Four great cocktails to serve at your Spring wedding

A great, tasty, and often cost-saving aperitif is the trusty, age-old punch.  We’re not talking junior high dance punch, but rather artisanal and rustic drinks full of flavors, color, and best of all, great taste.  The following recipes are small scale, but simply multiply each ingredient by the number of guests and you’ve got yourself a great spring time party drink.  Accent with a chilled glass and fresh ingredients - leave the umbrella straws at home.  

Brazilian Sangria
Clark Clark, bar chef at Barmarché (via GQ)

1 lime, diced
2–3 spoonfuls of sugar
3/4 ounce Água Luca cachaça
1 ounce red wine
3/4 ounce passion fruit puree
Sugarcane stick

In a rocks glass, muddle the lime and sugar together. Add remaining ingredients and ice, and cap the glass with a cocktail shaker. Shake vigorously and serve in the same glass you muddled everything in. Garnish with lime and sugarcane stick.

Hudson Lemonade 
the Sky Terrace bar at the Hudson Hotel, New York City

3 lemon wedges
2 tablespoons white sugar
1 1/2 ounce Finlandia Lime Vodka
Fresh lime juice
Cranberry juice
Ginger ale

Muddle the lemons and sugar together in a cocktail shaker. Add a splash of lime juice and a splash of cranberry juice. Add the vodka and ice and give it a good shake. Top it off with ginger ale and serve in a rocks glass.

Black and Blue Caipiroska
Daphne’s restaurant, Barbados

3/4 ounce vodka
1/2 ounce blueberry puree
1 dash blackberry puree
1/2 fresh lime
2 teaspoons brown sugar
Crushed ice
Splash of soda

Cut the lime into quarters and slice the quarters in half so that you have smaller segments. Place the smaller segments into a rocks glass. Add the blueberry puree, blackberry puree, and brown sugar, and muddle together. After muddling, top the glass up with the crushed ice. Add the vodka and a splash of club soda. Stir enough to mix the muddled ingredients throughout.

Caipirinha
Calle Ocho, New York City (via GQ)

2 lime wedges
3/4 ounce fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons sugar
2 1⁄2 ounces cachaça

Muddle the lime, fresh lime juice, and sugar together in a cocktail shaker. Add the cachaça and shake with ice. Serve in a rocks glass and garnish with a lime wheel.

Let’s talk music

We’re adding the ability to upload music to this week.  However, the ability to have seamless and continuous play as a user navigates your site is only possible if you put the entire site in an iframe.  This is problematic because then the URL will not change as you visit different sections of the site (you can see how this works on our demo page.)  We don’t want this and we don’t want to annoy users by restarting the song with each new page (that would be really bad.)  So for now, songs will only autoplay on the homepage and as we gather feedback from you guys on this one, we’ll continue working on it to make the for a better music experience.

Even if you’re not a music obsessive like we are, you undoubtedly have found yourself toiling over that truly and all-important decision:  the first dance song.  Music is something not to be overlooked as it has the ability to enhance the moment, setting a certain mood or emotional state with ease (we’ve all found ourselves teary eyed at that cheesy moment during that contrived and predictable romantic comedy largely the result of the song playing.)

Music choices can be broken into four categories or associations (please excuse any overlap) :

• Identity
• Nostalgia
• Recreating a particular moment
• Emotions

Identity

This one will probably not apply to everyone, but for those in which music is an embodiment of your personality and strongly associated with your persona, the first dance song is a great way to project a piece of you.  Injecting some personality into your wedding is always a great way to make the experience more memorable and unique.  Are you largely a product of a particular music movement?  Maybe you met each other during the peak of garage rock or indiepop or dancehall.  Perhaps you both share an affinity for Piano Man-era Billy Joel?  Don’t be afraid to try a less recognizable song.  It’s your special moment  - make it about you.

Adventureland is a great example.  While the main focus is on this budding summer romance, the great music embodies them and the culture they’re falling in love in.  And considering this was pre-Napster days, music proliferation was significantly lower, making the Lou Reed, The Cure, Big Star, and The Replacments songs that much more special.

Nostalgia

I couldn’t help but notice this while watching the Academy Awards.  That warm, comforting feeling of a simple time (a more romantic time?) where chivalrous gestures and great attire prevailed.  These are all sentiments that can be projected by picking a classic jazz, soul, or R&B song that practically floats around the room.  Try:  Billy Holiday, Etta James, Bill Withers,  Al Green, Solomon Burke, and Marvin Gaye.

Recreating a particular moment

This could refer to a multitude of things.  For our purposes, let’s call it “your” song. Every couple has one.  A song, maybe even a random one or not a great song, that is significant to them.  Maybe it was playing at the bar the first time you met or when you shared a ipod earbuds on a plane ride (I know, but it could happen.)  This is a situation where the song itself is less important, the emphasis being on its significance to you, your past, and your future.

Emotions

This one is the layup of all the scenarios.  Pick a song based solely on reenforcing a mood or emotional undertone.  Your DJ or band will surely be able to help give you some suggestions out of their stock arsenal of songs practiced and mastered exactly for these moments.  You’ll definitely see some throwback songs, but they’ll likely be more popular and lively selections.

New navigation re-ordering and re-naming

We’re excited to announce that you can now re-name and re-order your navigation!  Just go to your admin and then Edit Site and select the link - Reorder/rename navigation ” in the top right.  It’s brand new, so let us know if you run into any bugs or suggestions with this new tool.

Time for some music?

We’ve been discussing adding the ability to upload music for the past few weeks and we’re fairly divided on this one at WJojo headquarters.  If you think this a good idea, drop us a note and let us know :)

Of course, this naturally led to a discussion on music and what the perfect first dance/wedding site song should be.  I found myself in the lone camp for some Elton John.  The unanimous decision seemed to be for a classic, meaningful song (nothing too cliche) to lead off the party - Solomon Burk, Al Green, Marvin Gaye, and my personal favorite, Bill Withers.

Also, on a totally unrelated note, made this Mango Pudding recipe over the weekend from Chow.  A great compliment to any dessert table and super easy to make.

And sorry for all the should-we-do-this blog posts, we just want to make sure we deliver a great site with all the right features!

I can haz cash?

We’ve gotten a couple requests to have a more robust feature for collecting cash gifts via Paypal.  If you could please let us know if this is a feature you’d be interested in by filling out this one-question survey.  Thanks!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FTV8HKT