Month: April 2020

4 Articles

Laughing Chefs April 29, 2020

Vouchers and gift cards

When lockdown is over and done, there will be limited dates available for you to host your special celebration, have that party, give that cake, and host that event. And since we don’t know when restaurants and venues will be open again to serve in the traditional way, you will have to host at your home.

To circumvent these restrictions, we introduce: Vouchers and gift cards!

How does it work?

You buy the voucher or gift card of your choice – see below all the vouchers and gift cards that we have available. These vouchers and gift cards are only BOOKING vouchers, meaning, you are only confirming the use of our services. Once lockdown is done, we will contact you to finalise a date, and then when we have a date, you pay the final outstanding amount.

You can buy a gift card for someone else, which is especially helpful if you do not live close to family or friends. Pay the booking amount on the card, then give us the contact details of the person for whom you bought the service so that we can notify them via Whatsapp or email of the gift. Once lockdown is done, we will contact them for a date and you for final payment.

Please contact us for full menus as well as other options.

Sounds easy? We hope so!

More value, as always

We also offer more value, see the individual vouchers for extras, discounts and more

We give back

We will give 10% of every voucher sold to SA Cares, to help them support communities who are struggling during this time.

Food delivery, Pretoria East, Laughing Chefs caterers, weddings and events

Laughing Chefs April 28, 2020

Food delivery in Pretoria East

For orders, please send a Whatsapp to Esrida on 0725114946

We will send you the banking details for EFT as well as further arrangements

R50 delivery fee for Pretoria East, R20 delivery in Elarduspark

For frozen pizzas and pies:

Deliveries every Friday, order before Wednesday 12h

For home-cooked meals:

Order before Wed 12h, deliveries Fridays between 8h and 14h

Sunday lunch:

Order before Wed 12h, deliveries Sunday between 8h and 11h

Laughing Chefs Boerekos Lunch, Koestertafel meal delivery, Pretoria East — Meal deliveries, Pretoria East, home-cooked meals with a restaurant twist, Laughing Chefs caterers for weddings, events and other celebrations

Laughing Chefs Pizza Lunch, meal delivery, Pretoria East

Meal deliveries, Pretoria East, home-cooked meals with a restaurant twist, Laughing Chefs caterers for weddings, events and other celebrations

Alifeleadsimply April 17, 2020

Host a tea party – how to keep your kids busy during the lockdown

Tired of the same old’ same old’ ideas of how to keep your kids busy?

Then this one is for you – host a tea party!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Host a tea party to keep the kids busy at home during lockdown, Alifeleadsimply.com #covid #lockdown #quarantine

If you are anything like me then you have spent your fair amount of time scouring the internet in your search for activities and ideas to keep the kids occupied. Of course, you don’t want to spend every waking moment entertaining them, as is often the case, but you also do not want to just let them run free.

I have been trying to strike a balance between keeping them busy (or them keeping me busy) and allowing them free-play time. I mean, somewhere amidst all this chaos there should be a little time to get some work done, right? If you have succeeded in finding a way, please share your wisdom, there are many of us mere mortal moms who are struggling. If you have not had a zoom meeting that ended abruptly because you had to fish out cheese curls from your hair then you have not yet lived in quarantine. Oh, the stories we will have to tell…

Anyway, in my quest to keep the girls busy, and myself sane, I have come up with a few ideas that require little effort on my part but gives them a lot of time to enjoy, a.k.a. precious work time for me. Their best one so far? The tea party I hosted for them and their VIP guests – the teddies.

It all started on a cold and rainy morning. Mama thought to herself, “what will we do today”. She remembered that the littlies have been begging her to bake something since this all began, and a plan started hatching. Knowing that she will have to feed them in any way and that there will have to be tea served somewhere in the day, she decided a tea party was the obvious solution.

My best (tongue-in-the-cheek) tips to stay sane during the lockdown – the mom-edition

So she gathered the supplies and ingredients, then gathered the kids, and allowed them to help her bake a cake. Using the cooling cake as a reward, she got them to actually take their nap (this never happens! Thank goodness for cake…). During this time she quickly finished the cake, set the table, threw together an easy savoury eggin, and got to her own work. She had all this time!

When the kids woke up, refreshed and a whole lot less difficult, they sat around the beautifully decorated table and had their lunch. This was followed by some cake, numerous cups of tea, and uplifting conversation. After eating, Mama could sneak away to again have a bit of time for herself, all the while listening to her eldest trying to teach the youngest how to hold a cup without letting her pinkie drop.

Super easy chocolate brownie roulade with peanut butter-cream filling

Priceless, even when staring at the mountain of dishes.

Any ideas that you have tried that worked like a charm? Please share!

Tips for achieving work-life balance, A life lead simply.com #balance #worklifebalance

Laughing Chefs April 06, 2020

How to postpone your wedding

Although your wedding day is exactly that – your day, any change in plans has further-reaching consequences to more people than just you and your partner. There is a host of people who will be influenced, from family and friends to the service providers. For this reason, it’s important to approach postponing or canceling your wedding with grace, kindness, and a touch of compassion.

With our country, as well as the world, in some state of lockdown or quarantine, many happy couples are either considering or being forced to change their wedding date. If you are in the same boat, then read on!

Should you be making the call to postpone right now?

With the lockdown only being half-done, but with the possibility of an extension looming, we are advising all our May brides to rather postpone. June and July is a grey area, with a lot of uncertainty over whether the lockdown will be extended, and if not, if there will be any restrictions on guest numbers, traveling, times, alcohol, and more. For that reason, if you are getting married in June or July we strongly advise that you have a plan B in place, with possible available dates already tentatively booked with your most important vendors.

At this stage, we would like to point out that if you were supposed to get married before April 16, 2020, the lockdown law is forcing you to postpone your wedding. If your date is after 16 April 2020, then the postponement, at this stage, is up to you. And the best way to make that decision would be in conversation with all of your key wedding vendors or service providers.

So you are postponing – how do you decide on a new date?

Firstly, get into contact with your most important service providers, the biggest one being your venue. Find out which dates they have available, for the rest of the year or even 2021. Some couples have a sentimental connection to a certain date, so for them, they would rather postpone with a year than give up the date. If you are not that invested with your date, then you have a few options to get an available date. Consider getting married on a Friday or a Sunday, or even a weekday wedding.

We are really encouraging our couples to consider a weekday wedding. Not only will it make moving the wedding a bit easier since most service providers will probably be available (a Thursday is not your traditional wedding day) and you have the chance to still get married within this calendar year. Plus, your guests will probably be more than happy to have a joyous celebration to look forward to and jump at the chance to get dressed up.

Once you have received the available dates from your venue, you can send them to your other vendors to find out which of the dates they would find the most suitable. At this stage, you might have a vendor or two who cannot assist on the date that the others can – if that is the case you need to have a conversation with them regarding canceling their services and finding a replacement. They should be able to make a few recommendations.

Please just note that if a vendor is unable to assist on your new date it is not because they choose to not do your wedding. For us small businesses, having work is a privilege, not a choice, and losing work in this current economic climate is not something that we take lightly. So as far as possible, we are certain, your vendors will try to accommodate you on your new date.

If you have to postpone services, or even cancel, should you expect any fees or financial burdens?

First, should you have to cancel the wedding or any individual services, you should not expect to get your deposit back. The initial deposit secured your date, which means the service provider more than likely had to show away other enquiries. With the date now open after you cancelling, there is little to no chance that they will be able to fill the date again. So they have lost out on potential income. The deposit also covered the cost of the initial work and time vendors have already put into planning the wedding. There is a big chance that your deposit is the only way that vendor succeeded in remaining in business.

Couples should also keep in mind that there may be postponement fees for moving the date, especially if the new date is past 2020. Lastly, if a vendor is going to be providing additional services, or if there’s a design change and the vendor will be spending more time to redo or alter the services they are providing for the event, there could be some additional fees.

In our experience, we have found that most service providers are being more than understanding, and incredibly compassionate. They realise that couples postponing because the events are out of their hands, and also because they have the welfare of their guests and service providers in mind. For that reason, most vendors support couples postponing and would, therefore, go out of their way to help these couples get a new date that they’re excited about. So overall, financially, there isn’t too much that couples should be worried about.

What’s the best way to inform guests of the date change?

If you have already sent out invitations, the best way to do this is to send a postponement notification, whether that be a physical product from your designer or an email announcement. Several stationers are already offering beautiful postponement announcements that can be sent out online, and most are providing this service free of charge. If you have a wedding website you should include the link on the postponement announcement so that you can keep your guests up to date on any changes.

For couples who have printed their invitations but haven’t sent them yet, you can reach out to your designer and ask them to design an insert with the new details so that you can place this on top of the invitation in the envelope. This way you aren’t wasting the beautiful invitations that you already have, and paid for.

In the meantime, remember to send all your guests an sms, Whatsapp or email to inform them that you are going to postpone. This should help to put a lot of guests’ minds at ease and give them a chance to cancel their own plans – which might also have financial implications for them.

Laughing Chefs how to postpone your wedding

Our final words of encouragement for couples coming to terms with the need to change their plans

What we always tell our couples – your wedding, although a special day – is not the most important day you will ever have. It is a day to celebrate your love, to tell your love story, and to share this joy with your family and friends. If you need to change a date, a day, the look and feel, even the season, it will not change your story. So if you decide to enjoy your wedding no matter what, postponing the date will not have an impact on you or your joy.

Best of luck in this time, we will all get through this together.