we're having a wedding!

image from etsy.com

Okay, here I am in a slightly different guise than you've come to expect. I have been struggling of late to blog about food and cooking. This could be because my mind is on so many other things right now like caring for my little Junebug, working on a new job as a freelance writer and planning a wedding. All of those things are pretty time consuming on their own, let alone when trying to combine all three. Needless to say, it has been busy but I am a seasoned multi-tasker. What mom isn't?

So I decided to change gears a little bit and for those of you out there following, I hope this won't be too big a change, but I am going to blog here in the coming weeks about what's keeping me busy: being a new mom and the fun and frustrations of planning a wedding, in addition to food. I still love to cook and bake, though it is not my only obsession at the moment. I'll still blog about what I cooked or the dinner parties I've had, but I look forward to sharing my new joys with you here too. And hopefully 'joy is cooking' will still be on your radar, if with a slightly different perspective.

So here are few of the things that inspire me as far as the wedding goes. It will be an intimate Spring wedding at the end of April, outside of Nashville on a friend's property which sits on 65 acres of countryside.

The open space near the trees is where the ceremony will be and closer to the house on the big flat space in front is where we will set up a tent to dine and dance under. Pretty, isn't it? It will look even better when those trees are green with leaves.

Our invitations were done by a fabulously talented friend, the niece of the above property owner and close family friend. Heather worked with me to create a whimsical invitation that while still classic and beautifully printed on an antique letterpress, is not too formal and perfectly illustrates the vision we have for our celebration. I love how they turned out.

Once the invitations were out, we set about looking to hire a caterer. This is a hard thing to do for someone as obsessed with food as I am. If I could possibly conceive of doing it myself, I would. But that would be ridiculous. I love the idea of friends helping out and I do have many talented food loving friends. But then I would have to ask a lot of the same people who I would want to be there as guests to work hard at the wedding and that didn't seem right either.

I looked into one of the more well-known caterers in town whose food I tried at a friend's wedding and she would have been great I am sure. But it was out of our budget. Then I heard of a local girl named Kindy Girdley who is kind of a newbie, having owned a little cafe and worked in some local restaurants but now is concentrating on her full-time catering business. She lives in my neighborhood, knows some of my friends and has a background in fresh, organic and healthy cooking. I liked her right away. Together we are coming up with a menu that will be all about the season: fresh, seasonal Spring ingredients prepared simply and displayed buffet style in my own serving dishes and platters.

Things like:
herbed roasted pork loin with spring onions and haricots vert

image from Suzanne Goin, Sunday Suppers at Lucques

and
asparagus salad with toasted walnuts and goat cheese

image from foodandwine.com

and of course, my favorite Spring treat, fava beans, as in these smashed fresh pea and fava bean bruschetta

image courtesy of thesatedpalate.com

and beautiful, local strawberries which will be available just in time

image courtesy of oncewed.com

These are just inspirations for the menu we will create. But it has been fun to imagine a perfect Spring dinner celebrating our future together on a beautiful evening with our closest friends and family.

And, when things get stressful and I need a break from wedding nonsense, I look to this this stupidly funny wedding blog and I always end up laughing instead of crying.

Here's to a new focus and a new season. Happy Spring!