What Colours for 2011

According to the renowned florist Mathew Dickinson this years floral colour for weddings was ninety percent white and green, eight percent pastels and two percent bright colours!

What's yours going to be?

I absolutely love the classic green and white theme you can do so much with all the fabulous greenery and the white/ivory roses this year were fabulous.

I certainly had more than two percent of brightly coloured weddings for this year. Infact the most popular colour had to be pink, all shades of pink and has been for the last few years! Purple was very popular teamed with white, as was lilac. We only saw a couple of red/burgundy bouquets creeping in! Hot and tropical didn't really happen at all which leaves the ever faithful ivory posy posssibly in the lead.

So 2011 what colours will it be? I'm hoping we will see our brides being some what braver in their choice of flowers. I would love it if they chose a wider variety of flowers as oppose to just looking at the colours. Flower type is very important! A beautiful mix of flowers can give such a different appearance to a bouquet or decoration, even if they are the same colour.

Listening to Mathew Dickinson in an interview was interesting! He really didn't think it important to follow bridal flowers through to the reception and cake - I beg to differ. I really think its quite nice to have all the flowers in keeping from the bridal flowers through to the tables, the cake and not forgetting the gazebo. After all Zucchini isn't a huge sprawling venue!

Think carefully about your colour scheme! Ask yourself are you better to try and match a colour or contrast? If your bridemaids dress is a bright pink colour what are the chances of matching that pink? None to be blunt! You would be better off having a posy that has contrasting colours or if it's a really difficult pink just go for ivory or white. We can always bring the pink into the rest of the colour scheme in the gazebo and your tables.

Watch this space when we will talk more about colour and how important it really is!

Beautiful wedding cakes!

When I worked in London there was always the IN CROWD.....you know what I mean? The in crowd could be anything from fabulous event planners to beautiful cake designers, fashionable florists they were THE companies..... just for the moment or at least until the next in crowd came along.

Generally the in crowd were only hired by the rich and famous, lets face it who else could afford them? Nevertheless they were always there in the swish magazines, opening fashionable restaurants and clubs, posh galleries and the corner shop like the one I used to work in.

Well obviously the IT GIRL in stunning cakes at the moment is Peggy Porschen and wow what beautiful cakes they are too! I managed to find a couple of photographs to wet the appetite but her website was giving nothing away (in the way of pictures) so go on feast your eyes on what the beautiful people are paying top dollar for at the moment http://www.peggyporschen.com/

The shop is in the ever so posh Belgravia in London and it appears Peggy was a pastry chef at the Laneseborough Hotel and Rhubarb Food Design both of whom I know very well. With a CV this good no wonder her cakes are so fabulous..... I mean who ever thought of designing a wedding cake after being inspired by an Oscar De la Renta wedding dress - Peggy Porschen of course!!!!

Time to get planning!

For all my 2011 Zucchini brides its time to start planning your wedding for next year!

Where do you start! Its easy you start with the booking form this will give you some idea, along with the 2011 price all the information needed to plan the perfect wedding.

Once the ceremony is booked you will have plenty of time to put a plan together. No doubt you will start with your dress and the bridesmaids dresses which will more than likely set the colour for the entire wedding day. Once you have decided on the colour the groom and groomsmen can start to look at their attire for the day.

The next step will be to decide on some kind of look or theme for your day! Is it to be the height of romance, something bright and funky, maybe something totally Hollywood glam. Whatever you decide you will need to bring the whole day together and make it work - daunting?

No! Not when I'm here to help. We are going to use this blog to the max and get as many ideas on different colours, themes and schemes as we can - Happy planning!

Shop till you drop or budget!

With a global recession still threatening a lot of jobs - despite being told we are coming out of it finally - who can we believe? Thank goodness the sterling rate is improving against the euro which isn't great for me if I want to send money back to the UK but for you guys getting married here in Cyprus it really does help!

Zucchini always has held it's head above water because quality seems to get us through tough times. Having said that we have experienced more cancellations than in previous years, purely because one or both partners have lost their jobs.

For those of you lucky enough to still be going ahead with your weddings I'm sure most of you are still going to have to work to a tighter budget. It's not impossible - we help couples with their budgets all the time and help them get the best for their money. I think when you start to plan you tick every box available which is natural you want your day to be fantastic and you have a picture in your minds of what you want on the day - it's easy to get carried away until you realise everything costs money!

At Zucchini we are so lucky to have such amazing views that if you decide not to go overboard with decoration it doesn't matter - the views speak for themselves the guests are always gobsmacked at where you've brought them too for your reception.

Where can you budget? Flowers, reception decoration, drinks being careful on these few things will help! Lets take bridal flowers obviously it's important for the bride to have what she wants on her special day but do you have to have posies for all the bridesmaids - think about it for a moment! Sometimes adult bridesmaids look great with just a wristlet what about a wand for smaller bridesmaids. Buttonholes - just stick to immediate family honestly all these things will save money whether you are marring at Zucchini or anywhere else in the world.

Keep reception decoration to simple vases of flowers or incorporate more candles than flowers. No need to have lavish floral decoration that takes time and costs money. Think about flower types we have the same seasons with flowers as you do back in the UK because we generally all use flowers from Holland. Very delicate flowers such as lily of the valley, delphiniums, hydrangeas, typical country garden flowers are expensive and don't work well in the heat. Orchids have always been expensive - try and stick to roses, lilies, gerbera these flowers are value for money!

The bar at Zucchini certainly doesn't have your expensive hotel priced tarif, we are reasonable and we do include a sample tarif in your price list. Do you have to cover all the costs of the bar? Not many couples do they may put a certain amount behind the bar then when this runs out guests pay for their own drinks. We are always willing to remove certain expensive bottled beers from the bar on the day if you the couple are paying - just have local beers. Shots are where the bar bill jumps up (again if you are paying take out shots) we do see quite a lot of abuse with the shots especially if they are free!!!!

I know I'm running Zucchini as a business and I'm not a charity but in such hard times it would be so wrong of me to tell you that you must have this and you must have that - and that it would ruin your day if you didn't have these things - I wouldn't be doing my job properly now would I?

Let us help!