How to choose the menu for your wedding reception The food will undoubtedly be one of the biggest expenses of the wedding. You will need to feed your guests; there is no getting around it. The venue co-ordinator for the wedding will try to persuade you to go for the most expensive menu option, this is how they make most of their money, but stay strong and try not to pass out. There are a few tricks to make the cost more manageable, without anyone noticing. The food Most venues which handle the catering will have a few menu options for you to choose from. This will include popular starters, mains and deserts and usually includes the cost of tea and coffee with deserts. When it comes to choosing the menu ask if you can chop and change the cheapest option around a bit to suit your tastes. You might not like the options for the main course or you might not like the dessert, so being able to change things around will help you create a menu that you do like. Most places will allow you to do this. Keep in mind that most people don’t actually east very much, so you really don’t need to stress about feeding them constantly. The first thing you can do to bring down the cost is get rid of the desserts and serve part of the wedding cake as desert instead. You will be paying a small fortune for the cake, and spending hours deciding which flavour you want, so why not let your guests enjoy it too. If they will be eating the wedding cake they won’t need cheap ice cream or custard as well. If the reception venue offers snacks after the ceremony as part of the menu then use that as the starters. Then to make sure everyone has enough to eat opt for a buffet instead of a plated meal so that guests can always go back for more, and choose exactly what they want. The buffet system works well for two main reasons, firstly the food is kept warm, so there won’t be any cold food on your plate (as can be the case with plated meals), and there is less chance of food poisoning. Meat, especially seafood, that is allowed to cool down to room temperature and stay there for 30 minutes or so can lead to food poisoning. Avoid this by making sure the food will be kept warm till it is served. Secondly, when you order a buffet there’s usually food left over so people can go for seconds or you can take the rest home and have it the next day. Just make sure that you can actually take the extra food home. A buffet also offers the guests more choice, if the fish doesn’t look good they can go for the chicken, and it gives them a chance to get up, move around and interact with one another. The drinks Everyone knows that one of the most expensive things to cater for when it comes to planning the reception, are the drinks. Having an open bar can have terrible consequences if you’re under a tight budget. The easiest way to bring the cost of the drinks down is to have a cash bar, but this can come across as being stingy so you may need to do it subtly. Have 2 bottles of wine and 2 jugs of juice on each large table and those who want to drink more can simply buy more. This keeps your drinks bill low and keeps your guests happy. Make sure you inform your guests that there will be a cash bar so that they know what to expect. How to set the tables so that your guests have space The first things people tend to notice when they enter the reception hall are the tables. But buying tons of flowers and little table decorations for each table can get incredibly expensive very quickly. It might be very tempting to have tons of colourful stuff on each table, but it can also become overwhelming when set in a heavily decorated venue itself. When you highlight everything, you highlight nothing, and when each table setting screams for your attention you don’t notice any single one. Keeping things simple and elegant also allows you to stand out amongst all the décor, keeps the cost down, keeps the effort per table down (which means less stress) and gives your guests place to put their wine glasses on the table. How to get an elegant look for less To keep a nice clean elegant look, and to keep costs down, opt for a simple white table cloth as a base or foundation. Then go for white plates, your cutlery and glasses. Once these are on the table you will see that there really isn’t much space left for decorations. Remember that your guests will be moving about and will place glasses, purses and whatever else they may have with them, on the table. There needs to be space for clutch purses too and any other items they may bring with them. Allow your guests more moving space by keeping the centre piece to the centre of the table. Avoid overcrowding the table with tons of little odds and ends. The best way to keep it elegant is to choose one element for the tables and carry the theme through to all the tables. So if the element you choose is ‘pink flowers’, have a floral arrangement as the centre piece of each table, and leave it at that. Avoid the temptation to add little fairies and glitter and mirrors and pebbles around the floral arrangement. When planning out the venue begin by deciding what area of the venue you want to draw attention to. What do you want people to notice first? The cake? Your table? This is where most of the colour, lighting and flowers or other decorative elements should go. Then add small splashes of the same elements on the table for continuity. If you use pink and purple flowers on the cake, then pink and purple bunting on the table for the cake as well as your table, then add small to medium sized flower arrangements in the same colour scheme on each table to create a rounded-off effect. If you want to draw attention to your table using only flowers then you could have a long low flower arrangement on your table (keep it low so that people can see you, you don’t want to appear to be hiding from them). Then have smaller flower arrangements on each of the other tables, using the same kind of flowers. To help you cut down on waste you can opt to use candelabras as table centre pieces instead of flower arrangements that take time to create and just get thrown away afterwards. This also works out cheaper. When choosing a candelabra look for ones that are tall with a thin stem. They will shed light on the table, add height and dimension to the room’s décor and people will still be able to see each other from across the table. Candelabras also add a romantic element to the table settings. If you feel the tables look too empty, scatter a few flower petals on them, or place a single small flower on each plate. This works with the colour scheme and flowers you have chosen, and will be cheaper and easier to clean up than bags and bags of glitter.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 20:52:27 +0000
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