Wedding Menu Ideas
From classy to casual, your wedding’s menu needs to be something you and all your guests enjoy! Here’s some of our favorite dinner ideas along with some fun snack bar ideas for cocktail hour.
Dinner Ideas
Our first bit of advice is to choose a meal that the bride and groom love, it is their celebration after all! Buffets are a fantastic way to get all of your guests fed quickly and can be more exciting than you make think at first. A meat like Prime rib has the option of so many sides, like mashed potatoes or cheesy scalloped potatoes, green beans, broccoli, corn on the cob rolls, or side salads. Being a North Carolinian, we love pulled pork with coleslaw, mac and cheese, rolls and green beans as a more casual buffet option.
Setting up a bar type dinner can be fun and add variety for your guests. For a winter wedding you could set up a soup or chili bar with several options to choose from, a side salad and bread/grilled cheese/cornbread. This is a tasty and often very cost effective dinner option!
Sandwich bars are a great light option for a lunch reception, there are so many varieties that is can be really fun to plan and enjoyable for your guests. Combining the soup and sandwich bar ideas could also be an excellent winter or fall dinner.
Create-your-own-pasta dish is another fun way to ensure each guest enjoys their dinner. We’ve seen this best set up with a buffet of different kinds of noodles, a red sauce, Alfredo sauce, vodka sauce and grilled chicken, meatballs or ground beef for the protein. Having a side salad and rolls or Italian bread is a nice addition!
Our all time favorite dinner bars are tacos, breakfast for dinner and Hibachi. All three have so many topping options, sauces and taste delicious. Again, choose a theme that the bride and groom love and then make it customizable and delicious for the guests.
Grazing Bar & Cocktail Hour Ideas
Charcuterie Boards are all the rage for good reason! They are delish! For a large event, there are several ways to incorporate a snack bar with charcuterie ingredients. The first is to make a beautiful board, the presentation is beautiful, but some people are uncomfortable with hands touching all the pieces. Even if you have tongs on the board, some guest will invariable use their hands. One way around that is to have skewers with a pieces of cheese, cheery tomato, pepper, olive, meat… etc. then you can have sweet skewers with various fruits, allowing guests to put a skewer on their plate and get all the goodies without touching everyone else’s snacks.
Another way to go around the board set up, is to make small cups with a rolled deli meat slice, some cheese and fruit so each guest can grab a cup and munch while they visit with friends and family.
Other appetizer ideas include kebabs, meatballs, fruit and veggie, spring rolls, dumplings, cranberry and brie bites and shrimp cocktail. You can also set up sweets for cocktail hour, a cupcake or cookie bar is a fun way to let your guests get something sweet before the big cake cutting event on the evening.
Never be afraid to mention ideas to your caterer, or ask them if they can make a favorite family recipe! It’s your big day and the food is a huge part of the reception celebration, so make sure you choose something you’ll look back on and fondly remember!
Love,
The Timber Rivers Team
