Crazy & Co.

Catering, Event Planning, General, Photo Booths

Tips For Planning A Wedding

11 February 2023

Planning a wedding is one of the hardest tasks you’ll undertake. With so much to think about such as the venue, budget, food, the guest list. How to make it special, flowers, color schemes, bridesmaid’s? This can seem an impossible task however I hope these 10 tips for planning a wedding will help all the brides to be.

Start Planning Early

If you have set the day of the wedding and saved your date it is then time to begin planning. Even if your wedding is three years away in 2022 it is never too early to get on top of the planning and contact suppliers for what you want. Starting early can insure that you get everything you want and remain relatively stress free. The sooner the better. We have brides and grooms contacting us and placing bookings for one of our services such as the catering or the photography years in advance to ensure that were not already booked out that day. Our candyfloss and ice cream carts are always a lovely addition to a summer wedding. Something unique for the guests to make your wedding more memorable. Or maybe some mulled wine or luxury hot chocolate for a winter wedding? Book soon to avoid disappointment.

Setting A Budget.

Budgets are very important for weddings especially with hidden costs that can just creep upon you. You and your partner need to sit down and crunch some numbers to get a set budget that you can set aside for your wedding. Don’t forget hidden expenses such as dress alterations, beauty expenses and gifts for bridesmaids, flowers, the venue, music, invites and all the other costly things for a wedding.

Book The Best Photographer You Can

Your wedding album and other photos will be the main way that you will remember your big day for the rest of your life, so you’ll want to make sure that you find the best one in the industry. Make sure to see some of their previous work to see if it fits the standard and style that you dreamed of for your future wedding album, you could also ask friends and family who they may have used so you can get real reviews from people or ask the venue who they may work with to find a good deal.

There are many ways in the wedding to capture the special moments. Your photographer and videographer will capture the main bulk and every second of the day. As it is now the 21^st century and guests will have mobile phones these will also capture the day I’m sure they’ll be many snaps and Instagram posts of your guests enjoying themselves and of course the bride and groom. Many weddings also enjoy a photo booth. We provide a number of different photo booths for weddings, from your standard photo booth in a box to the more unique ones like a taxi cab photo booth or an only fools and horses three wheel van.

Select A Theme

The theme doesn’t have to be an actual theme it could just be a colour scheme, but once decided on it will be easier to design your wedding around this for example table decorations and flowers you can match up with the colour scheme. Alternatively themes you could use for your wedding is chic, boho, festivals, vintage, wild west themed, whimsical, southern inspired, modern or traditional.

Create The Guest List

This is usually a very stressful task so maybe better to get it over and done with quickly. You will need to sit with your partner and family to create the list of who you would like to be at your special day. This will need to referenced with how many people your venue can hold. Some people start with the guest list first and then try to find a venue that will hold the same as the number of guests they have planned to invite. The list may also need to cut down, decide who can have plus ones or if you’re going to invite kids to your wedding.

Give Your Groom Some Responsibility

Your hubby to be may not have been planning this day since he could walk and talk buuuut he will definitely have opinions and preferences and some of his own ideas. Remember its not just your day and that its also about him too so let him have some say maybe he wants to choose what’s on the menu or helping to organise the budgets or even the music and venue. We have had weddings where the bride has secretly booked the Only Fools and Horses photo booth for their Del boy fanatic husbands.

Accept You Can’t Please Everyone

This is yours and your partners wedding, no matter what you do make sure that you and your husband to be are happy with the arrangements. Sometimes other members of the family get involved and sometimes it can lead to disputes trying to please everyone. This is your time to be selfish. Make sure that the plans are your own and what you and your husband to be are happy with.

Be Prepared

In the famous words of the girl scout motto be prepared! Write down a list of things that could possibly go wrong at the wedding. Make a plan to get round this. This way if anything was to happen you’d be prepared to handle this like a boss. It wouldn’t ruin your day or stress you out. For example make a box of necessities such as a needle and thread of every colour available for any misshaps with dresses or suits, bobby pins, deodorant, pens, flip flops, plasters, extra cash, pens and paper and safety pins.

Food Food Food

Choose the menu when planning a wedding that both you and your groom will enjoy, don’t worry too much about everyone else’s opinions and dietary requirements because trying to please everyone will be too hard. Make sure there is food at all times of the day for example the wait from the church to going into the meal can be a long time without food, or after the meal when the party starts it can be a hungry time later in the night maybe have snacks or a late night barbecue on offer for them. We offer a number off different fun finger foods to keep hunger at bay such as crepes, hire hot dog carts, popcorn, donuts and ice cream.

Finally Remind Yourself What’s Truly Important

Try not to do anything wedding related two weeks prior to the wedding. This will help you to clear your mind and make sure that you can enjoy every part of the big day that you have planned. When the planning is getting on top of you do one thing at a time, maybe create a checklist and try and check one thing of each week or month to make planning easier. Make sure you keep the big picture in mind, their will undoubtedly be argument’s, stressful times and difficult times throughout the whole planning of the wedding but remember that at the end of it you will be married and be spouses and live happily ever after…

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Catering, Equipment, Event Planning, Fun Story

Amazon Peak

28 December 2022

December is usually our busiest month, by quite a margin. This year it got even bigger. We picked up a contract with Amazon to provide their Peak Treats service.

Basically it consisted of visiting 70 Amazon’s in 4 countries over 6 weeks, dispensing over 66000 Salted Pretzels and 15,000 litres of mulled wine (Non alcoholic sadly)

So how did it go. On the surface all serene and everyone happy.

Underneath, our usual paddling madly like ducks to make it look all serene.

Last Minute As Usual

We were notified that we had won the tender for the event. However we had to provide a sample of the food and drink for a company tasting. So obviously we didn’t want to start spending money on stock etc until after the tasting just in case it all went Pete Tong.

Happily they loved the items on the tasting and everything was finally signed off, 8 days before we were due to begin. This meant we have roughly a week to design and build 6 new mini Christmas huts for the job. To buy and take delivery of high capacity boilers and pretzel warming cabinets, new mains, obtain enough stock and and sort out freezer facilities for tens of thousands of pretzels.

Building The Stalls

Luckily the local fabricator we use was a bit quiet on the work front. So we nipped some spare steel we had up to him and talked him through fabricating the frame we needed. This took best part of a day. Fortunately the cover guy we had found was in the vicinity that afternoon so he called and measured up for the covers we needed and promised to have them ready for Sunday teatime (The job started Monday morning gulp).

A quick trip to the woodyard to have the counters made, and then the paint shop to pick up our new favourite product Raptor with which to coat the steel. Nigel promised to have all the steel work ready for mid week so things were on track. Our resident wood guy measured up for the wooden panels we needed and promised to have them by Sunday as well.

Pretzel Storage

We priced up a freezer trailer hire for the pretzels, but quickly worked out we could buy a second hand unit cheaper than hiring one, so that’s what we did. It was delivered about an hour before our first delivery of pretzels, so just in time, but hey, it was there. This proved to be a godsend. Not just for the pretzels, but a number of other jobs where we usually ended up disposing of stock, we suddenly found we had the storage capacity to keep it, so win win all around.

Stock

The pretzels came from a company we have used in the past who import them directly from Germany. The mulled wine was sourced initially from a localish company, which was handy, the problem was they only did them in bottles. So for the initial batch I ordered a thousand bottles. We went in one of our vans to collect the order. 2 pallets worth. The fork lift driver rubbed his beard, “Whats the payload of this van”.

“About a 1.2 tonne I think”, I replied.

“Ahh well 2 pallets is 1.2 tonne mate, and you too will take it a little over”

Oh FFS. “It’ll be OK, stick them in”

Only it wasn’t, once they were in the van towbar was touching the floor. Turns out that particular van was only a 1 tonne payload. We had to take one out and make another sodding trip. After that we sourced an alternative that came in 10 litre drums and was delivered direct to our yard.

Equipment

The equipment we sourced started out pretty well. And worked pretty well for about a fortnight. Then the warming cabinets started blowing the electric at random times. Turns out they have a design fault. The U shaped heating element in the bottom expands as it heats up. As it expands it rubs against the ide of the cabinet. Luckily it is insulated. Unluckily continued rubbing removes the insulation and then blows the electric. Quick work bending the ends of the element sorted that out.

Vans

I had all 3 of our vans serviced before we started thinking this would ensure everything was OK. Only true to form Murphy bit us twice.

On the very first day the van i was driving suddenly flashed up a warning that it was no longer charging the battery half way to the site at Rugeley. Now having owned Citroen Dispatches for a number of years I know that a failed alternator or snapped fan belt doesn’t damage the engine. I also knew from past experience that as the battery voltage dropped the van computer would start to shut systems down.

Sure enough ten mile from the destination, just as I hit twisty windy country roads, the electrically assisted power steering shut down. Followed by brake assistance, lights, indicators etc.

I actually got to the venue, pulled into the usual parking bay and applied the handbrake just as the engine shut down, phew.

Now the important thing was we had got there. Getting home should have been a problem, but one of our staff, Fred, had been late getting to work. So in temper he was told he was going to have to drive his own van and meet me at the job. So we had a spare van to tow me back.

The same sodding thing happened a week later with a totally different van. Only this time it was at Dunfermline in Scotland. This resulted in us having to call at Halfords and buy 2 new batteries so that we could keep changing them on the way home to keep the engine running.

FRED

Mentioning Fred, one of our regular staff members, we have officially changed his name to Frank Spencer (If you are too young to remember Frank, check him out here) . He left a trail of destruction throughout the duration of the contract. including;

Putting the plastic chocolate sauce bottles in the electric pretzel oven to warm them up. Cue an aroma of melted chocolate and plastic!

Faffing about with the gel packs in one of our ethanol gel pretzel warmers, managing to set his hand on fire, shaking it to get the burning gel off, and successfully setting fire to one of the brand new covers on our Christmas huts.

Deciding to move the fully loaded pretzel ovens on a job and forgetting to plug them back into the electric. Resulting in a panic to get everything warmed up in time of opening.

Security

The only other real hiccup we had, was the fact that we would do an afternoon shift at Amazon, then go back for the evening shift. But for some reason, the night security never seemed to have been notified that we had been booked to do the job. Cue most evening trying to convince security to actually let us on site.

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Fun Story

7 Ideas to Help Satisfy Your Sweet Tooth

21 April 2022

When you feel that urge to snack on something sweet, you know you’re in for a rough few hours. Sugar cravings can hit anytime, anywhere, and they can be intense. Instead of reaching for that bag of chips or cookies, try satisfying your sweet tooth with these helpful tips and helpful foods. Predominantly, when people say they have a sweet tooth, they mean that it is an intense and persistent craving for a sweet substance. Fortunately, you can healthily satisfy your sweet tooth, even by making small changes. Here are some helpful tips to help you do just that.

1. Eat a Piece of Chocolate

Foods are supposed to be enjoyed and part of an enjoyable meal. Chocolate is often enjoyed as a dessert and fruit or other healthy foods. If you do not enjoy sweet treats, you can always enjoy them in small amounts throughout the day rather than eating one big piece or bar of chocolate. You can also try eating dark chocolate, which contains more beneficial nutrients than milk chocolate and is known to help with weight loss and heart health. Ultra-chocolate brownies are also a healthier alternative to other sweet treats. Also, homemade brownies are a great way to satisfy your sweet tooth without the high sugar content of store-bought desserts and are often healthier.

2. Snack on Fresh Fruit

If you have a sweet tooth, you must eat a healthy diet. Your body is made up of important nutrients and minerals, but it’s also made up of sugar. Sugar is an important nutrient for your body, but too much sugar can cause many problems for the body, like weight gain and heart disease. Eating healthy foods like fruit can help satisfy your sweet tooth without causing these problems. Eating fresh fruit will provide you with some nutrients and minerals to keep yourself healthy. It would help if you tried to eat fruits at least twice a day because they are so good for your body and delicious.

3. Drink Water

All kinds of things can cause your sweet tooth to go away, but nothing works better when it comes to water. The first step is to get yourself a water bottle and drink it all day long. Drinking water will help you feel full, so you won’t feel that intense urge to eat sweets. In addition, it will keep your body hydrated, which is important if you’re trying to lose weight.

4. Freeze Your Grapes

If you have a sweet tooth and try to appease it, the best thing you can do is freeze some grapes. If you don’t like the taste of frozen grapes, try eating them after they’ve thawed or try them with a little bit of sugar. You can also try freezing strawberries and eat them as ice cream or add them to your smoothies. Also, if you have a sweet tooth, try eating some fresh fruit instead of sugary treats.

5. Brush Your Teeth

Brushing your teeth regularly is a great way to help keep your mouth healthy and clean. It also helps to remove plaque, a sticky substance that can cause dental problems. It is also a good idea to floss daily to prevent gum disease. In addition, flossing helps to remove the debris that can build up around your teeth, and it will help you keep them clean and healthy.

6. Sample Some Ice Cream

If you want to satisfy your sweet tooth, try some ice cream. You can choose from various flavours and types of ice cream, so there is bound to be something that will suit your tastes. When you sample some ice cream, you will notice how good it is. You will also get to try some new flavors that you may not have tried before. If you want to satisfy your sweet tooth healthily, try sampling some ice cream.

7. Eat a Dried Date

Dried dates are an excellent choice for people with a sweet tooth because of their high fiber content. Eating dried dates will keep your blood sugar levels steady, which will prevent you from having cravings for sweets. Dried dates are a great choice if you like to snack on nuts since they have the same crunchy texture as nuts. These tiny fruits are packed with nutrients and contain a healthy amount of fiber, so many people choose them to satisfy their sweet tooth.

Conclusion

The above tips are great ways to satisfy your sweet tooth healthily. Although you may feel tempted to eat sweets, you can always choose to satisfy your sweet tooth healthily. It is good to know that you can make healthy choices for your sweet tooth and have some fun. Hopefully, the above tips will help you have a happy and healthy sweet tooth.

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Catering, Fun Story, General, Uncategorised

Charlie and the chocolate factory comes to life

9 June 2019

Everyone’s seen Willy Wonkas inventions haven’t they… the Everlasting Gob stoppers that taste like a Sunday roast, the Wonka Chocolate Bars well willy wonka has now hit California in the role of Plant Breeders and Charlie and the chocolate factory comes to life

Plant Breeders in California have created a natural grape that tastes like everyone’s favorite fairground treat CandyFloss This natural grape has not been cloned or genetically engineered with artificial flavors. There has been two combined grape species that has been grown and ripened together that now tastes like the pink fluffy cotton candy treat.

Where to buy some

When you first chew the grape and it pops open in your mouth with juice squirting out it gives you a rush taste of the much loved treat at the fair, cotton candy. The grapes are available in the UK in Asda, Sainsbury’s and M&S.

A horticulturalist Mr D. Cain wants to bring back the true natural flavour of grapes, he feels that over the time and the growing and shipping process they have begun to lose their taste, however with new innovative grapes could people begin to prefer flavoured grapes to natural ones??

There is an array of different fruits available in store especially when it comes to apples with over 10 different types offered to consumer’s including pink lady, braeburn and fuji apples. The farms that grow grapes now want to offer people a higher selection of grapes in a hope that more people start to buy and eat them as part of a healthier diet. Most people complain that healthy food doesn’t taste as good as the sugary food even though it’s good for you whereas these grapes are full of the goodness and the flavour that everyone likes. The grapes do have around 10% more sugar than regular grapes but still a lot less than other fruit such ass raisins.

Where Charlie and the chocolate factory comes to life

The candyfloss flavoured grape farm in the US has increased from 2 acres to 100 acres with plans to increase to 200 acres in the next year this is due to the popularity and high demand.

The creator of the candyfloss flavoured grape said that it took him hundreds of tests and attempt’s before he finally found that flavour. Mr Cain said that the whole process takes anything from 6 to 15 years to create and find. He has no intention at stopping at this flavour and wants to create a number of different flavours of grapes in the future.

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Catering, Fun Story, General

Golden Doughnut

6 April 2019

700 whole British pounds is a fair bit of money, I mean into perspective if you was to donate £700 to Unicef it would pay for 12 health workers that would be able to provide life-saving care for children. £700 could be a month’s rent, could be the down payment on a holiday or just help to cover them pesky bills that return to your doorstep every month!

Or alternatively you could spend your £700 on a dozen golden doughnuts. That works out at like £58.33 per doughnut. Now for your overly priced doughnut you don’t just get a krispy Kreme standard delight oh no you get a doughnut made with Cristal Champagne, with 24-carat gold leaf decoration and gold dust.

The Golden Doughnut

The doughnut sparkles and glimmers in the glass cabinet just beckoning you to part with your hard earned cash. The designer of this very exclusive and just a tad overpriced doughnut is Björn Delacruz a chef at the Manila Social Club restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The creator explained that his doughnut is more than an ‘extravagance’ it is the “ultimate celebration of love for generous people with expensive taste, and that it’s usually the case that the people purchasing these doughnuts is for a special somebody”

The golden flake doughnut made headlines when it was featured in the magazine First We Feast with comments about the contrast between the expensive donuts being on sale in a city with thousands of hungry people. Delacruz felt attacked at negatives comments about his doughnuts and said that the gold flakes is a gimmick that projects something special and allows people to treat the special people in their lives to something nice.

Personally if I had a spare £700 laying around I’d spend it on a dozen of these little gold beauty’s purely to show off to my friends. I’d probably save a couple in air tight containers and display them around my home because for £700 I’d want something to show for it!!!

Read The Story Of The Golden Doughnut Here.

Our Company

We may not offer the all time exclusive Golden dust doughnuts but we do offer the tasty golden dinky donuts that’s perfect to serve at your event. With a number of different toppings such as syrup, sugar, chocolate sauce and strawberry sauce you can decorate your golden doughnuts any way you like.

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Catering, General

New Dutch Line To Our Catering

19 March 2019

We have just launched a new Dutch line to our catering carts. Poffertjes or baby pancakes. Poffertjes are a traditional Dutch batter treat, probably one of the most unique Dutch Sweet treat, they are small in size and we cook them on a special machine griddle that keeps them golden and fluffy.

Poffertjes Griddle — Poffertjes griddle or also known as a Poffertjes Plaat

They are made with yeast and buckwheat flour batter and have a light, spongy texture of batter resemble baby pancakes, as a sweet treat they are typically served with powdered sugar, melted butter, and eaten with a toothpick that has a Dutch flag on. We carry on the tradition and cook them on traditional poffertjes plaats then serve them in the traditional manner. Coated in butter with a selection of sauces and toppings. Or for a luxury treat you can even have them with strawberries and cream

Although Poffertjes are traditionally seen as a festive treat in the Netherlands and found at the Christmas markets or winter festivals we offer this service all year round! They’re perfect if you want novel delicious treat for your guests or customers. Our machines cook numerous poffertjes at the same time, and we serve 5 or 6 on a tray, which means we can deal with large queues.

Potential New Dutch Line

Due to the popularity of this new Dutch line to our catering carts we are now looking into other possibilities to serve at events.

Pepernoten

These are small gingerbread style cookies, and traditionally are only available around autumn time in the lead up to the traditional Sinterklaas celebrations at the beginning of December. Pepernoten’s are roughly the size of a bottle cap and they come in several different flavors, the most popular being the Kruidnoot which comes served with dark or white chocolate.

Stoofperen

Stoofperen’s are pears soaked in a mix of red wine, sugars and spices. They can be served either cold or warm with a scoop of ice cream. They can traditionally be served as a side dish accompanying meat or as a desert.

Pannenkoeken

These are very popular in other countries across the globe rather than just remotely enjoyed in the Netherlands. They are thinner than the American style pancakes, but thicker than a crepe. The Dutch like to eat these throughout the day rather than traditionally for breakfast

Pannenkoek’s have a concept of pizza served with toppings such as slices of bacon, cheese and apples or raisins. They also traditionally have sugar syrup or powdered sugar on top.

Hire Dutch Poffertjes For Your Events

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Catering, Fun Story

Willy Wonka Style Desert

27 February 2019

Willy Wonka is every child’s idol, his ability to make the most magical flavoured sweets, the bright colours, the fun factory, the shapes and textures and when he opened his factory to the six children as an eager child when you watched the film you could almost taste the sweets as you followed the story round the jaw dropping factory.

The edible garden, the everlasting gobstopper, the fizzy lifting drink, the willy wonka chocolate bar, the lickable wallpaper, and the one that caught everyone’s attention the Three course meal gum. Imagine how amazing the experience would be to have a starter, main and desert all in one piece of chewing gum, a meal on the go would be so convenient. Such a good idea yet more than 40 years on and were all still waiting to be able to go into the local Asda or Morrison’s and purchase some of this gum!

Willy Wonka Style Dessert Created In Scotland

It seems that Scotland may be one step closer to this than the rest of the united kingdom after a Gelateria in Inverness created the ‘world’s first burns supper ice cream’ although this may not be the chewing gum that we all wanted it is a step in the right direction and has become a viral sensation. Scotland have officially created the first Willy Wonka style desert.

The Gelateria are claiming that this is the first time Haggis, Neeps and Tatties have been made into an ice cream which they then top this off with a whisky cream sauce. Both the boss and employees from the venue promise that this main/desert tastes amazing in their social media post entitled ‘Who wants to try the world’s first full burns supper gelato?’ proved very popular racking up hundreds of likes and more than 8,000 viewers.

Rabbie Burns Day

Tatti, neeps and haggis — Tatty, Neeps and Haggis Dessert

The willy wonka style desert ice cream was created to help celebrate Rabbie Burns Day and his 260^th Birthday. Available for a limited time only they received a number of positive comments.

Personally I don’t think I’d be joining in trying this special desert as something about cold haggis is very off putting however I do feel that Willy Wonka would be proud of this creation and I do hope this is a start to some unique and special deserts being created. I don’t know about you but I would be partial to try a spaghetti bolognaise ice cream or maybe sausage egg and beans ice cream! It definitely vary’s from the original boring flavours such as the vanilla, strawberry and mint choc chip.

Burns Night Article

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