Catering * WS 2001

Sharing the Foods You Love

If bread is the staff of life, and food the bonding element among friends and families, why would you want anything less than the foods you love-and want to share-at your wedding?

Custom-catered receptions, complete with personalized menus, can resemble a trip to the couple's favorite restaurant-full of anticipation, memorable in flavor, high on style, relaxing and fun. After all, you want a menu that will reflect who you are. The experts at Susan Holland Event Design and Catering in Manhattan, New York, advise couples to connect with their heart and palate when deciding on their nuptial noshes.

Before even thinking food, however, owner Susan Holland advises couples to sit back, relax and look at the big picture concerning their wedding. Answers to questions like, "How do we want to feel at the reception?" and "What role will dancing play, and what impact will it have on the meal?" will give your caterer a clearer idea about the kind of reception you want and help the caterer make recommendations to you about food and other issues.

We asked several caterers, with a combined knowledge of more than 100 years experience, to share their expertise. They say that couples are increasingly food-savvy, which has helped prompt a movement away from traditional formats. Couples are no longer constrained by a choice of a sit-down dinner or buffet. Caterers are orchestrating evenings that might include one sit-down course in the midst of food displays (a festive food station where servers control how the food is presented on a guest's plate), or an ongoing cocktail buffet with food stations and butlers serving hors d'oeuvres in order to accommodate socializing and dancing.

Holland's head chef, Ed Magel, says many brides opt for the cocktail buffet, because "they don't want the formality of people sitting down to dinner; they want a party."

If the couple chooses a sit-down dinner, caterers agree that three courses-an appetizer, soup or salad; entre; and dessert-are plenty, especially after a cocktail hour spent enjoying hors d'oeuvres. This allows the event to flow better, satisfying the guests without keeping them seated for too long.

Milo White, owner of Glorious Affairs in Newport, Rhode Island, says many of the weddings she caters get the best of both worlds. Couples choose cocktail hours with stationary food displays, followed by seated first-course meals and food displays for the rest of the evening.

The seated first course, often a salad, is the perfect opportunity for a blessing, or for the best man or maid of honor to make a toast. "You get that sit-down dinner feel for one course," says White, "then you get to mingle and get to see other guests for the entre portion."

Other factors that help determine the menu include the location of the wedding, and the time of day, day of the week, and season it is being held. Traditionally, weddings earlier in the year-like spring and summer-often...