Let Them Eat...and Eat!

When we first sat down to talk about how we wanted to allot our budget for the wedding - it became obvious to both of us that we wanted to put lots of money towards food instead of elsewhere. We both had been to too many weddings where we waited so long for food, had to eat our chocolate favors to fight off starvation and then ended up getting a burger from the hotel bar at 9pm in order to continue dancing. We wanted to make sure our guests wouldn't go hungry and eat good food, at that. And that they did!

As soon as our guests arrived at the hotel/reception site after the ceremony, cocktail hour began and they were greeted with butler-passed hor'deurves. I originally was just going to do stations because the butlers were extra, but it just worked better for the space to have butlers. Plus - classy points! :) The butlers served two types of bruschetta, ham & cheese pinwheels and shrimp. This amount of food turned out to be an even better decision because our ceremony ended quicker than expected and the ballroom wasn't to be seated until a specific time. Luckily, the staff bumped the timeline all up a bit, but I was glad that my guests were sitting bored during that time. :)

Our dinner consisted of three entree choices that guests indicated on their RSVP. We served flank steak, pear chutney-stuffed champagne chicken and walleye (we ARE in Minnesota and it's my fav!). All entrees were served with rolls and a wedge salad and sides.



We sat a menu card on everyone's place setting since I think it's nice to read what everything is, plus we needed to explain that their dessert was in their centerpiece and that beverages were free during meal service - so it just made sense to make these. We did them on our printer at home on some cardstock. Escort cards had each guest's name on it, table number and a ribbon (black, white, green and polka dot for the kiddies) that indicated to the service staff which entree they had reserved.

After dinner, after the band had begun playing for a bit, we opened up the popcorn buffet. More about this in another post. :)

Later in the evening around 10pm, we served a "late night snack." This has become a huge trend and is usually something kitchy - and we totally had to oblige. We served pizza for our late night snack, which was totally not a surprise to anyone because I'm a complete and total pizza feind and would TOTALLY serve pizza at my wedding. :) There was tons of it and everyone was so excited when it came out as they weren't expecting it and it was SO good!

Throughout the night we had many, many comments on how great the food was and how full they were. Guests said that dinner was phenomenal and they were stuffed and then came the popcorn! So then they were seriously stuffed, and then came the pizza! These are good problems to have. :)