Branches Catering is the perfect venue for many events, especially for your wedding. Use these wedding planning tips to help prepare for your big day! Also, feel free to check out our great food menus, or plan for a Sunday Brunch.

Source: Yupedia

Confused about where to start? Here are some wedding planning tips to get you started in the right direction to put your wedding plan together.

The first stage of planning your wedding is just between you and your fiancé. Spend some quiet time alone where you can be “in tune” with each other as you make the decisions that will guide the rest of your wedding planning adventure.

When you do want to get married? Setting the date for your wedding is a completely personal choice. Although there are key people you may want to be included in your special day, the ultimate choice of when to get married will be yours.

What type of Wedding do you want to have? Large wedding, small wedding, religious ceremony, civil ceremony. There are so many choices here it will take a lot of brainstorming, and perhaps some compromising too.

If your visions aren’t exactly the same as you begin this process, take the time to each write down what is important to you and what you could do without. From there, the compromising begins.

And speaking of compromise… The process of planning your wedding will be an exciting, but sometimes stressful event. You’ll be faced with decisions that will be hard to make and you’ll be faced with opposing forces. Keep your vision on the ultimate result… your marriage. After all, your wedding is a single day that will be starting the rest of your life.

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Branches Catering plays host to a number of special events, such as weddings, receptions, and more. Although our food menus are very popular, we always want to discover new foods! Recently, culinary specialist Eric Villegas came in and showed us some wonderful entrees. After all, there’s nothing better than a taste of home!

Source: Examiner

The Taste of Home Cooking School Show at Branches Catering, West Long Branch, was a huge success attended by young and old to watch Culinary Specialist Eric Villegas whip up easy, tasty dishes from the Taste of Home Cookbook. The Cooking Show was hosted by 94.3 The Point with Eric Villegas being introduced by morning anchors Lou and Liz.

VIP attendees were treated to special hors d’oeuvres prepared by Branches’ Chef Jaime Fierros and his culinary team while listening to Branches Managing Partner, John Lombardo, give tips on wine selection, tricks to uncorking and the proper way to taste a wine. Following his discussion, he raffled off select wines, as well as a wine tasting dinner for two at Branches.

Once the Cooking Show began, the ebullient Eric Villegas warmly welcomed his guests as he created Pumpkin Whoopee Pies with candied ginger and cream cheese frosting. He explained that the Taste of Home doctrine of cooking is creating easy-to-prepare dishes that are both satisfying and flavorful, many of which are replicated from traditional, comfort food recipes. According to Villegas, Taste of Home is all about “cooking, caring and sharing.” The Taste of Home Cooking School is America’s leading cooking school program, inspiring more than 300,000 passionate consumers each year at 300 events across the country.

During Villegas’ two-hour cooking demonstration, he prepared ten mouthwatering recipes. In addition to the Whoopie Pies, he made a Wisconsin BBQ Chicken Pizza in a quick countertop oven; Pulled Pork Tenderloin Sliders with whole cranberry relish and pickled onions; Chicken & Rice with Thai Curry, and a Ground Nut Stew.

As part of the Taste of Home family, which claims to be the world’s #1 source for family-favorite recipes, Culinary Specialist Villegas conducts Cooking School shows throughout the country from California to New Jersey.  “I thoroughly enjoy meeting so many enthusiastic fans of Taste of Home.  They inspire me with their love and cooking and support for our program,” exclaims Eric. “I also really enjoy the camaraderie that is built working with the local volunteers in putting together the big show.”

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This Jersey Shore catering hall has been the perfect venue for many couples from all around New Jersey. When a couple is looking to decorate in their ceremony and reception location there are a lot of factors they must keep in mind. We found these great tips to guide a bride and groom towards the perfect theme/decoration for their wedding day.

Source: 1weddingsource.com

With any wedding it is often the reception which will require the most planning and attention to detail. Your wedding reception will be the biggest party you will ever organize and as such it is important your wedding reception decoration is perfect.

When thinking about your decoration you need to take into account several factors including:

The style of your wedding
Your wedding colors
Your wedding theme
Your budget
Your venue

The style of your wedding will determine whether you have a formal reception, such as a sit down meal with several courses or a more casual reception perhaps with a buffet. Your wedding colors will provide the backdrop to your reception decoration and will determine things like table cloths, chair covers, flowers, balloons etc. Usually brides will choose a combination of two or three colors, with one of those forming the main color used throughout (often white or ivory), the remaining colors then become accent colors in the smaller details such as flowers, table centers, napkins and decorations.

If you have chosen a wedding theme then this will be the main focus of your decoration. With a wedding theme it is important to research all the small details and elements that you want to include, otherwise your theme could fall flat and be lost on your guests. Try to be true to your theme in terms of colors and design, for instance, an art deco themed wedding is usually associated with a scheme of black and white, therefore using hot pink and aqua blue would not work! Likewise a medieval wedding theme with table centers of tall martini glasses filled with crystals and feathers would look totally out of place.

Your budget will dictate everything, from the scale of your decoration to your choice of wedding favors. Make sure you set a realistic sum for your reception decorations, especially if you are having a grand wedding theme. That, said, much can be achieved by making your own decorations, including table centers, favors and hanging decorations. So if your budget is tight make sure you explore your DIY options.

Venue’s can often be the deciding factor when it comes to how your reception will look. Whilst many venues can offer a blank canvas, allowing you to decorate them however you wish, others can be rather more grandiose, meaning you will need to work your decorations around existing colors, fixtures and fittings.

The best way around this it to pick your venue with your wedding style or theme in mind. A beach wedding would obviously be at the beach, whilst a 1930′s themed wedding could take place in a ballroom or theatre. If no suitable venue can be found then your best option would be to hire a marquee and pitch it in a garden or hotel grounds. Marquee’s offer the ultimate blank canvas and many companies can offer decoration and furniture packages to suit.

For the full article with more tips click here.

When you get caught up in planning your wedding it’s easy to forget the importance of the first thing you’re going to share as a married couple, a kiss! HuffPost Weddings gives some tips on how to make sure this moment is perfect and far from awkward in a room full of people. Whether it’s at a beach ceremony, in a garden setting or at  a winery let Branches be part of this magical moment.

Source: Huffington Post

“You may kiss the bride.”

We have all heard that phrase hundreds of times. In fact, I have spoken it hundreds of times, or something close to it, such as: “Please share your first kiss as a married couple,” “Seal it with a kiss” or “You may now smooch!”

But a kiss is not just a kiss in every culture. Shows of affection and wedding kisses vary around the world. Some families are more reserved than others, and it may influence the way you and your beloved show affection at the end of your wedding ceremony.

For example, while it is common in the west for the father of the bride to kiss his daughter the day of the wedding after he escorts her down the aisle, that gesture would be awkward or unheard of to Chinese or Korean dads and with parents from any culture where public affection is not common. On the other hand, I’ve seen Jewish fathers kiss their sons or new son-in-laws on the lips, British families kiss on both cheeks, and Slavic wedding guests kiss three times on alternating cheeks.

I have also seen every kiss and act of affection imaginable between bride and groom at the altar: A peck on the cheek, a hug, a fist bump, a long kiss on the lips, a series if kisses on the mouth, a full open-mouth tongue kiss, affectionate kissing through tears of joy, and kissing so passionately that friends and loved ones scream, “get a room.”

As much as we like to think of kissing as spontaneous, you would be surprised how much thought some brides put into the kiss. Having to contend with make-up, big dresses with trains, shyness, performance anxiety, and possibly conservative relatives, there is often talk in our consultations of how they will kiss and for how long.

Every culture has its feelings about kissing, and individuals have their preferences about public smooching as well, so it is something to be aware of on your wedding day. To avoid a kiss that turns out stressful or awkward, come up with a comfortable way to kiss at the wedding altar. Make sure you have fun practicing!

1. Consider your own level of comfort with public affection. If this is not something you or your mate are used to, you can do a very small, brief kiss just to seal your ceremony. I have married more than one bride who kissed her beloved on the cheek at the end of the ceremony, and that was just about as much that either one of them could handle.

2. Think about your family traditions. Are mom and dad affectionate with one another in public? Will seeing a big, wet wedding kiss make your grandmother faint? Does your family clank wine glasses with spoons or ring bells demanding that you kiss? What is the typical wedding kiss like in the culture you both hail from? Some couples adapt their kiss to the comfort level of the family.

3. Is one of you a bigger kisser than the other? Some couples don’t see eye to eye about kissing at the wedding. She wants a big smooch; he thinks it is disrespectful, and so on. It is good to get a sense of which way things will go on the big day, before the big day. Hell hath no furry like a woman whose lipstick has been kissed off before the photos are taken of the couple walking back up the aisle.

4. Go For It. When everything is said and done, it is your wedding and you can kiss any way you choose. There is no right or wrong way to kiss on your wedding day. Like anything else in the ceremony, having a sense of how you would like to kiss and be kissed can relieve any “performance” pressure.

The kiss is meant to be a joyous exclamation mark that brings the ceremony to happy close. It is a romantic way to transition from the end of the ceremony to the beginning or married life. It is also a moment to relax as you acknowledge: “The ceremony is over … and, yay, we’re married.”

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