Celebrate on Apple Day

What a brilliant idea for a wedding theme!

Throughout October, wherever apples are grown and loved round the world, communities celebrate their own apple day. In England its 21st October, and throwing a green wedding on, or around Apple Day will go a long way to demonstrating to your guests and the world that you are in tune with the countryside and the seasons.

Celebrate the wonderful variety of our apples which vary from region to region, even village to village in some cases. Have your wedding feast in the midst of an orchard, use apples in your floral decorations, drink apple juice, cider, cider brandy or have a warm apple punch to welcome your guests to the reception.

Apples have fantastic names like Peasgood's Nonsuch, Devonshire Quarrendon, Crawley Beauty, Cornish Honeypin and Scarlet John Standish to name but a few of the 2000+ varieties grown. Use them to name your tables and then use real apples as place names - tie a name tag to each apple stem or write the names of your guests onto the apples with a gold tipped pen, place the apple on a simple white plate at each place setting - it will look like a special jewel and double up as a favour.

Apples are a great ingredient in the wedding feast which could consist of a starter of young and spicy autumn salad leaves with apples, honey and walnuts, a hearty main course of pork with apples and a delicious dessert of baked apples with brown sugar and cinnamon. All would go down a treat.

Find out more about apple day in your region on Common Ground's website.

Here's a delicious baked apple recipe to try - what could be easier...

Take one juicy, rosy apple for each guest, remove the core and then score a line with a sharp knife right round its waist. Place all your apples in a baking dish and fill the empty middles, where the cores used to be, with raisins, nuts, a pinch of cinnamon and brown sugar, then top it all off with a knob of butter. Pour a little water into the bottom of the dish and place in a hot (200C) oven for about 20 to 30 minutes.

When the apples are bursting and their waists have split apart your apples are ready. Remove from the oven and serve with lashings of double cream, ice cream or clotted cream if you're in Devon. Mmmmmmmmmm!