An Unconventional Affair

I think often of Maggie and Nate's wedding here at Farm Dover last month and keep mulling over what made it so special to me (and hopefully to Maggie and Nate and our guests as well).

When Maggie and Nate decided to get married, I asked them to tell me what kind of wedding they wanted. They said they wanted it low-key, fun, more like a back-yard barbecue than a fancy shindig.

What? No church wedding? No out-of-season flowers shipped in from the southern hemisphere? No rehearsal? No large number of attendants? No organ music? No bride or groom side of the seating? What, no seating? No bouquet or garter toss?  No showering of rice upon departure? What, no departure? Camping out with guests instead?

I wanted to hug them both. I knew then it was going to be the perfect wedding: unconventional in most every way! Maggie left the day after announcing her engagement for a three-month work stint in Los Angeles and charged me with figuring out the details. Her final instructions to me were: "No traditional wedding cake!"

Pie, I thought. That would be the perfect wedding cake. So Ed and I set about picking gallons of wild blackberries growing around the edges of our farm. And turned to Flour de Lis Bakery to bake them into tasty works of art topped with flaky lattice. (Guests could also choose between a crumbled-top peach pie or a chocolate pecan pie. And then there was the a la mode option...)

Still, I missed the idea of having a multi-tiered cake with a little bride and groom on top. My mind started churning. I was reminded that a favorite cheese shop in Madison, WI (where Maggie and Nate met) created wedding cakes, composed of wheels of cheese – and then I remembered that sister Kathy had given me two cast-iron mice. I had an idea...

Both the cheese wedding cake and the pies were a hit. We offered cheese boards to each table of guests at the end of the meal. Served on slabs of slate, they included wedges of each of the cheeses, plus figs, ground cherries, almonds, honey from Maggie's Farm Dover beehives, and homemade blackberry jam. 

Because we had extra cheese, as guests departed, they were offered a wedge of cheese, wrapped in cheese paper, fastened with gold washi tape. A small reminder of an unconventional affair. 

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Our thanks to the knowledgeable cheese counter staff at Whole Foods/Louisville for suggesting the following combination of cheeses: (from bottom to top): Quicke's English Farmhouse Cheddar, Kaserei Champignon Cambozola, Cypress Grove Humbolt Fog, Garrotxa de Sant Gil d'Albio.

Thanks also to our amazing photographer: Ashley Glass of Ashley Glass Photography and to Farm to Fork Catering for cake styling and pie service. 

Next up: I'll tell you about the unconventional wedding flowers...