers, hot peppers, cucumbers, watermelon and various other sweet melons.

We will begin our butternut and other hard squash plantings in June.

We’re so anxious to see what Chef Ty Paup has in store for us with his fabulous heirloom seeds and will keep you in the loop as soon as he is ready to divulge the heirloom varieties of the intended plantings.

Meanwhile, Chef Ed Dodds will work closely with our “can do man” Larry Moody to build out our new raised garden bed at The Inn. This will be the new home for our edible herbs and flowers!

That’s it for now until it’s tilling time in just a few short weeks. Until then, check out our video from last year’s culinary garden:

This may seem like common sense, but here’s a word of advice to brides and grooms-to-be regarding alcohol consumption on your special day. From our standpoint, we want you to enjoy your day with those you love. By all means, have a few drinks and be merry, but be conscious about how much you have to drink. Just think about the months of planning, and the time, energy, and money devoted to this one special day that revolves around you. Don’t let all of that go to waste.  Here are even more reasons why NOT to get smashed on your wedding day.

1. You may not even be able to remember your own event!
2. Pictures and videos speak a thousand words. Don’t embarrass yourself.
3. Your perception of your vendors, food, service, and overall event success could become skewed. Enjoy the cuisine, party, and service you paid for with a clear mind.
4. Being sick or hung-over the night of or the day after your wedding will effect any brunch or travel plans you may have.
5. You’ll want to look back from that day two weeks, 6 months, 10 years from then and have fond memories of that special time.

In short, put a cork in it- literally. Have a few drinks, but also remember to drink plenty of water and have something to eat while you can.

Charlene and Accomac Events has been featured in the February issue of Long Island Bride And Groom! You can beginning reading the article on page 84, which discusses unique options and ideas for the non-conformist bride!

Our special Valentine’s Day Culinary Cocktail List includes even more Accomac-infused creations!

Tongue Tied
accomac infused kiwi vodka, midori, sour cherry syrup

Cupid’s Chocolate Arrow
godiva chocolate liquor, crème de cacao, vanilla vodka, cream

Love Ever Lasting
PAMA, accomac infused jalapeno vodka, cranberry juice, splash of lime

French Kiss
accomac infused raspberry vodka, chambord, pineapple juice

Be Mine Bubbly
strawberry liquor, sparkling wine, strawberry syrup

Happy Valentine’s Day!

It’s hard to think about spring and summer when the snow is falling as I type this post, but if you’re planning a warm weather wedding the time will roll around before you know it. Making your own unique coolers  is a nice beverage alternative to sodas. Think about adding macerated strawberries to old fashioned Frescas and garnish with fresh mint. Try adding Rainier cherries to freshly squeezed lemonade.

Rainier cherries image courtesy of La Tartine Gourmande. Click here for original post.

I recently read an article about how punch is making a comeback. Gone are the days of tacky punch bowl jokes and hello to fun and festive parties tapping into this “communal cocktail.” Offer your guests a plethora of choices with a punch bar! Not only will your guests have their choice of delicious refreshment, it will look pretty too.

Punch Bar image courtesy of weddingbee.com.Adding wine pairings to your food stations is another fun element to consider. Try a mini chicken pot pie or shrimp scampi station paired with Chardonnay, and a beef tenderloin station paired with Cabernet. Be sure small flights are poured at each station, giving your guests the chance to sample several different wines that they might not normally try.

Please feel free to share your summer/spring wedding beverage ideas! Happy Wedding Wednesday!

I’m back from the 2012 Special Event Show and ready to bring you my Wedding Wednesday tips and showcase some wonderful new trends in decor, lighting, linens and staging. Bold colors, technology-friendly furniture and the glitz and glamour of crystal were just a few of things I saw in Tampa. I made some exciting new vendor partnerships, so these trends will be available to those of you planning springtime and summertime weddings.

This tablescape would be just perfect for a springtime wedding. Floral detail work carries through the design from the tablecloth to the styled napkin rings. Smart, sassy and sophisticated.

Just look at that flash! Chic contemporary overlays like these add a real burst of eye-catching color. You shouldn’t feel roped into using the same inventory over and over again from a single warehouse. Your wedding should capture your personality and style.

I really love these swivel ottomans. Big, bold colors and a really neat design that will allow your guests to swivel back and forth while chatting it up with others.

These charging stations make it easy to juice up those mobile devices when snapping photos and social sharing take their toll on the batteries. Now your guests can stay connected and share snapshots of your special day without having to hunt around for an open outlet.

While bourbon gets the lion’s share of press when it comes to American whiskey and is often regarded as the American whisky, history tells a more complicated tale. Bourbon derives its name from the historical association with what is now Bourbon County, Kentucky.

The Scots and the Irish who immigrated to the Americas in the mid 1700s colonized areas of Pennsylvania, Maryland and the Carolinas first – long before anyone from the British Isles ever set foot into what is now Kentucky, bringing the skill of distilling fermented mash made from grains that were readily available locally. In Pennsylvania and Maryland, that grain was primarily rye. Some remnants of long-abandoned rye whisky distilleries can still be found in the Greater Susquehanna Valley.

Rye has long been known for imparting a spicy, earthy flavor component to the whisky. Some connoisseurs go so far as to elevate rye whisky to the same level of prominence as Islay single-malt Scotch whisky. The Northeast was once a strong rye whisky-producing region, but few distilleries survived Prohibition and popularity of the spirit itself declined. Old Overholt was once distilled in Western Pennsylvania, but is now produced in Kentucky under the ownership of Jim Beam. Catoctin Creek Distillery, located in Purcellville, Virginia, is now producing both aged and unaged small-batch rye whisky, both of which have received high marks amongst tasters. Old Potrero is a 100% rye malt whisky distilled by Anchor Distilling Company (a sister company of Anchor Brewing Company) of San Francisco – a snappy and spicy uniquely American whisky.

A few weeks ago, I  posted about Susan Shapiro of BravoBride.com and her perspective on some budget bridal trends for 2012.  It’s clear that brides are eagerly and enthusiastically looking for new, creative ways to both stay within budget and bring some tech savvy into their planning. So I did some research and found CardAvenue.com, a site that is both an online giftcard registry and marketplace.

Photo courtesy of CardAvenue.com

According to the site’s information page, you can create a registry page - weddings, baby showers, birthdays – and then customize your registry by selecting gift cards for a variety of stores, individual items or categories through a single registry. Brides can certainly appreciate the ease of managing a single registry and being able to easily share that registry with friends and family, thanks to some nifty integration of social networks on the site. It’s an interesting concept – and I think this is one that will stay top of mind for quite a while.