An Island Wedding

This past weekend I was lucky to get to attend the long awaited wedding of my friends, Janelle and Vince. Everyone had a great time celebrating with the lovely couple and it was a great chance to expose some friends to their first taste of PEI. I always love when friends come to visit for the first time. Watching other people experience what I grew up with (and grew to take for granted) is always fun. You don’t always appreciate it while you live there but it really is a special place.

After a lovely ceremony we headed out to Stanhope for the reception. During the break in between my friends and I headed to Richard’s for a lobster roll to tide us over (featured yesterday). The reception was held at the Stanhope Beach Resort right on the point overlooking Covehead Bay and harbour. Unfortunately, due to the less than ideal weather, I don’t have any pictures of the view but it really is beautiful. The area is probably one of my favourite places on the Island but I may be biased. This is where my family and my dad’s siblings have had cottages for years and I spent many a summer out there growing up.

The decorations were beautiful. I had been listening to Janelle’s ideas for well over a year and I was so glad to see everything turned out exactly as she had envisioned. The food at the reception was amazing. Sorry to my other married friends but I think this was possibly the best wedding food I’ve ever had - salads, rolls (the hidden pretzel rolls were especially popular), pickled beets, bread and butter pickles, roasted baby red potatoes, mixed veggies (that didn’t look like they were from the freezer), barbecued chicken, and carved roast beef. Delicious. The dessert buffet was none too shabby either – peanut butter cup cheesecake, apple cinnamon cheesecake, chocolate torte, white chocolate dipped cookies, berry trifle, and white cake with lemon curd. I’m sure I’m missing something. I didn’t try all of it but, sadly, I did try most of it and I’d have to say the peanut butter cup cheesecake and lemon curd cake were my favorites. 

After all this there was still more to eat! In lieu of a full wedding cake the happy couple chose a few tiers of mixed mini cupcakes with a small cake on top. 

The cupcakes were made by Jennifer Prinz of City View Bakehouse in Charlottetown. They looked great and tasted even better. My first visit was conservative. I tried a chocolate cupcake topped with dulce de leche and espresso buttercream. It was really tasty. Nice moist cake and flavourful buttercream. Around 1 am, when the party was winding down and the entire supply of cupcake was still sitting in the corner, a few of us basically attacked the display and tried each flavour one after another. We felt we were doing our duty as friends of the bride and groom. We couldn’t let these delicious cupcakes go to waste! I ended up trying vanilla with lemon curd, double chocolate mint, and carrot with cream cheese frosting. For some reason we were all especially excited to find the carrot cupcakes hiding at the back. The cream cheese frosting was to die for. I wish I had taken a picture of the aftermath. A big pile of abandoned cupcake liners were left behind.

I really enjoyed these cupcakes and that’s a big thing for me to say. I’m usually especially hard on cupcakes from professional bakeries but these truly were delicious. They weren’t dry. You could tell the frosting wasn’t made with shortening. The texture was great. I think I’m going to have to hit up the Charlottetown Farmer’s Market when I’m home next month and try out some of Jennifer’s other treats.

All in all, it was a great weekend with great food and even greater friends. I’m so happy I was able to be a part of it all!

What’s the best wedding food you’ve ever had?