Luxurious and Delicious Nudo Olive Oil

The programme offers cooks a whole olive tree to call their own as well as all the oil it produces . How It Works: Nudo’s original adoption programme ensures the future of olive groves and the livelihood of olive farming families in Le Marche and Abruzzo on the east coast of central Italy. It does this by purchasing the harvest of every ‘adopted’ tree at a fixed price, giving farmers in the process a higher degree of financial security.

Why is this important? Because the olive oil market is a competitive one with cheap, poor quality, blended ‘olive’ oils with flimsy provenance claims making it tough for the good ones to survive. Nudo’s investment allows the good guys to invest in equipment and pay for the specialist pruners who can make the difference between a good crop and a bad crop.

Nudo’s Olive Tree Adoption programme now includes 2,154 olive trees of varying degrees of gnarliness from teenagers (trees aged 13 and upwards) to wizened centenarians and beyond. As you’d expect, the oil produced varies from grove to grove. Thus you’ll find peppery oil from Aleandri, fruity oil from Il Professore and fresh, grassy oil from La Morla, to name but a few. The programme continues to grow as new producers who share the Nudo philosophy come on board. Participation costs just £65 for the year for which each adoptive parent receives all the produce from their tree – that’s one package in the spring and one in the autumn. And of course, they’re also welcome to visit their ‘baby’ any time.

A great talking point over pasta! Nudo’s Adopt an Olive Tree Gift Tin (£65) is a smart presentation tin complete with a 500ml tin of oil and an adoption certificate to certify parentage of your chosen tree.

Red Bracelet by Molly Brown

The stylish online store houses some of the prettiest of pretty bridesmaid gifts that we have come across in a very long time, the designer girls jewellery collections are contemporary and yet timelessly stylish, perfect for a truly keepsake gift.

You will fall in love with the wide range of gifts for bridesmaids suggested in the helpful Gift Guide and no doubt find a gift that will be truly treasured. Bridesmaid gift ideas feature a carefully chosen selection of best selling pieces; choose from a range of Bridesmaids necklaces incorporating sumptuous freshwater pearl and sterling silver designs. Utterly lovely enamel and sterling silver hearts come in a wide variety of pretty pastel colours that can be chosen to go with the colour theme of your wedding day. Bridesmaid bracelets are equally gorgeous with many designs suitable for most pockets. Choose from a Pearl Station Bracelet for £25.00 or a classic Signature Bracelet in a small or a large for £50.00. The Alphabet Collection is a fantastic way of personalising individual gifts and at £25.00 for a traditional sterling silver alphabet initial it’s the perfect gift solution if you have numerous bridesmaids and flower girls gifts to buy!

Dolly Mixture Necklace

Other best selling bridesmaid jewellery pieces are featured in the Gemstone and Pearl Collection, the White Topaz and Sterling Silver Cross features stunningly sparkly gemstones and so whilst diamonds might be a girl’s best friend you can’t go wrong with this beautifully crafted piece of bridal jewellery. Molly Brown London has been featured extensively in the Wedding press, with wedding jewellery featured in photo shoots in You and Your Wedding. The featured Heart of Pearls necklace is certainly suitably romantic for your I Do! I Do! I Do! Moment!

Molly Brown wedding jewellery has been featured on the catwalks The Designer Wedding Show, selected by Hilary Alexander, Fashion Editor of The Telegraph and stylish brides up and down the country and finding that not only is Molly Brown on-line store a great place to shop for bridesmaids gifts, the classic but sophisticated styles featured in the Gemstone and Pearls Collection make wonderful bridal jewellery as well.

Molly Brown London delivers to most worldwide destinations. All jewellery arrives beautifully gift wrapped to perfection, leaving you free to focus on getting your perfect day organised to perfection.

Image Courtesy of Alesia Barry

At Alesia Barry they are committed to producing beautiful products to enhance your wedding experience without negatively impacting on the Planet’s natural resources.

It is for this reason that they exclusively use natural soy & vegetable waxes in all of our products along with recycled or recyclable packaging wherever possible.

Soy Wedding Candle by Alesia Barry

The giving of a gift as a thankyou to your wedding guests is a time honoured tradition and with our wedding candle favours, a scented reminder of your special day.

Wedding Table Candles by Alesia Barry

Favours are considered to be one of the most important wedding accessories needed to celebrate the occasion.

For more details click here.

Wedding Tree Favours

Sustainability is becoming a byword more and more these days, what with the concern over global warming and the melting ice-caps, so it is hardly surprising that sustainability is creeping into wedding preparations as well as into every other corner of our lives. What began as a niche facet of concern has now gained momentum and green weddings are now becoming mainstream, eco-chic and, instead of being looked upon as unusual, ethical wedding resources are very much the in-thing.

Wedding Venue

The wedding venue is probably the easiest choice to make. Hotels and other up-market locations are quite expensive so, if your budget doesn’t stretch that far and you don’t want to be married in a church then the only solution left is to get married in your local registry office. Many of them nowadays have been decorated to look lovely and most can be reached by public transport so they are a good solution for an eco-friendly wedding.

Wedding Invitations
Recycled card is readily available from companies such as Eco Craft who are able to provide a good selection of paper, card and envelopes. A search of the internet is bound to come up with plenty of other ethical paper companies as alternatives. When it comes to printing your wedding invitations, this is an easy matter nowadays with so many computer programs and software available to produce professional looking designs. If you are computer savvy you can always put together a website so that guests can RSVP you directly to your website, from where they can also find directions to your wedding venue and reception as well as information about local public transport.
Wedding Attire

One of the best places I know, to find wedding attire and maintain your ethical stance, is Oxfam Bridal Stores. If

The Wedding Garden Company

you go onto their website you can easily find the location of these particular stores and, if there is not one in your area it is well worth you taking the train to the one nearest to you. If you are lucky, and their stock is quite extensive, you may be able to find the dress of your dreams: a wedding gown that original cost more than £1,000 being sold at Oxfam Bridal for just £250. Another supplier of the eco-chic wedding gown is Organic Weddings; another is a website called Ethical Weddings. They are both worth visiting.

The Rings

The subject of ethical rings could fill a book all by itself. The most sustainable option would be to choose antique rings or rings that are second hand. There does seem to be a lot of superstition surrounding the wearing of wedding rings that belonged to somebody else. Again, however, the subject is so convoluted it could easily fill a book. As such, I am just not going to go there. However, you could take a look at John Clive Jewellers online to find a selection of second hand wedding rings. Another site to look at is Todd Reed on alteredspacegallery dot com: this store stocks conflict-free raw diamonds as well as recycled gold and recycled diamonds, amongst other jewellery items. Another two places to take a look at would be nodirtygold.org and appollodiamond.com.

Summary
I hope this has whet your appetite for planning a sustainable eco wedding. Although there is a lot more information that could be included, a lot has had to be left out due to constraints of space. However, further articles will deal with more on this subject – from flowers and food which are each a subject by themselves to how to plan the best eco-friendly wedding reception.

Also check out Wedding Gilts from:

The Wedding Garden Company

Wedding Tree Favours

One of Britain’s oldest Oaks known as the Great Oak and growing near Wrexham may be nearing its end. This winter’s extreme weather conditions has allowed ice to enter the tree and caused this ancient tree to split in two. This tree which has a circumference of 34 ft, started life back in Saxon times during the reign of King Egbert around the year 800.

When it was about 360 years old, which is quite a good age it nearly met its end as King Henry 11 cut down most of the trees in this area. ( Probably Henry did not actually wield the axe himself, it was probably his men under his direction) The region was the site of the Ceiriog Woods and the clearance was in preparation for the battle of Crogen in which the local Welsh led by Owain Gwynedd defeated Henry.

Still at least Henry had a regard for a good tree. This was in 1165. At some time later the tree was probably struck by lightning as it has or had rather a forked appearance. This winter ice has formed in the centre of the tree and its expansion has pushed the tree apart causing it to split and fall into two sections. A firm of specialist arboriculturalists are to carry out an assessment on the possibilities of saving the tree.

It may be that it can be pulled back together and strengthening material added to help support it. Lets hope it can be saved, trees like this are just as much part of our heritage as ancient monuments, buildings and museum pieces. In addition trees provide a habitat for a vast array of other species, probably this Oak is providing a home for a variety of fungi which are causing the centre of the tree to slowly rot away.

 This is natural and the rot will provide nooks and crannies for birds to nest in and butterflies to hibernate in and the half rotten wood will provide food for wood lice and millipedes and so it goes on. Planting trees is a good way to help our environment, not all trees that are planted now are going on to live for 1000 years, if they reach 350 years they will have done well.

However even a 50 year old Oak will provide a microhabitat for a significant number of species. Recently the giving of tree seedlings as wedding favours has become quite popular. This is partly because of the environmental aspect. It is also partly because many of us seek immortality and the thought that a tree planted as a result of your wedding could still be around in the year 3010 is fairly mind blowing. Also little trees set out on the reception tables look really attractive and considerably enhance their appearance.

So if you are interested take a look at http://www.wedding-tree-favours.com/

Italian Wedding Favors/favors
We got the word ‘confetti’ from the tradition of giving the Italian wedding favors to guests, symbolizing the bitter-sweet union of marriage. Italy is synonymous with romance, with famous literary lovers such as Romeo and Juliet heralding from the Italian city of Verona and Casanova’s reputation as a charmer of women. Sultry, suave and flirtatious are phrases that come to women’s minds when they think of Italian men – in the nicest possible sense, of course. In fact, there was a magazine survey carried out that was completed by 1,000 Italian men.
The results were reported on a mainstream Italian website: it appears that Italian men considered it to be good practice to take a book to the beach with them as a means of encouraging women to strike up a conversation with them. That wasn’t just one or two of them, but 68% of those Italian men who completed the survey! Furthermore, of that 68%, as many as 80% of them considered that only two titles would do: The Bible and Divine Comedy written by Dante. As if that wasn’t enough to convince you of Italy’s place in the world of love, the Italian language itself is known as one of the ‘Romance’ languages of Europe, along with French, Spanish and Portuguese.

History of the Bomboniere

The ‘bomboniere’ is the original name by which wedding favors were known, a term still commonly used and directly interchangeable with ‘Italian wedding favors’. Many countries around the world have specific wedding customs associated with them and giving the traditional Italian wedding favors to guests at a wedding is a custom that has been practiced in many European countries, such as Italy and Greece, for many hundreds of years. It wasn’t always the general populace who offered Italian wedding favors to their guests, however. Originally it was a fashion limited to the aristocracy and the wealthy: families such as the Borgia family or that of the aristocratic Medici family from Florence whose lavish offerings were intended to display the wealth and power of this family.

Confetti

From these beginnings, when precious jewels were given, as well as gifts consisting of crystal, porcelain, silver and gold, the widespread tradition of this custom spread. Along with giving such rich offerings to guests at the wedding, the original bombonieres, or Italian wedding favors, always included 5 almonds, symbolic of luck, in terms of health, wealth, happiness, fertility, and longevity. At this particular time sugar was an extremely expensive commodity which was also widely believed to contain medicinal properties. These five almonds were offered to guests in little boxes, often along with other sweets of the time. The five almonds contained in the traditional Italian wedding favors came to symbolize the bitter-sweet union of marriage, and came to be known as confetti.

Chocolate and Candy

Nowadays Italian wedding favors have evolved to include many little gifts offered as keepsakes to guests who attend the wedding of a happy couple, perhaps something as simple as a book of matches printed with the name and date of the wedding. Confectioners’ perfected the skill of dipping the best Jordan almonds into candied coatings which eventually developed into the brightly colored sugared almonds we know of today as an integral part of Italian wedding favors. In Italy nowadays, guests are likely to leave a wedding after being presented with one of these bonbonnieres, more often than not consisting of candied sugar almonds or almonds covered in chocolate as an acceptable variation on this charming theme.

Copyright: 5 Star Wedding Directory.com

MyFavouriteSocks.com offers quality personalised socks and other embroidery services. The socks, which are top quality with any picture or writing on, are ideal as wedding gifts or favours.

For example several have been made with a bride and groom portrait.

Other works such as embroidered napkins, handkerchiefs or other textiles can be made rapidly and with no minimum orders. Socks start from £9 a pair.

Wedding favours have been a traditional component of wedding celebrations in many countries for many centuries, usually in the form of five sugared almonds in a decorative bag.  Here is a great idea to add that special touch to your wedding favours that is very unique.

Combine your place setting with your wedding favour and at the same time enhance your table decoration. Wedding tree favours are not only eco friendly but they look really cool on the table. You can have your own personalised message on each one which can include the guest name so they double up as the place setting. Then at the end of the reception the guests take them home and they are a favour that will last a life time, or longer.

If you want to see some more Eco Friendly Wedding Favours click here

Scatola Pois Rosa ~ Pink & White Polka Dot Box By The Favour Gallery

Wedding Favours Ideas: The moment you decide on your wedding day colour theme, you will discover how much easier it is to start organising your wedding favours.  The hottest shade for wedding receptions right now are all types or pinks and purples, which not only looks fresh and modern and divine with white or silver, but also they are such  elegant colours that will not date.

To make sure you have an elegant table, here are some great ideas for you when it comes to wedding favours.  Tiny boxes filled with sugared almonds and tied with a ribbon are a traditional wedding favour for guests.  You can give your wedding guests, wedding favours with a modern twist by filling them with smarties or love hearts.

The Favour Gallery have beautiful designs to select from click here