vegan columbus: vegan living in central ohio

I'm a little late to the game with this, but maybe someone will still find it useful. If you're planning a veg*an wedding, you might want to pick up June's issue of VegNews. It's got a 10-page feature on various couples' vegan weddings, including details of their reception menus, photos, and relevant highlights of their wedding experiences. These menus sound amazing, and there's tons of variety. (They do this feature every year, so you might also check out their back issues.)

(Also I personally was happy to read them because for some reason I'd been feeling like I need to keep everything somehow in a theme or matching. So I was pointlessly distressed about wanting pan-Asian finger food AND brunch-type food at my late morning wedding. Reading Marisa and David's (pp. 42) Asian-Mediterranean menu liberated me from the fear of culinary eclecticism!)

The photos are cool too. Not only the photos of the food were informative and fun to look at, but also the photos of the couples themselves. For example, JC (pp. 39) appears in a sort of ornate gray East Asian jacket that is much more imaginative and beautiful than any of the traditional "groom's attire" (all 3 outfits) you'll find on the wedding website whose name shall not be mentioned here. Also, the pictures themselves provide ideas about what kind of look to go for in your posed (or not) photos. Plus it's nice to be able to look at outfits/cakes/bride's jewelry/menus/etc. without the stupid "should you serve beef or chicken?" questionss or the mocking voice in the back of your brain saying "those people aren't really even brides, and if they are they've paid $60,000 for a "super-sweet-16-all-grown-up wedding" and even if they haven't, that's what the publisher of this magazine is trying to trick you into doing".

(You do have that voice, don't you? Maybe I just need my meds adjusted.)

In the same issue there's also a page of money saving tips titled "the $999 wedding". Unfortunately, most of the advice is either common-sense ("Buy a dress that doesn't cost a fortune"), a bit spartan ("Cook all the food and also the cake yourself!"), dependent on luck ("Borrow the venue from a friend who owns a beautiful garden"), or just plain tacky ("Kindly suggest that the host pay for the chair and table rentals as their wedding gift", "The best money-saving bet is to have the photography paid for as a gift".) So about the only redeeming thing about this particular sub-unit of the wedding feature stuff, is the ads for myKarat and Arbonne, which I guess might be helpful if you need symbolic jewelry and/or expensive makeup (which you do because you're a BRIIIIIIIIDE, duh).

Oh also right after the 10-pager of weddings various and sundry, there's also a fairly well-thought and balanced article about the ethical dilemmas of whether or not to breed your own chilluns. Tangentially related, so I thought I'd mention it.