Over the weekend, Doug and I catered our niece's wedding. We volunteered to do this way back in February (I know, volunteered?!?), and have been working on it pretty much ever since. Here's what we did, and what we learned:
Planning the Menu
Luckily, the bride is very sensible. She wanted an inexpensive, but elegant, sit-down meal. So we planned for a few pastas, a few different salads, an antipasta plate (cheeses, salami and olives), and some crostinis (toasted baguette slices) with toppings. Mmmm. The best part? Most of it could be made ahead. Good for a cook with five children. Who like to help. A lot.
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| Doesn't she look sensible, with her tiara and boa, at the bachelorette party? |
Throughout this whole process, the bride put up with me constantly pelting her with reminders. (Have you mailed your invitations yet? Now? How about now?) And she still likes me, amazingly enough. Beginning 'o March, I sat her and her darling fiancee down and went through everything they would need or need to make decisions. Then they postponed the wedding. I felt horrible - did I scare them off with logistics? It turned out to be something completely unrelated - and unrelated to their devotion to one another - so whew! I was off the hook. And bugging her again (Have you got your marriage license? Have you decided about this? That? The other?)
Making the Food
At first, I thought I would make all thirty baguettes myself. Once you stop laughing, I have to tell you that I only made 13 loaves before I thought better of the idea. It didn't help that every time I made bread, the kids were snitching at least one loaf. One benefit: I now know which recipe I prefer...and those loaves I made were made into crostinis and frozen.
The croutons and pastas were pretty straight-forward and in the freezer. No worries there. The cheeses and salami were chopped up by Doug and bagged a few days before the wedding. I had mentioned to Doug that I was behind on them, and he put on his apron (the uncles called it "his skirt" at the wedding), and went to chopping. Ah, I love a man with knife skills.
Shopping: The Fun Part. Not.
Shopping is not my friend. My mother was a great shopper. I have several sisters that inherited that gene. Me? My eyes glaze over after about 10 minutes in a store, and I just wish that the whole shopping experience were over. Granted, this might have a little to do with the children that are always in tow, but not entirely - the glazed-over eyes happen even when they're not there. Although, that might be because all my other shopping is done in the evening hours after the kids have exhausted me.
Anyway. The bride agreed to have me do all the shopping and bill her later - instead of us trying to manage our schedules so we could go together. Yay! Costco was one of the places I started. Watch out for Costco, man. There are lots of things there that are not good deals. But I did get a lot of good deals, too. I found some pretty white plates with coral flowers (coral was one of the wedding colors) and was really excited about the find.
Then I went home. Doug took one look at those plates and said, "This is not a picnic, it's a wedding!". Back to the drawing board. Everything ended up being crystal, plastic (crystal look-alike), or sterling silver. Doug is a stickler when it comes to things like that. Okay, it did make everything look very elegant.
Borrowing: Love It!
Huge thanks are owed to my sister-in-law and my neighbor, both of whom came through for me in a big way. My SIL (who does actually cater) has two chafing dishes, and she offered them to me. What a woman. My neighbor offered to let me troll through her china and crystal and see what she had. Again, offered. Whoa. Another few excellent serving pieces.
There were a few online purchases for serving utensils and serving ware. The punch bowl arrived on Friday. It was close, but not too close. At least for me.
The Big Day: Setup
The day of the wedding dawned beautiful and sunny. The forecast was for 79 degrees and slightly windy. Not bad for outside - no bugs, not too hot.
Doug and I spent the morning prepping the fresh foods and making sure everything was over at the host's house. My niece got married in the backyard of her aunt (other side of the family). Their backyard was perfect for this kind of thing.
There was almost no decorating direction throughout the morning, due to the women in the bridal party getting mani/pedis and hairdos and whatnot. Doug was a little concerned, so he went over early. Smart. He noticed that it was windy. Really windy. Do we want dust and whatnot getting blown into the food? Or the food blowing about? No.
So he moved all the banquet tables for the food into the garage. Not the most photogenic place if you want really cool food pictures, but it will explain why there is a garage door in all the pictures. They also put the wedding cake in the garage, but had to move it out for pictures.
See? Not the best place for pictures.
When I arrived, the serving stuff was in the garage, but in serious disarray. With only an hour before the ceremony, I went into action. Sadly, there are no before pictures. But here's what it all looked like after it was set up:
The groom's mother made this beautiful fruit arrangement:
And I just realized the Caesar Salad is missing from that picture. Doug was probably getting it filled up in the kitchen. He ran the kitchen all night, which was sooo supportive of him.
The bruschetta, crostinis and antipastas looked quite attractive:
And here's the whole second table:
The forks were not in packages by the time guests arrived. I promise.
The pastas also looked (and smelled) delicious. There was the Mushroom Stroganoff:
And the Double-Cheese Sausage Penne:
Hard to call a winner between the two. There were people who loved each one. The sausage pasta was a little more gone by the end of the evening. Okay, enough about food. What about the wedding itself?!?!
The Big Day: the Ceremony
To understand this, you have to know that this party was a small group primarily composed of people belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, also called Mormons. Most of the weddings we have all attended have been in temples, where there is no procession, no music, no clapping. Just the ceremony, simple and sacred.
So it was pretty funny to see us all, not really sure what to do. The procession started and the grandfather of the bride (my dad) started telling everyone to stand up. And like the lemmings that we are, we did. Or rather, some of us did. Then we sat back down as someone else started saying, "sit down!". Then the bride came out with her dad. And this time, we stood up without being told. Finally, we get something right.
Holding hands, isn't it precious? It was very windy, as you can see. It was also freezing. So we shivered while they were married:
Aww! Mr and Mrs:
And then we all escaped to the garage, where it was warm, and ate a good dinner. The bride and groom's first dance was a salsa number that they had obviously practiced, and was so sweet to watch. Sigh.
Lessons Learned
When doing dinner parties, my big thing is that I have to enjoy it. Otherwise, it's totally not worth the prep time. Ditto here - I tried very hard to get everything done ahead-of-time so that I could enjoy the wedding. And it worked, mostly. If I was doing it again, I would:
- Make sure all the veggies were washed the day before I had to chop them: I spent three hours the morning of just washing lettuce. Not the best use of time.
- Use larger serving utensils. I used small spatulas for serving the pastas. They were okay, but getting the pastas to stay on the spatula was an interesting endeavor.
Well, it sounds wonderful. Food and Ceremony alike. Thanks for writing it up! Still a little bummed I couldn't be there :(
ReplyDeleteI'm bummed you weren't there, too! We were only missing you and Mike. : (
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