It’s always exciting for us to experience new venues for our wedding catering around Devon and a recent event gave us the chance not just to try out a brand new venue near Exeter but also to create a much more varied and eclectic multi-national menu than might normally be the case…
On Sunday the 9th of August we were the caterers for Cat and Iztok who married at Bondleigh Church, which is not too far from Winkleigh. Their reception was held at the amazing Ashridge Court that Cat’s parents own at North Tawton. It was here at Ashridge that a barn was converted for Cat’s wedding which is now available to be used for future events.
We catered for Cat’s grandmothers 90th birthday two years ago and were asked by Cat if we would be up for the challenge of cooking for her and Iztok’s wedding. This was not going to be a traditional Devon roast beef menu, as Cat and her family have previously lived in Colombia and Japan and Iztok comes from Slovenia, and their vision was to have stations of foods from these areas.
We can turn our hands to most things, but some of these were traditional dishes that were new to us. However, after a couple of meetings to consider dishes that complimented each other, along with Cat’s mother and Iztok demonstrating a couple of the dishes that were proposed for the day, Caroline accepted the challenge.
Ashridge Court is just out of North Tawton and is not too far from Exeter. A large and a small barn were converted for the wedding: you can see from the pictures that the barn was fitted with a dance floor, atmospheric lighting and even gates for some fun. The large barn also came complete with a lounge area and a bar. The small barn was converted for us to use as a kitchen, you can see us in action below!
The guests arrived back from the church and were greeted in the “magic circle” which is a garden in a perfect circle shape, lined with huge conifer trees. Here we served a selection of homemade canapes that included coronation chicken and mango on poppudoms, goat’s cheese, thyme and red onion tartlets, honey and mustard glazed butchers sausages, tomato, mozzarella and pesto on crostini, and finally gravlax blinis. These were garnished with fresh flowers from the Ashridge gardens. Here the guests enjoyed champagne while waiting for the newly weds who chose to ride their horses back from the church.
The guests sat down to enjoy the first course which was a sharing platter of salami and prsut that came from Slovenia along with gherkins and pickles. There was also galia and canteloupe melon along with homemade belakranjska pogaca which is Slovenian bread that you can see Nick cutting.
As the weather was kind to us and the barn was filled with guests, we set the food stations outside, each country had a station, decorated by their national flag. Nick manned the Colombian station that had lechona (a traditional dish of pork, rice, fresh herbs and vegetables that are cooked within the pig skin). You can also see Caroline preparing this and checking its progress in the oven.
The second station was the Slovenian station which had turkey wiener shcnitzel (fresh from Crediton!) and prazen krompir, which is a traditional potato dish, we also served a fresh seasonal salad.
The final main course station came from Japan, here we had spicy fried mackerel, sliced seared beef fillet with shiso, that had been marinated in Japanese sauces, garlic and red onion and garnished with nasturtiums that also came from the Ashridge garden. Also there were fresh vegetables with sesame seeds and soy, along with rice to complete this station.
The guests came and tried some of everything and were invited back to enjoy more of the dishes they liked best. This created a great atmosphere with the guests telling us their favorite choices.
Finally the desserts, which was planned to be a British theme, but we slightly veered off when Iztok decided that chocolate eclairs was one of his favourites. We served homemade apple and blackcurrant crumbles, lemon meringues tartlets, scones with clotted cream and various preserves, and finally chocolate eclairs.
To finish the meal there was a selection of Devon cheeses, along with fresh filter coffee and the wedding cake which was decorated with peacock feathers that inspired the colours for the day.
The barn came alive in the evening with a live band called The Lateshift and lanterns lighting the trees. At 11.30pm we served homemade chilli and rice along with a vegetable korma for anyone that had the munchies…
It was a challenging but fun wedding for us to be apart of and we have received many compliments on the day.
We would like to thank Mark from Evolve Photography who took some of these amazing photos.
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