Wedding Reception Food and Drink - page 2

30-09-2008 11:18

Why stick to traditional meals? You can take a leaf out of the North Americans' book and do a wedding brunch ... a meal I dearly love and am known to stuff myself with when over on the west side of The Pond. This is especially useful if you want to save money by having a morning wedding - in the UK it's not a particularly popular time, hence lower costs. Brunch can be anything from croissants and scrambled eggs to steak dinners with vegetables and gravy - in fact, whatever you fancy. What distinguishes brunch from other meals is that it (in theory) should be an amalgam of breakfast and lunch, and it takes place somewhere between mid to late morning and around 2pm.

Another wedding feast alternative - which also saves on cost - is afternoon tea. Here you can go ballistic with dainty sandwiches, gorgeous little cakes, scones with clotted cream and delicious preserves, all of which lead nicely up to the wedding cake.

Then, of course, you have the option of doing a reception that consists of drinks and canapes only. This can save a lot of money, but can also seem a bit tight-fisted. There is a way around this, though. A great friend of mine who used to organise drinks parties for corporate clients came up with the brilliant idea of serving a range of canapes which mirror a four-course meal. In other words the first trays of canapes consisted of fish and seafood based titbits plus crudites and dips, bits of melon and parma ham, etc. The next round consisted of canapes based on roasted meats, roasted vegetables and other ideas cribbed from main courses. Then followed canapes which were all sweet - fruit, chocolate, cheesecake and other such delicacies. Finally there was a round of cheese-based tasties.