Cyprus in the rain and disastrous blunders!

My God it's weather for ducks only! If you are planning to come to Cyprus shortly' bring a wet suit its rained for days and days, but we do need the rain badly and it's been one great worry for this year, where would our water come from?

Its certainly been a week of surprises thats for sure and people that I know making terrible business blunders. I think some people must walk around with their hands over their eyes, blindfolded. Who in their right minds would open a new business in light of our drastic economic crisis?

What's happening in the UK will affect us badly here in Cyprus. We rely mainly on tourism and expats bringing their money to the island. Firstly the Cypriot hasn't cottoned on to the fact tourism will be on its knees - do they not read! Secondly the expats are leaving in their drones because the exchange rate with the sterling pound and the euro has badly affected their pensions and savings and they cannot afford to live here.

The first thing the expats stopped doing was eating and drinking out so why would you suddenly open a bar or a restaurant/cafe bar? Well you wouldn't, but people all around me are doing just that.

Cyprus has never been cheap to take a holiday or to live, I know I have been here seven years and in light of what the UK have been suffering opening a business here is suicidle - watch this space.

Lets eat cake..umm!

I must have made hundreds of wedding cakes over the years that we have been hosting weddings at Zucchini - thankfully this year my other chef Chris and I are training our newest arrival to the kitchen how to ice a cake. Its not that difficult and I will still decorate the cake with whatever is required by the bride, usually fresh flowers.

Last year I had lots of requests for cake jewellery and many designs using diamante buckles, this year who knows what will be the trend of the moment, nothing too difficult I hope.

Pure Decadence Range

Well its been a quiet week at Zucchini the lull before the wedding season is upon us I suppose!

The office is fairly busy with booking forms and my design studio has had orders coming in all week, I feel like it's finally begining to take off at last. I have been using a supplier in the States for my pocketfolds, they are excellent but the delivery time with them is about 3 weeks which is quite a long time if I have a rush order. Anyay I have found a new company in the UK they are very good, delivery is about a week and they stock some beautiful papers as well as a good range of pocketfolds, oh.... and the joy velcro dots as well.

So I set to work using an ice white pocketfold and some black and white flock paper to produce a range of stationary calling it the 'Pure Decadence' range. I have boxed this invitation and added some pretty sprinkles inside the box' then I finished it off with black satin ribbon. I also added some hot pink ribbon to see what it looked like, I think it worked really well. I also designed a guest book to match, it's a little different from a conventional guest book in that I have added two small envelopes on each page mounted on matching backing cards. The idea is that each guest is supplied with a small card to write their message on and then they can put it in one of the envelopes in the book.

I think the results were lovely you see what you think?

Cupcakes

My new cupcake ribbon comes in beautiful pastel shades and can be mixed and matched.

Tiffany

Lots of brides are asking for 'Tiffany' style stationary here's one that I produced last year!

Scrummy desserts

Some of our scrummy desserts!

Main course

Some of our main courses.

Inside the Zucchini Gazebo

Jamie and Liz leaving the Zucchini Gazebo as husband and wife!

My son Jamie married his partner Liz in an Anglican ceremony in our Zucchini wedding gazebo in August 2008, I think you will agree they look stunning!

I do...and he does too 2009

Hurrah! We love weddings its what we do best and we love it. We kick off our wedding season in March and can't wait to get started.

Over the next eight months you too can eat, sleep and dream weddings because thats what we do. We are Kim, Alex, Lorraine, Chris, James the cat, Nicole, Lorraine, Tony, Graham, Sandra and Mandy we also share our day with Nikki the boxer dog, Norman the legend, also our dog (checkout his Facebook site) Athos, my dog Squinky and Twinkle the resident cats.

Check out our two venue websites www.zucchiniweddings.com and the sister company www.cyprusvalueweddings.

I will be letting you into our lives at Zucchini and Cyprus Value Weddings right throughout our very busy wedding season. I will showing you our fabulous new Design Studio where we are producing some cutting edge, couture stationary. We will also be posting ideas and photographs on all the up to date wedding trends and colours abroad plus tips on bridal flowers and venue decoration, food, wedding cakes, entertainment, infact anything to do with weddings we do, I do...and he does too x