The Sunday Edition: May 1, 2022

Written By Elizabeth Raybould

Happy May, friends! It’s one of my favourite months, flowers are in bloom, taurus season is in full force, my birthday is around the corner, and it’s a month full of potential, plus, we get a long weekend smack dab in the middle of it! Yesterday we spent our morning at a local landscaping and stone supplier and ordered a ton of edging stones for our garden beds. In case you wondered, Topher and I love having projects and one thing we’ve learned about owning a house is that you can always have a project or two (at least) on the go!

Things I’m loving, wanting, and excited to try

Mother’s Day Lunch Menu

Start with: Goat Cheese & Walnut Stuffed Dates

Dessert: Carrot Cake

Mother’s Day Brunch Menu

Start with: Butternut Squash Tart

Questions of the week

Q: when you are cooking do you normally listen to music?

A: I like a mix of listening to podcasts and listening to music. Music is always a mix, lately I’ve been loving Phoebe Bridgers, Maisie Peters and Taylor Swift. Friend of a Friend, With Whit and Recipe Club are my favourite podcasts.

Q: favourite spring produce?

A: rhubarb is definitely high on the list, I love baking with rhubarb. Local asparagus can’t be beat. Honestly, there’s nothing like local produce, it’s so hard to choose a favourite.

Q: what is something that makes you happy every day?

A: starting the morning by reading my book, drinking a delicious coffee, and chatting with Topher.

Q: what is the one place you want to travel to?

A: it’s so hard to pick just one place! I’m really craving Canadian travel like heading out west and exploring British Columbia, and the East Coast, of course, looks so beautiful as well.

Q: what’s the key to chewy cookies?

A: there are a few keys to chewy cookies. First off, brown sugar always helps to ensure a chewy cookie, while white sugar gives you a crisper cookie. The combo of brown and white sugar gives the perfect chewy centre and crisp edges. Second, always tap your baking sheet halfway through baking and at the end of baking to deflate your cookies for a chewy centre. Third, don’t over-bake your cookies! It seems simple, but it’s actually a fine balance. Remember, your cookies will always continue baking as they cool. This goes for skillet cookies as well.

Q: three things to splurge on and three things to save on for weddings?

A: splurge on:

  • a photographer - your pictures will hopefully outlive you so you want them to be timeless and ones that you want to look at forever

  • an open bar - unless you have a lot of guests who don’t drink, an open bar will ensure your guests are comfortable and everyone has a great time!

  • invitations - these set the tone for your whole wedding and what guests should expect, I have zero regrets about splurging on our invitations, I still love them so much

  • *bonus* flowers - I loveee flowers and they were our only “decor” so we definitely splurged and I have no regrets, they were the most stunning arrangements and flowers I’ve ever seen.

save on:

  • paper products and signage - I DIY-ed all of our signage and paper products and we got them printed at a local print house, all of this saved us a lot of money. At the end of the day, no one will take their menus or name tags with them, and your table numbers and signs will probably be disposed of so don’t spend too much money on them. Plus, this is a really big category so it can easily eat up a lot of your budget. Another suggestion is to find semi-custom designs on Etsy that you can customize, this will definitely save you money.

  • cake - I definitely recommend having a wedding cake, our whole cake got gobbled up and I’ve never been to a wedding where the cake wasn’t eaten but I don’t think you need to spend an arm and a leg on a beautiful, delicious cake. Our 3 tier cake was $1000 and was beyond delicious and so beautiful!

  • venue - this is a bit controversial. We chose a venue that we really liked but didn’t love, but we saved so much money and once it was filled with flowers, people, and our table numbers, menus, etc, it looked beautiful. I don’t think you need to choose the most expensive venue to have an incredible and beautiful wedding. The other thing to consider with venues is if you want something that’s really recognizable. What I mean by that is, somewhere like The Ancaster Mill has had so many weddings, often many in the same day, that when I see a photo of a wedding there I instantly know where it is, without it being tagged or said in the caption. I knew I didn’t want somewhere that churned out weddings and was super recognizable, so I’m really happy with our more quaint venue.

At the end of the day what you choose to splurge on vs save on is going to completely depend on your vibe and priorities, if you’re not into flowers then you can probably save on those, if you’re super into having a showstopper cake then you may want to splurge on that. These are just my opinions and some of the ways we prioritized and allocated our money for our wedding.

Favourite links

I hope you have the a fulfilling week ahead.

xo, Elizabeth

Elizabeth Raybould
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The Sunday Edition: May 8th, 2022
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The Sunday Edition: April 24th, 2022