CHOOSING A WEDDING MENU

CHOOSING A WEDDING RECEPTION MENU

 Story and photos by Loftus Viljoen

Weddings are always a celebration.

It is a celebration of

• -          Love

• -          Happiness

• -          Bonding and bringing families and friends together

Through the ages people fell in love and got married. Weddings outlasted wars, famine, economic depression and it is still in fashion today as when our parents got married.

The soon-to-be-married couple want their families and friends to share in this happy and joyous event and this take place in the form of a marriage ceremony and reception. Your wedding day is the most important day in your life and you want to share it with your loved ones. You want your guests to share something about you and your soon-to-be spouse’s life.

The latest trends are that you both want to tell a little bit of yourself and your fiancé and vice versa: of who you are, what you like or dislike where you grew up – yes a sort of a little bio of you and your fiancé. If you love certain food or drinks tell them about it – food and drinks are part of everyone’s life. When you celebrate something special you may choose a different type of food or drinks – so why not share it. This is done by creating a website called “Save the Date” where you announce you wedding. 

The reason for a bio is that in many cases the bride will not know all the groom’s family or friends, and of course vice versa. So this gives them an insight on the couple’s life.

According to Stats SA the average age of couples getting married is in their 30’s which tells us that the couples are normally financially stable, many of them are paying for their own weddings, and they are settled in their ways. Most of them also has set up home and probably has also bought the necessary house hold items they need. This makes the process of buying wedding gifts by the guest a little problematic – the latest craze is to add onto the Save the Date Website a “Gift Registry” where the couple will go to a place [for example @ Home] and scan a list of probable gifts and register this online. The couple then supply a code or a login to the guests where the guests can see what items are available and what type of gifts the couple prefer – it is also not unfamiliar to hear the couples requesting cash as gift rather than a present they cannot use or have duplicates of. A couple will certainly know what they need . As soon as a gift is bought it disappears from the list and the chances of getting duplicate gifts are minimized.

The modern bride and her spouse-to-be have developed certain tastes for food and drinks – life is also about eating and drinking so why not share your love for certain foods and certain drinks with your family and friends?

The trend nowadays are healthy cooking and eating habits and buying junk food is always a last resort for these couples.  If you love certain wines whether red or white why not share your love for it with your friends and family? Yes this is where the catch comes with basically ALL weddings: The costs of bubblies or wine are very high and would bankrupt the person paying for the wedding. But, we have a solution for that problem as I will explain below.

What normally happens at a venue is that they give you a list of items to choose from and from that list your menu for your wedding reception will be compiled. Sometimes you will find that these lists not always has what you want – so why not ask the venue if they can give you alternatives; 

something that your guest will associate with you. Why can’t you have a menu with the starters, main course and dessert you like and importantly having those menu items paired with the wines you like or what you think your guests would associate you with? You can always ask your venue to cost a menu you have in mind – after all it is your Wedding.

 Here is a solution to the costs of your wine selection? You simply pick a menu and pair it with the wine you like [as a suggestion] on your Wedding menu and state there will be a cash bar available with your [as a couple] favourite wines. This adds style and elegance to your menu. Talk to your venue I - am quite sure they will be accommodating in one way or other. 

Having said the above choosing the wedding dinner menu can become tricky for the bride when she has to compromise between her tastes and the tastes of family. The wedding menu can take many forms, from a simple self-service buffet to an elaborate three-five course meal served by waiters. In the most traditional version, a seated dinner is generally preceded by a cocktail hour with hors d'oeuvres and contains three courses: a first course, a main entree, and a dessert. The first course is typically a small, composed plate. The main entree usually includes a meat or fish or chicken, such as filet mignon or sole/rainbow trout/kingklip (you should have a separate dish for your vegetarian guests), accompanied by a starch (herbed rice, mashed potatoes etc.) and a vegetable (medley of steamed vegetables or glazed carrots, grilled eggplant). Dessert may or may not be your wedding cake; some couples serve a separate dessert -- something light and refreshing, like a lemon tart or chocolate mousse - and save the wedding cake for later in the reception, say, during the dancing or the latest trend is to cut the cake and let your guests eat the wedding cake while you are off the your photo shoot.

When choosing your menu you need to consider the time of the year and whether certain food stuffs are available or not - for example avocados are generally available all year round but may become scarce during certain times [like if there is a drought or a heavy frost season] then you might have to consider other options like [once again by example] that you look at frozen guacamole. 

Another issue that you need to address is how the presentation of the food would look like. There are different styles of service you can choose from: 

Plated Service:

This is one of the popular options for weddings and functions - presenting food in dfferent courses on different plates. If you feel this is who you are then share it with your guests - it is a great way to serve classic cuisine, however the downside of this method is that you have less of a variety than other methods of service. The costs of this type of service is usually higher than that of a buffet or family styled dinner. A caterer might require many more cooks and much more waiters to offer you this type of service. Then the costs of the utensil hire also becomes higher because each course uses a different utensil.

French Service:

The French style of service is simply a more refined version of the plated service. Dinner still comes in courses, but the difference is that it is not served on individual plates, instead the waiter becomes a server with each course arranged on a large serving dish and carried to each guest at the table. Traditionally the guests serve themselves from the platter with tongs or a fork or spoon, but the trend is that the waiter dishes out the food. This type of service relieves the pressure on the kitchen because there are fewer plates to put together, but the downside of course, is that you need much more waiters.

 The Buffet:

The most popular trend in many wedding receptions is the Buffet styled dinner. The guests at pre-arranged times  choose what they want to eat from the selection of dishes you chose for them - usually it is the types of food you like and this is one way of sharing your love for the food with your guests. A buffet is usually a good choice for both finicky eaters and a crowd that loves to eat. You can include different styles of food/cuisine. Guests then serve themselves (tip: choose foods that hold up well over a heat source or at room temperature), or you can have servers that offers items that can be carved, for example leg of lamb, pork/ham or roast beef of chicken. Another tip: avoid food that need to be prepared while your guests are waiting for example braaivleis that should be done rare/medium/over cooked - this wastes a lot of time an can cause queues and a bottleneck. also remember that certain dishes, especially meat dishes, can push up the costs of the menu. You may also consider a spitbraai which is very popular in South Africa in addition to your buffet. 

Station styled service:

You may like to offer your guests different styles of cuisine, especially if you can't decided between one or two types of cuisine for example. let's say you love Moroccan food but you soon-to-be-spouse loves South African cooking then you might like to look at two or more stations: each station may have two or more tables each offering the different styles of cooking. However, coordinating these stations may become tricky and may waste time, and with so many options the costs can be high. 

Family styled service:

 Another option is to present the food on large platters set on the table and let guests serve themselves, family style. Usually the tables are placed as a "long table" and you need to consider your table placing [guests] very carefully. But this style does help to add an informal feeling to the reception. 

The advantage of this style of service is that is it more casual, which means the food selection tastes good at room temperature. Less staff are needed, so it is more economically. But another word of caution: make sure that your venue suits this type of style. 

At the Riverside Castle Bridal Expo eld at the Castle on 16 & 17 May 2015 bridal couples will be able to examine all the choices our vendors/exhibitors will have on display and don’t be afraid to ask questions about all the choices – the Wedding planners and cartering staff might not like what I’ve said in this article, but do challenge them. I know they like a challenge so let’s throw the gauntlet down and see what they can do. When me and my team got involved with Riverside Castle the owners knew that we would give challenges to the existing team.

We have a lot of new initiatives coming to Riverside Castle so please join our social media group on Facebook for more exciting news on what is going on at Riverside Castle. Our group has grown rapidly in a week with over 300 members. Our Event posting has reached over 2000 people on social media and our marketing efforts has  reached an estimated 20,000 readers.

In our next blog/newsletter we will hopefully tell you more about our exhibitors.

We still have a limited number of stands available for the Show and at R500.00 a stand is a bargain.

In our next blog-article we will feature some of our photographers and we will be looking at choosing your Wedding photographer and what pitfalls you should lookout for.