Fun with Fruit

And yes, I checked. Botanically speaking, Pumpkin is a fruit, because it's got seeds in.

Because we are having an Autumn wedding, I was really quite taken with the idea of using a mixture of autumnal foliage and pumpkins to decorate the reception. Not because I want a Halloween-y wedding, as one florist seemed to think, going on to suggest that she had jack-o-lantern and spider-shaped table confetti that might look nice (maybe, but not what I was after); rather, I like pumpkins, they make me smile, and they're also I think a nice, classy little nod to Jon's half-Canadian background.

Pinterest, that most dangerous of websites, provided ample examples of nifty pumpkin-decorations, thusly:

(if anyone can provide sources for these, that would be great - I've tried searching but the pinterest links lead to seemingly unrelated pages, and image searching it only brings up... more pinterest pages)

But not only was I enlightened to the idea of stuffing flowers in these seasonal gourds, but to the full range of decorative carving which could be done! Martha Stewart offered these twinkly, and exciting examples:

Although she wanted to cheat and stick fairy lights inside rather than a candle. Whut, Martha?

There were some beautiful decorative carvings as well, which were very elegant!

 

Now, in the UK, Pumpkin isn't really a big thing. It's literally only available for the two weeks before Halloween, and most people wouldn't even consider doing anything but carving it, so trying to find pumpkins that would be suitable for pumpkin pie this year was a bit of a trial. This meant that we had a two-week window to get hold of some pumpkins to have a go at this carving malarkey and see if we were capable of doing anything more than leering faces. HOWEVER, Jon accused me of attempting to ruin Halloween if I didn't do some that were at least marginally spooky, so instead it became more of a practice at using stencils.

Tadaaaa! Here they are, in all their mismatched glory. I'll let you guess which ones were by Jon, and which ones were by me, the 'Halloween Grinch'.

I got very excited about the prospect of projecting an image onto the wall behind the lanterns, and experimented with this to a greater or lesser effect (with mixed success).

Whilst Jon challenged himself to a more complex spin on the traditional theme.

However, Jon also told me, whilst we were beavering away with our carving, that he didn't want carved pumpkins around the place because they'd look rubbish in the day time. 

It's like he hasn't listened to anything I've been talking about for the past year, honestly. Back to the drawing board we go! Let's hope we're on the same page this time, and that he's paying attention.