Turkey Stock Soup

November 11, 2015

Written with love, by Sarah-Elizabeth Stone

turkey stock soup recipe - date night ideas

Quiet nights sharing a meal, chatting about the work day or discussing a good movie happen to be one of the highlights of my day. There’s something about the weather getting colder, the days getting shorter and my sweaters getting heavier that I love. Call me a cliché but if we could throw in a fire place, a few cats and huge slippers in there, I’ve practically died and gone to heaven.

I did this recipe right after our Thanksgiving dinner, using the leftover turkey bones. It’s a basic stock soup, but you can use anything and everything in your fridge, which is one of my very favourite things to do! So curl up with your love, sit in front of the fire place and enjoy! (Just make sure to start this recipe well ahead of dinner!

Ingredients

· Turkey bones, frame

· ½ cup of turkey meat

· 1 white onion, cut into quarters

· 8 cups of water

· 4 celery stocks

· 2 cups of sliced carrots

· ½ cup chopped broccoli

· 1 tsp salt

Directions

1. Have a strong stomach

2. Chop/cut up turkey frame and bones

3. On medium heat add 8 cups of water mix in turkey frame, onion, chopped celery stocks, bring to a boil and then let simmer for 3-5 hours

4. Remove turkey frame & cooked vegetables, strain broth, and bring back up to a boil

5. Add in carrots and broccoli and salt

A short engagement or a long engagement...which is less stressful?

November 10, 2015

The second a couple chooses me as their wedding coordinator, we get straight to planning. Whether they have 3 years to plan or 3 months, we always start immediately. And for what reason?

1. Wedding vendors book up and if you want your first pick, book sooner rather than later!
2. You might as well plan everything and then have the remainder of your engagement to relax, right? Right.

So no matter what length of engagement you choose, plan right away and get it all done as quickly as possible.

When I meet with my couples for the first time, every single one of them says, "We want to get married in the summer but we know that's just out of the question, as it's only 6 months away!"

And my response?

A shorter engagement is much easier to plan a wedding than a long engagement.

Surprised? Probably. But I am going to tell you why.

In a world full of millions of ideas and inspiration, wedding blogs galore and more colors than you can even name, it is tough to plan. And when you know that you have a year to plan, you think to yourself, "I can decide on colors later...I have plenty of time!" or "I can just think about it for a while before choosing which photographer, it's a year away!"

Well no matter what, your engagement is going to go FAST. It will be here sooner than you know it.

In no time, that year is going to turn into 3 months, and your favorite photographers will have already booked weddings for that day. Your favorite wedding venue will have been booked by another couple and you now are down to the wire on choosing a color palette, because without it, you can't choose flowers or linens or bridesmaid dresses.

Your wedding is here and what you once believe was plenty of time, is now no time at all.

So just that, is why a shorter engagement is far easier than a long engagement. With a short engagement, you don't have time to "think it over" and you don't have time to "do a little more research" because you are already almost there...you're months away from your wedding day!

While I urge all of my couples to book their vendors and make decisions as soon as they find someone or something they love, and stop the research right there, a short engagement makes this decision for you, and requires that you make decisions quickly. You don't have time to visit 8 bakeries so only visiting two narrows it down nicely right off the bat.

So I have two words of advice for you:

1. If you already have a long engagement set, assign yourself a "fake wedding date" where you have to have everything booked and planned by...and set it for 3-6 months out.

2. If you are deciding between this year and next year and want to make sure you are the least stressed, choose this year.

Because that short engagement will actually cause a whole lot less stress than you think. In this case, less is more!

20 Gorgeous Laser Cut Cake Toppers

November 9, 2015

Your wedding cake topper is the like the icing on the cake! While your wedding cake is, of course, a gorgeous piece of work on it's own, the cake topper is what truly finishes the look and makes your cake a spectacle for photos on your wedding day!

And so, we've found 20 of our favorite inexpensive cake toppers, all that have the simple laser cut look...which we absolutely adore!

If you see one you like, just click the photo and it will take you right to where we found it :)