Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Food at our Wedding

I finally had the inspiration to sit down and write a post about the food we served at our wedding. Food is such an important and critical part of any wedding. It helps set the mood and tone of the entire event, fills people's tummies and is talked about long after the event is over (Hopefully in a good way, not bad). You can have a buffet, plated dinner, appetizers, family style, stations, or just a cocktail hour. Each serving style has its pro's and con's, it just depends on what you want, what works for you, and what fits the formality of your wedding.

For us, we knew our wedding wasn't black tie and super fancy. We wanted to serve a full meal, as the majority of people attending our wedding were from out of town (I wasnt about to serve sandwiches and cake). We went back and forth between the idea of a buffet dinner and a plated dinner and finally decided on a buffet. I know many people hate the idea of a buffet dinner and feel it isnt as formal. For us, it was perfect as each person could take as much or little as they wanted and could choose what they wanted to eat, instead of only having an option of either chicken and something else. It was also less headaches, as I didnt have to figure out what each guest wanted and create a chart for seating and what meal each person wanted.

Finding a caterer was one of the hardest parts of our wedding. There are so many options available, you almost really need to decided what style of serving you want, budget and food you would like to have before starting your caterer search. We were lucky in that our venue allowed us to bring in outside food so we werent stuck using an over priced, typical bland wedding food caterer. I started my search by collecting brochures from various cateres at wedding shows and a quick online search of catering in my local area. I compared what each company had to offer for food, service and extras.

Some companies were just too overpriced for what we were willing to pay for food at our wedding, others had lack lustre service or just didnt offer a menu we found appealing. Others charged ridiculous amounts to cut our wedding cake (as we had a different vendor providing this) and to supply flatware and plates.  We finally managed to narrow our search down to 3 catering companies and set up meetings with each. (Names wont be mentioned for the ones we didnt pick as we dont want to affect their business just becasue we didnt go with them).

The first company didnt quite have the level of formality we were looking for (think more of a back yard BBQ then wedding). Also when we addressed Hubs food allergies, they just said "well we wont serve that" instead of finding an alternative or just making sure Hubs wouldnt eat it. They didnt provide any extra's (plates, cutlery, etc) so we would have to rent it from an outside source.

The second company was actually our front  runner for a while. Everything was great, they had the type of food we wanted to serve, were in our price range, etc. Until we mentioned the cake and they said they charged $4 a slice to cut the cake, charged extra for cake plates and had a few other hidden fees. Along with this, we didnt like the idea they would have to drive 45min to an hr to get to our venue with our food already cooked.

The 3rd catering company is the one we ended up going with. A coworker recommended them and I can't say enough great things about them. People to this day, still talk about the food we served at our wedding and how good it was. We ended up going with Casa Nova Catering, which is a family run Portuguese Catering Company and Restaurant/Bakery locally owned and operated. They not only provide catering but decorating as well (Had we not already hired our decorator we would have gone with them for decor as well).

Casa Nova, had amazing prices. We paid $24 a person, which included 2 main entrees and all the extras, ALL our dishware, glasses and cutlery, white tableclothes and our napkins, they cut and served the cake, as well as provided wait staff, set up and cleaned up everything. All for $24 a person. I couldnt get a price even close to that from any other caterer in the city. Heck, most caterer's charged $24 a person for one entree and everything else extra.

Below is our menu we used on each table, informing each guest what the buffet options were. I did leave out that there was a massive seafood platter (so much seafood, our guests didnt finish it all)


Here is one of the only pictures we got of our reception food:


1 comment:

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