VeganMoFo Day 6 ~ OUR BIG FAT VEGAN WEDDING

This past July our dear friends Michael Thomas and Lindsay were married.  Being devout vegans they set out to plan an event that was both beautiful and completely devoid of all animal products.  They did an amazing job.  I asked Michael Thomas to guest blog about the experience of planning his vegan wedding. 

OUR BIG FAT VEGAN WEDDING

Lindsay and I were engaged on June 16, 2008 on the cliff walk in Newport, RI.

Being the OCD pair we are, we began the planning process in our hotel as soon as we returned from our long walk.

We went through everything one detail at a time.

Would it be a big wedding or a small wedding?

Small. Check.

Where would we do it? Rhode Island? Boston? Long Island?

Long Island. Check.

How much did we want to spend?

$5,000.00…yeah, right. No dice.

What type of food would we offer?

Seeing as we are both vegan, that was a no brainer. The Omnis would have to withstand the torture of an event that not only was free of alcohol, but there would be no cruelty on the menu either.

OK done and done right? WRONG. How were we going to pull this one off?

We spent ample time searching out venues and caterers to no avail. Most of the places on Long Island are the “wedding factory” types, and our tiny little 50 person guest list was looked down on with contempt with a sloppy side order of GRILLED VEGETABLES to go along with it. “Wait…no eggs? No buttah? No cheese?” It was a painful experience.

Not exactly what we were thinking. Were we really going to be able to do this the right way?

One day, quite by accident, I ran across a website for a company called Elegant Affairs Catering. We called them up and spoke to Brooke who was happy to hear what we had to say, so we set up a meeting. As luck would have it, Elegant Affairs uses the Nassau County Museum of Art as a venue. When we pulled up to the museum for our meeting we were pleasantly surprised with our surroundings. To make things even better, Brooke was as sweet and understanding as could be and worked very closely with us to come up with a delicious menu that anyone attending was sure to enjoy. Another stroke of luck was that Elegant Affairs already had experience with vegan events and had just put together a vegan menu for another wedding, much larger than ours mind you. Of course we made sure they were mindful of those sneaky ingredients like casein etc….

After we went over our options, Brooke gave us the tour of the grounds, showing us where we would have the ceremony. Their formal gardens are beautiful and when Lindsay saw the gazebo area where the ceremony would be, the tears started flowing. This was the place for sure. So I wrote the check for the deposit and we continued our planning.

Next would be the cake. I already knew that Vegan Treats in PA made awesome Vegan Wedding cakes, but I wanted to stay local so the search was on. After a few frustrating calls to people claiming to do Vegan cakes we found Madame Butterfly in Babylon Village. After communicating back and forth for quite some time we met with the owner and we hit it off instantly. She made a plethora of samples for us which we happily devoured. We decided on a 3 tier cake, square tiers with different flavors of cake and filling for each tier. The design would be an Asian motif based loosely around our invitation, complete with edible flowers , bamboo and Koi fish.

Fast forward to July 19th, 2009, the day of our wedding. The menu consisted of passed hours devours of edamame cups, Greek salad cups, black bean quesadillas and California rolls…the buffet consisted of roasted peppers stuffed with quinoa and….tofu squares in fillo dough with a sweet eggplant topping, salad, pasta with olive oil and lemon with basil and sun dried tomatoes…..all vegan , all delicious. The cake was a huge hit with everyone as well.

The moral of the story is, don’t compromise your beliefs. You can stick to your guns and still keep everyone happy and satisfied.