A Vegan Wedding

It has been quite a looooonnngggg time since I have written a post. This past school year was quite a stressful, yet rewarding one. I had to renew my teaching license, take several classes, tests, and go through a bunch of hoops to renew. I taught a split class of 1st/kindergarten. It was so much fun, a ton of work, but I really adored my kiddos. I was also named a top 10 finalist for the Fishman Prize; a nationwide teaching award with an application process that took 5 months to complete. On top of school. I was planning a wedding!

John and I were married on July 19th. We have only been waiting for 10 years! The day was perfect! We had so much fun. We did not have fun the day before when we found out Men's Wearhouse didn't send John's Tux to Indianapolis from Chicago. Less than 24 hours before the wedding, he was tux-less. The Indianapolis store raced to find different pieces from shipments at 3 different stores. By 3:30, John had a Frankenstein tux, and the rest is history.

This post is about how I created a vegan menu for my wedding.

When I started planning my wedding I knew I wanted to serve only vegan food with gluten free options for guests. I was not going to budge on this. I contacted several approved vendors. None had done a completely vegan menu before and were very open to doing so. They really needed my input and guidance, however. It was fun thinking of a menu that wouldn't be overly "vegan" and well received by the masses.

During the cocktail hour we had assorted vegetables served with several types of hummus and toasted pita. This was simple, and very refreshing. I came up with the idea of having tabbouleh served in cucumber cups. I made a modification to the tabbouleh. Instead of using bulgur, we used quinoa so people with gluten allergies could enjoy.

The tabbouleh

The dinner was served buffet style. For dinner we had a delicious mixed salad with fruit and nuts with a balsamic dressing. We had fresh fruit, bread, roasted veggies, and roasted rosemary potatoes as sides. All the veggies were roasted/baked with olive oil. The potatoes were so simple and very delicious.

We had two maid dishes, I figured most people would enjoy a pasta and it isn't overly "vegan." I didn't want to turn people off by having tofu or something along those lines. The pasta was served with an assortment of vegetables with a tomato sauce.

The second dish was the gluten free option. They wanted input from me about this option. I stumbled on a quinoa curry dish. I made some modifications at home and it was really good. I send it to the caterer, but it really didn't turn out how I made it. I will chalk it up to mass production. My version is below.

I have never had wedding cake..ever. The wedding cake was one of the least important parts of the day for me. I didn't want a huge cake. I ended up getting an 8 inch vegan cake from the Flying Cupcake located in Indianapolis. Everyone else had cake from Costco (the only non-vegan food at the wedding). I also bought several gluten free cupcakes for guests with gluten allergies. 

My cake

If you are vegan and are getting married, don't be afraid to put your foot down and demand an all vegan wedding menu. If people are mad, so be it. How many times have you found yourself unable to eat at weddings, parities, etc. I also read a statistic about how many animals you can save by having a vegan wedding. I had about 125 guests. this means I saved between 4-5 animals! That is amazing! At the end of the day, it is your wedding. I learned through the process of planning, that you cannot make everyone happy, nor should you be expected to do so. I was lucky that John and I really didn't have to comprise on what we wanted. Everyone was very supportive of the choices we made.

Happy Cooking!