Wedding Reception Menu Ideas:
Beyond Cheese Cubes &
Chicken Fingers

Not that there’s anything wrong with that (one foodie to another).

We should take pleasure in the food we eat.

But the flip-side is that the expectation for the food served at weddings has gone off the deep end.

While you’ll probably want to serve a full meal to your wedding guests, be wary of wasting money and effort on sheer variety and quantity.

According to the wedding caterers I’ve interviewed, one of the biggest and most costly mistakes engaged couples make on their menu is offering too many food choices.

Don’t offer more than two main dishes for the wedding reception dinner.

Turning your wedding reception buffet dinner into a replica of the local “all you can eat” buffet, or offering a multitude of choices for the sit down reception meal, does not really enhance your wedding guests' experience, or make anything taste better. It’s just more choices and more expense.

Another big mistake is not personalizing your wedding meal. This can be done on any budget, for any service style, and your guests will remember it as one of the touches that made your wedding special (people will remember your clever wedding menu ideas more than the food itself).

A few examples of how to personalize your wedding reception menu:

• Your mother makes a killer style of chicken that all your friends and family know and love. Give the recipe to the caterer to use, name the dish after your mother and include it on the menu cards. It is a nice personal touch, the person who was the dish’s inspiration loves the attention, and it is a good conversation topic between the two families.



• You have a great grandmother who used to make you a particular lacy sugar cookie as a child. She’s passed on, but using her recipe and serving her special cookies at the wedding is a small way to have her there with you.
• Use your heritage as an inspiration for your wedding menu ideas. Say you’re from New Mexico and your fiancé is second generation Greek-American. Split the buffet between your fiancé’s favorite Greek dishes and your favorite Southwestern dishes.
• Focus on your favorite foods. Perhaps you love beef BBQ ribs and fried onions, and your fiancé prefers lemon rosemary grilled chicken and tomato cucumber salad.
• Get personal with dessert. Perhaps the groom has a sweet tooth that everyone who loves him is well aware of. For the groom’s cake, serve a collection of all his favorite cakes that his mom and your mom make for him. Or maybe he loves donuts; serve plates of donuts and everyone will smile.
• For an at home wedding, pick up food from restaurants that have meaning to you (your first date, or where he proposed) and serve it on the buffet.

What are your favorite foods? Is your marriage bringing together two different cultures?

And what if you really do love cheese cubes and chicken fingers?

Translate it on your wedding reception menu to homemade macaroni and cheese and Southern fried chicken!

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