Posh & Paisley

It's All Greek to Me

My adorable friend Golnar is planning her wedding. She's looking at a destination wedding in Greece, and trying to figure out the logistics of carrying out a very detailed Persian/French/Canadian wedding all the way overseas.

I suggested she hire a wedding planner that lives in Greece... preferably one that speaks a lot of English. In this day and age of gadgets and computers, it shouldn't be that hard to get a message across, is it?

She could plan to have all the flowers, table settings, photographers and all the fine-tuning taken care of. Oh and the cake, she can't forget the cake, so I think she should send specific instructions and pictures of what she would like.

(I certainly don't forget about cakes, and think that this cake design from Highlandbakery is just stunning... not to mention uber yummy looking... yummy.... y-u-m-m-y....)

I Also Had Crème brûlée!

I'm posting a photo of a wedding cake... so you know what that means!

Yep, I attended yet another wedding this summer.

A grand ol' ball of a time it was, and I had a fantastic experience.

It was my first Ukrainian wedding, and I was blown away by the beautiful church ceremony, the gorgeous venue (the Palais Royale on Lakeshore), the many different traditions including a yummy looking bread table called the korovai and the spectacular dancing (called the kolomeyka) that took place in a huge enclosed circle of guests.

I left the reception feeling stuffed from all the amazing food, and enlightened from having learned about a whole new culture and set of customs. I can't wait to have some of the honey that I got to take home as the parting gift.

Oh and I almost forgot to mention that there were quite a few ladies in paisley at the wedding! I took a few photos and I have to download them to see if any came out well enough for me to post. For now, just enjoy this beautiful tiered wedding cake designed by Jim Smeal and photographed by Melanie Nashan that I found on Brides.com.

So Mnohaia Lita (Many Happy Years!) and many more weddings for me to attend! Now imagine all those cakes to come... yum.

Have Your Cake and Eat It Too

Can you believe that I just attended another wedding?

This was wedding number four for me (just this year alone!) and belonged to my friends Antonio and Francesca.

I'm also going to mark their occasion with yet another beautiful paisley cake and I can't begin to tell you how much I love this classic vanilla cake with organic blueberries from I Dream of Cake. Just check out the rest of the cakes on the site, and you'll be awestruck by the sheer beauty of ALL their cakes.

Antonio and Francesca's wedding was huge, with probably 400 guests, and every detail meticulously planned out. Weddings like their's make me want to have a huge wedding of my own right now, even though I have a huge phobia of commitment and large crowds make me nervous.

It's so strange how the prospect of pretty wedding gowns and amazing cake has me all delirious. For a second I thought I just said that I wanted to get married right now?!? Crazy talk, I'll just settle for fabulous birthday cakes instead.

Let Them Eat Cake!

What a weekend! It came and went in a flurry, a wonderful whirlwind of activity that made up my friends Ram and Shima's beautiful wedding.

Two ceremonies, two days, lots of people, gorgeous flowers, an awesome white tent, bucket's of rain, tonnes of food and heaps of dessert. I can't even begin to tell you how much I ate as I might seem like a gluttonous beast to some of you.

There seemed to be many, many cakes. A cake to suit just about everyone's preference, and I alone ate about 5 different cakes in a span of 3 hours. There was their beautiful wedding cake, then a fantastic nutty cake called Love Cake, a caramel cheese cake, a chocolate cake for Ram's Father's birthday, and then a sweet vanilla cake just to round up the lot. There was definitely no shortage of a sugar high for me this weekend.

It's a good thing that I did a lot of dancing, as I don't think I could have managed to squeeze myself back into the car if I hadn't otherwise. For me, cake + Dancing = Bliss, so all this wedding fun made me want to have a wedding of my own. I mean, I know that I don't really care to be married right now, but I'd really like a wedding celebration. I'd love to be able to throw a big ol' party and serve this elegant paisley cake by suzellescakes.com. It's so beautiful that I can already taste the sweetness of the icing on my tongue...

Wow. Sometimes I even surprise myself. I really think that 50 Cent should change the lyric's of his song to "I love you like Sanaz love cake", cause then you definitely know that would mean a heckuvalot!

Match Made In Heaven

I'm off to get a manicure in a few minutes and I'm going for perfect red nails to match my red patent leather pumps. I'm off to a wedding you see, and my black and white polk-a-dot dress needs the added punch of scarlet.

Who's wedding you ask? Nick and Becky's wedding of course, and I'm really excited.

I met Nick in Calculus in my first year of Uni. He was also in the same residence hall and has been a great friend to me ever since. He's a little old fashioned and a little stubborn, and he's a whole lot hilarious.

In our third year, he met Becky at our favourite dance club, and they've been together ever since. A sweet couple they make, Nick recognizes the fact that Becky is a great catch. Even with all of his idiosyncrasies, she loves him to bits and I'll give you an example.

A couple of summers ago, I had a graduation party, and Nick and Becky showed up looking rosy-cheeked and bashful. A very embarrassed Becky asked me not to look at Nick's feet.

I instantly looked over to find that Nick was wearing one brown shoe and one black dress shoe. Turns out that he'd accidentally mismatched his shoes and even wore them to work all day. He even rode the subway in them and hadn't realized his mistake until Becky pointed them out the moment she picked him up from work to come to my party. Nick was pissed that no one at work or even the subway had taken the time to mention it to him.

I couldn't stop laughing. It is exactly the kind of thing that happens to Nick on a regular basis, and it was exactly the reaction that I expected from sweet Becky. I hope I see them celebrating a hundred more years of laughter and crazy antics.

I also hope that I eat lots of cake tonight, and that the cake is from from Carrie's Cakes. Just look at the pretty paisleys on this one, ain't it a beaut?

For now I've got to run, but I'll be sure to post wedding details tomorrow... unless I've exploded from all the cake eating...mmmm cake...

Paisley Presents

Every year, food and necessities aside, I buy more gifts than any other purchases.

Just these coming weeks I have a mother's day present to buy, three birthdays and also a wedding to shop for.

I'm having some trouble finding a gift for the wedding as I didn't like anything that was left on the registry. I'm thinking that I should just choose something that I think they'll like.

I would really like to give them sky diving tickets. (Which, by the way, I plan on doing myself with my friend Mike. Yay, can't wait!)

Or I was thinking tickets to the symphony, a ballet, the opera or even a concert.

I am a firm believer in cool and thoughtful gifts, and personally wouldn't mind giving these paisley Gaiam wall sconces either.  I think that they are beautiful, and could just as well be used as outdoor, patio decor.

If anything, even if the recipient were to have bad taste and hate the sconces, then at least they had the chance to experience surprise, disgust, bewilderment at my bad choice of judgment, etc... instead of the current trend of registries that put a stop to all creativity and thoughtfulness, and take the element of surprise out of gift giving.

Now I'm sure many, many people don't agree with me on this one, but can you honestly tell me that you'd rather receive a $200 pie plate than receive an amazing couple's spa package/getaway weekend?

I say build memories people, not crowded kitchens!

Paisley, I Do!

Remember how I introduced you to my friends yesterday?

Well, last night I spent the evening with Ram and Shima again, and this time we were putting together invites for their upcoming wedding shower.

I should also introduce to you my good friend Roshi, who is another Karate sister of mine, and happens to be exotically beautiful, trilingual, smart to boot and has a heart of gold. Roshi is helping to organize Shima and Ram's wedding plans, and she is doing a pretty darn good job of keeping things under control.

Chatting with her today got me thinking about all sorts of wedding ideas, and above I've posted a beautiful paisley themed seating arrangement for a wedding organized by event producer Tara Guérard of Soirée.

I absolutely adore the colour combination, especially for an outdoor wedding.

Shima and Ram are also organizing an outdoor wedding, and I'm really excited to celebrate their big day. I am reallly happy for them, and they are my favourite couple ever! Seriously, I find that their relationship is very balanced, and Ram supports Shima in all that she pursues.  I find that in today's world, a lot of simple girls plan their whole lives with the sole intent on being married, and so sometimes marry the wrong person just for the sake of adhering to societies expectations on marriage.  Instead, I find Shima to be fabulous, talented, passionate and quite accomplished, and is marrying Ram because he is her best friend and he truly adds happiness to her life.

I've already given him shit for not having more guy friends to introduce me to, but how can I stay mad at him when today he fixed the domain name for Posh & Paisley in like a matter of minutes?

By the way, P&P can now be found at www.poshandpaisley.com, all thanks to Ram the man.

With this new domain name, and new beginnings in the air, I feel like Posh & Paisley needs a whole new look. What do you think? Maybe a different colour, or a more minimal look? I guess since I can't be picking colour swatches for my wedding, I might as well start picking colour swatches for Posh & Paisley!

   

Wedding Season is a Coming!

I guess it's only fitting that a commitment phobe like me would be invited to so many weddings this year. 

The thought of marriage makes me quite claustrophobic right now, and I can't help feeling elated when I think that I'll only be the well dressed guest in attendance.

I'm excited to watch my gorgeous girlfriends get married and really, I'm in no way against the institution of marriage. I'm just not ready for such a big step and I think that I'm a little too selfish right now to become one half of such an intense partnership.

What I am ready for is all the pretty wedding paraphernalia. Take the above posted paisley wedding invitation by Demby+Solomon for example.  I love it, and imagine my surprise when my friend Amanda recently sent me photos of a set of invites that she actually received. I have since then been inspired and thought I would share them with you, here they are on the right. Thanks Amanders.

She thought I would get a kick out of them, and boy was she ever correct. Looking at these actually make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and make me think that perhaps this whole getting married thing might have it's perks after all.