Wedding Menu Tastings
Tasty Selections to Please the Palate
By Patti Herioux
Event Planner, With Love
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Selecting your menu for your wedding reception is much like registering for your gifts… simply put, pick what you like! To make those selections you will attend a tasting with your caterer. Go into your tasting with an idea of if you want to serve a meal unique and reflective of your personal tastes or one that is most likely to please the masses. Read more
We’re So Hungry!
WE’RE SO HUNGRY
YOUR WEDDING MENU
By Patti Herioux
Event Planner, With Love
By the time you sit down for dinner at your wedding
reception you (and all of your guests) will be ravenous! As you venture into the major decision
of what company to hire for your catering needs for food and beverage start by
thinking about what you would like the meal to say to your guests. Consider the style you would like the
meal served in, the type of foods you would like to serve, the courses that
will be involved and any special details you would like to include (ethnic,
kosher, regional, etc.). Certain
caterers may be better suited for your needs than others based off of what your
master plan is.
It holds true that your guests are likely to remember the
extremes… if your wedding food is ordinary, it won’t leave a huge impression
either way. If it is bad your
guests will always remember yours as ‘that wedding where the food was
terrible!’ And if it’s exceptional,
they will likely remember your wedding as ‘the best food they’ve ever had at a
wedding.’ Make this decision wisely!
SERVICE STYLE
First, think of how you’d like the food you select served to
your guests. You have two basic
options:
Buffet
Buffet style service is self-service and casual. You will typically find buffets served
in one of two ways, an all-inclusive buffet with your courses served on one
long buffet table (your guests will fill their plates from beginning to end) or
food stations. Food stations could
be as simple as having separate buffets for your salad, soup and entrée course
or as elaborate as serving distinctly different foods at each station (think
pasta stations, fajita station, mashed potato bar, sushi bar). Your guests can circulate through the
stations filling their plates with whatever is appealing to them!
Plated
A plated dinner is more common and formal in the wedding
world. Plated meals are served
individually as courses to each guest.
You may start with soup, go to salad, and end with your entrée. The servers give each guest a prepared
plate delivered to their table.
COURSES
Second to how you will serve your guests, is what you
will serve your guests. Cultural considerations
or personal preference may dictate the courses you opt to serve. There are a variety of courses to
consider:
Hors d’oeuvre
Appetizer
Antipasto
Soup
Salad
Pasta
Intermezzo
Entrée
Dessert
EXTRAS
Your caterer will walk you through options outside of the
norm when it comes to what you can offer your guests. Other than regular courses, there are other things you will
want to consider serving, such as a sweets buffet or late night snack. Chicago themed late night snack buffets
are very popular and a delicious send off to your guests after a night of
drinking and dancing. Chicago
style pizza, hot dogs, mini hamburgers… your options are many and scrumptious!
DRINKS
Your caterer will also serve as your bartending staff. There are “courses” of alcohol to
consider that will go with your food selections. Cocktail hour traditionally has a full service bar. The bar may or may not stay open during
dinner. Red and white wine would
typically be served during dinner, and is a nice touch if the bar will be
closed at that time. You will also
want to consider champagne to go with the toasts your parents and honor
attendants will be giving.
If closed for dinner, the bar will reopen at the conclusion
of meal service and for the duration of the reception. You will want to keep in mind all of your guests when selecting your alcohols and beverages. An assortment of sodas, beers, hard alcohols, mixers and wines is a sure way to please the palate of all your
guests, young to old.
A tasting will be arranged as you get closer to your wedding
date for you to sample the foods your caterer will be serving. From the tasting you will make your
final selections. When you make
those selections think about what you like best and what is reflective of you
as couple, or go the crowd pleasing route and think about what will best serve
the masses.
You will be serving a myriad of people with different tastes
and preferences on your wedding day.
Take time and a little extra consideration to give them a meal that’s
something special. Nobody will
walk away hungry on your big day!
Your Wedding Menu
By Patti Herioux
Event Planner, With Love
-
By the time you sit down for dinner at your wedding reception you (and all of your guests) will be ravenous! As you venture into the major decision of what company to hire for your catering needs for food and beverage start by thinking about what you would like the meal to say to your guests. Read more
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