Wedding Reception Food

What wedding reception food are you serving? Are you having a buffet, a sit down meal or something else all together? Still deciding? If so keep on reading. There are several selling points for each type of meal you could serve. 

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Brunch

If you are looking to save some money you can have an earlier wedding followed by a brunch. Your alcohol bill will also be significantly less as most people drink less in the early part of the day. Brunches are pretty flexible, you can either have a formal brunch with a sit down meal which is served to the guests or you can have a buffet/snack bar kind of setting. Most weddings involve wedding reception food of a big filling dinner so if nothing else this will be unique to your guests and more memorable. 

Sit Down Dinner

A sit down dinner fits into a formal reception perfectly. This is an especially good choice if there are many elderly guests or children as no one has to worry about preparing plates, it is all served directly to them. Everyone gets what they want as the choices were usually made well before the reception. The sit down meal feels more elegant than the other options and it is the traditional choice. There are usually several courses, including soup, salad, entree and wedding cake, and the plates are brought from the kitchen to the tables by the wait staff. 

Buffet or Family Style

When you are choosing your wedding reception food, choosing a buffet dinner will help create a slightly more laid back feeling. Many brides and grooms are fine with the overly formal feeling of a wedding and reception however many people do not like being quite so stuffy. If this describes you or you want to find a happy medium a buffet it the way to go. You will have a lot more food choices, which should allow you to better custom the meal towards your guests especially children, people with medical concerns, vegetarians, etc. 

A Cocktail Reception

A cocktail reception is a way to have a shorter reception without the heavy wedding reception food. You can still celebrate with your guests but you are not obligated to feed them. Where as one of the positives of this type of reception is that it is later and shorter (as well as cheaper) one of the negatives is that there is less attention on the bride. Most cocktail receptions do not include some of the more traditional aspects of the reception like announcing the bride and groom, the first dance, parent/child dances, etc. 

Dessert Reception

When you are choosing which wedding reception food to serve you might want to consider skipping dinner. If you are looking for a truly unique and sweet reception idea how about throwing a dessert reception? These types of receptions are usually thrown when people have evening weddings. After the wedding it is much too late for a sit down dinner and so a dessert reception is the perfect choice. Of course you have the wedding cake, but the options are endless after that. Create a dessert bar for your guests to enjoy. If you really want to make it sweet come up with some unique alcoholic drinks. You could make a unique drink beforehand, name it and introduce it at the reception. Looking for other ideas for this type of drink? Check out these fabulous drink recipes!