#>1.

The potential of a career in the 40 billion dollar wedding industry is incredibly promising. And when dedication and enthusiasm ride on sound knowledge, success and fulfilment are very much par for the course.

“We’re quite a ‘typical’ school. We expect our students to report before time, nobody is given the option of missing lectures, they have to take notes, whilst in class, they are not allowed to access their phones, they have to be attentive – everything that one would find in an old-fashioned school. We also give them assignments on the basis of which their performance is evaluated. This eventually enables them to get placed in organisations that are best suited for them.

My mother, Dr Usha Parikh has an academic background and we together have personally designed the curriculum. She has been part of the wedding management firm for nearly a decade and along with her experience her academic process ensures the programs are very thorough. Classes are either given by me or industry experts and we conclude with a Q&A round where students are allowed to clarify doubts and discuss queries.”

Little by little, with each passing day it is becoming easier to live a socially conscious life and when it comes to your big day, it can serve as a way of sharing your joy with a lot more people than you think! A wedding comes with many moving parts and several aspects bring along the opportunity to make a choice that will benefit others thus making your festivities more philanthropic. Right from donating to charities to volunteering yourself, there are many options that one can explore.

Here are seven ways in which you can let the ‘D’ in you D-Day stand for the difference you make by allowing your wedding to be a charitable one.

The new generation of brides and grooms are not satisfied with the regular food buffets for their wedding functions. They want to do something different that will be memorable for their guests. These couples are interested in showcasing unique and offbeat gastronomy such as DIY food stalls, vegan and healthy dishes or cuisine cooked with local ingredients and techniques. The Taj is committed to providing exemplary service and is well equipped to cater to all special requests, to help make your wedding timeless. Here, we interviewed Shyam Longani, Executive Chef, Taj Exotica Resort and Spa, Goa, Amit Chowdhury, Executive Chef, The Taj Mahal Palace, Mumbai, and Elangovan Shanmugam, Chef at Umaid Bhavan Palace, Jodhpur, and asked them about current food trends in the wedding industry.

Amit: “We have a lot of guests that ask about where the ingredients have been sourced from, and request for local ingredients. In order to cater to their requests, we source a majority of our ingredients locally. Also, we try and incorporate innovative, local ingredients that are sourced from smaller producers rather than major brand names.”

Amit: “Some additional unique food-related ideas include having personalized gifts such as goodie bags with customized desserts, the use of rustic props and sculptures to enhance the food menu theme and informative displays with calorie count and sugar content for the health-conscious.”

Shyam: “Spend time with your chefs and discuss the food menu at length. Get suggestions from your chefs, entrust them and have faith in them. Do trials and tastings. Share your feelings and thoughts with your chefs, so that they are able to transform your ideas into sensational dishes and do justice to your event. Last but not least, be practical and choose quality over huge spreads.”

Want to look like a camp oven cooking expert in front of your friends on your next camping trip? Master the art of camp oven cooking and you’ll certainly be invited back next time. The beautiful flavours and textures you get from cooking with a cast iron camp oven are like no other, and even the simplest meals come alive after the camp oven treatment.

Don’t expect to master it on your first go though. Gauging the temperature required in relation to a number of coals can be tricky at first. But follow these basic tips and you’re halfway there.

Snowys stocks a huge range of camp ovens and

Preheat the camp oven on or in the main fire prior to cooking, because if you place a cold camp oven on your cooking coals you’ll lose half your heat by heating up the camp oven. A tripod is ideal for this task, or sit the oven on top of a barbie plate in the flames if possible. Don’t forget to heat the lid too!

When you’re ready to cook, you need to prepare a bed of coals away from the main fire to place the camp oven on.

If possible, scrape or dig out a small hole the size of your oven to line with hot coals. This is not essential but can be handy especially if it’s windy.

Of course, by all means, leave the camp oven on your tripod above the flames, but cooking on coals is recommended for baking and roasting.

Bear in mind that different types of wood will burn hotter than others, so even though you should try to minimise the number of times you remove the lid (as you will lose heat each time), it is important to check every now and then to make sure it’s not burning.

As a general guide, check on dampers after 20 minutes and roasts after 30 minutes.

Roasting

Place a well-oiled preheated oven on hot coals and add the meat. Cook the meat for 1.5-2.5 hours depending on the size of the meat. Vegetables like potatoes, onions, pumpkin should be added to the oven for the final 45 minutes of cooking. Throughout the cooking process, check the temperature of the oven every 30 minutes or so. Add more hot coals if required.

Stewing

The longer the cooking time for stews the more tender the meat will become. Cook over a slow to moderate oven for 1-3 hours or longer as required.

Baking

When cooking cakes and slices in trays and cake tins, it is best to put a trivet in the bottom of the camp oven. This allows air to flow around inside the camp oven and provide even cooking.

Cooking time: 30-40 mins

Ingredients: 3 cups self-raising flour, 1 cup of milk or water, pinch of salt

Variations: For a savoury damper add onion, bacon and grated cheese. For a sweet treat add honey, jam, or chocolate chips.

Method: Mix ingredients together until a dough is formed. Shape dough and dust lightly with flour. Place dough into a greased camp oven and cover. Cook in a medium temperature camp oven until golden brown. Damper is cooked when a skewer comes out clean.

Or check out this basic damper recipe.

What’s your favourite camp oven recipe? Share in the comments below.

Our series ‘Young and Inspiring’ showcases fresh, exciting new talent powerhouses from the design, fashion and event domains who specialize in creating dream weddings for couples.

Just a few years after its inception, Devika Sakhuja Designs has earned itself a reputation for its unparalleled, creative concepts and top-notch services. The brainchild of

“When I was getting married, we looked for and researched a lot of designers and planners to help us with the entire wedding process. That is when I identified that there was a gap in the kind of quality that couples wanted and what was being offered. I realized that there were only a few people who could actually execute weddings professionally and fulfill the client’s dream of a perfect wedding, despite there being a high demand for them. That is when I decided to form this company and bring to life couples’ visions of their dream weddings. The idea was to translate their dreams into reality and I went about doing so in a very structured and professional manner. It was clear to me that organization and efficiency were the keys to setting a sound foundation in this field. Embracing this approach in our operations helped us immensely in establishing this company.”

During our trip to Berlin with Scoot, we took a day trip to Potsdam which is located just a short 30-minute S-Bahn train ride away from Berlin.What I like about travelling to Berlin is that you don’t have to spend a lot of time travelling around e.g. after arriving at Berlin Tegel airport from Singapore with Scoot, you can reach the Berlin city centre within 20 minutes and most of the sights in Berlin are accessible by U-Bahn or S-Bahn or buses within 10 to 15 minutes!

There are lots of historical sights in Potsdam and I have put together a list of 4 instagrammable sights that you should not miss when you are in Potsdam

A post shared by Zhiqiang and Tingyi (@passportchop) on Jun 22, 2018 at 7:41am PDT

Hop On Hop Off bus tour which brings you to several of the sights that I will be referring to in this post.

A post shared by Zhiqiang and Tingyi (@passportchop) on Jun 22, 2018 at 7:50am PDT

A post shared by Zhiqiang and Tingyi (@passportchop) on Jun 22, 2018 at 11:10am PDT

A post shared by Zhiqiang and Tingyi (@passportchop) on Jun 24, 2018 at 11:49am PDT

Other sights that you should not miss in Potsdam include the Filmpark Babelsberg which is one of the oldest and largest film studios in the world and is responsible for some of the blockbuster movies e.g.  Valkyrie, V for Vendetta, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Inglourious Basterds. The Filmpark is located outside of Potsdam city centre and you can access the Filmpark via the hop on hop off bus Hop off at Bus Stop 3 to learn all about the history and culture of the Germany cinema.

August-Bebel-Str. 26-53, Besuchereingang: Großbeerenstr. 200, Potsdam, Germany, +49 0331 7212750

Potsdam also had a small Russian colony dating back to the 1820s – the Alexandrowka comprises a dozen quaint buildings; these buildings will provide you with a glimpse of Russian culture and architectural style back in those days.