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
We may be partial being full time residents in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, but there is no better place to host an outdoor event. Not only because our venue is beautiful, but for these three practical reasons as well!
#1 Outside is Better in the Mountains.
I know you may say, “But there’s bugs and humidity and the sun!” But that is exactly the reason to head to the mountains for an outdoor event. In NC, we have very few bugs, low humidity even in the middle of summer and reasonable temperatures! The fall is even better for all three things, less bugs, no humidity and cool temps. It’s all around a haven for hosting outdoor events with nothing in your way but stunning scenery and vibrant colors.
No bride wants her hair or makeup ruined by high humidity, so consider a mountain venue in your planning so you aren’t limited by city venues with air conditioning to keep your look glamorous.
#2 Stunning Photos
There’s just nothing like the photos you get from natural light and landscaping! What I love the most is the contrast of a regal bridal gown against the bright greens of summer grass and tress or the fall vibrant leaves. Both seasons are wonderful settings for photographs and I can never encourage couples enough that your wedding photos are something you will look back on for the rest of your life! Choose the setting and the photographer that will capture your special moment well.
#3 A Fun Travel Spot
If you and your guests don’t live in the mountains, then your wedding can be a mini vacay for everyone! Surrounding our property, we have connections with rental cabins that all have beautiful views and big porches to sit outside and soak in the mountain mornings with a cup of coffee. You and your guests can fully enjoy the mountain before and after the ceremony. If you have an adventurous crew, the bridal party can go down the New River in kayaks or tubes, go hiking to the top of Mount Jefferson or visit a local brewery with a rooftop bar. You can plan a weekend of fun activities and get the most of the Blue Ridge Mountains along with your wedding celebration!
For lists of our rental cabins, fun local activities, our favorite hiking trails and details about the wedding venue, shoot us an email or fill out the contact us form on our website. Wishing you the best in your wedding planning!
-The Timber River Team
For the brides-to-be looking at all the venue options for their wedding and trying to make good decisions… here’s our best tips and wisdom! The experience with your wedding venue can make or break the enjoyment of your wedding day because of how involved the location is compared to other aspects. If you even attended a wedding where guests didn’t know where to park, where to enter, and the director was unorganized or MIA, then you know what we’re talking about! A good venue with attentive staff can make your wedding day ten times less stressful. So let’s dive into the details.
- Lower Stress Levels
The #1 reason to carefully choose your venue is to protect your stress levels as the bride and groom. Family and friends will already make things a little more tense or complicated the week before the wedding and you don’t want wedding details to make that any worse. So, the first thing to look for in a venue is that their staff is ready and willing to have everything done and ready for you when you arrive the day of the wedding! You need to relax and enjoy getting ready, not feeling like you have to check behind the staff to make sure everything you asked for is being done.
At Timber Rivers, our leader seeks to serve each wedding couple and ensure that details are nailed down and prepared ahead of time. She trains all her staff to serve first and make sure to listen and prep all the wedding details so things are done ahead of time and no couple is stressed about decor, food or wedding props.
2. Customized Decor and Florals
Inclusive venues meet with you and get your vision for florals, bouquets and decor to ensure that they have your vision figured out and their team instructed. Our team plans with each bride and groom leading up to the wedding, decorates the week before while sending the bride photos to make sure they love what is being set up! This way the bride can relax knowing that her vision is coming to life and the venue team can decorate on schedule and have everything ready for the big day!
3. Small Business Team At Your Service
There are so many amazing aspects of getting married in a small town and supporting a small business… but our favorite part is the service you receive! At our venue, there is only one wedding per weekend, so each bride is the whole staff’s priority. Everyone is there to serve and make sure the couple’s day is everything that they had imagined. You won’t be forgotten, looked over or ignored when they entire staff is there for your big day only. It’s a wedding perk that shouldn’t be overlooked.
It’s not easy to entrust the details of your wedding day to just anyone, and that’s where a great, inclusive venue comes in clutch. You need directors, owners, and staff who care about the details that matter to you and want your day to be extremely special! If you’re hunting for a venue in the mountains of North Carolina, check out Timber Rivers Venue, we are here to serve you!
Much love on your special day,
– The Timber Rivers Team
Choosing a color scheme can be one of the most overwhelming parts of a wedding, but it is also a detail frequently overlooked for smaller events. From baby shower to wedding day, having a tight-knit color scheme will help your event look put together, elevated and unique.
For a wedding, we always suggest choosing colors that feel comfortable to both parties, coordinate with seasonal flowers and are colors that YOU like! Any event’s host is the most important opinion on the colors chosen for the event. But, colors also go in and out of style, so here are 5 of our favorite trending colors schemes for the spring and summer of 2024.
#1 “Summer Sherbet”
Blends of pink and orange are coming back into the wedding scene but this addition of green and silver grounds the bright colors a bit while still keeping bold florals in the mix!
#2 “No Blues Around Here”
Monochromatic color schemes are a trending bold choice. Blues and purple tones against a white wedding dress and black suits create a dramatic contrast that is truly breathtaking!
#3 “Unabashedly Bold”
Another growing trend is bold and rich color tones! These colors again contrast against white and pop with a loud statement. They are perfect for any event that wants to stand out.
#4 Vintage Elegance
The vintage wedding style is still a strong trend. These colors have a timeless beauty that can be made new by the way the flowers are arranged and the decor with them.
#5 “Spring is Here”
The natural floral tones of pink, purple and orange give any event a natural, fresh-cut garden look. This color scheme is perfect for the bride or soon-to-be mother that loves being outside or working in her flowerbeds!
Your color choices say so much about your personality and the things you love in life. No choice is wrong, so explore your options and choose something that feels personal for your next event and watch everything come together beautifully!
-The Timber Rivers Family
Searching for your dream wedding venue!? This can be such a fun but also overwhelming venture, so I’ve narrowed it down to the three most important things a venue needs to have for your special day!
First of all, the perfect wedding venue needs a view and surrounding scenery to provide the best backdrop for your photos! As something that will hang in your house for years to come, the scenery in your wedding pictures is something to seriously consider when choosing a venue. From mountain ridge lines in the distance, rolling green hills, to farmland or a winery, the setting makes or breaks a venue.
Our barn venue is surrounded by green hills with the New River bordering our property.
Second on the list is a beautiful interior. Wether your reception is indoors or you simply need a rain plan, making sure that a venue has an indoor space that you love as much as the landscape is crucial. Rustic, classy, or traditional, beautiful interiors are important and can create some of your most magical photos!
And lastly, the best venue selections come with a team that is easy to communicate with, friendly to a T and willing to do anything to make your dream day happen! As the bride and groom, you simply can’t do everything, so having a venue with a team that is for you and listens to your ideas will make your wedding an amazing process. From planning, decor and catering to incorporating your photographer, family and crew; venue staff can make or break your overall experience.
You’ll never forget the place you have your wedding and it will hold special memories forever. So, take care to think through your choice, meet the staff, look around and choose one that will capture your wedding dreams.
Our venue, Timber Rivers, has an elegantly decorated barn surrounded by acres of rolling green hills. Our land borders the New River, so there are photo opts and ceremony options next to the river. Our team works closely with every bride to bring to life those Pinterest photos you’ve cherished for years! From indoor winter weddings to fully outdoor summer picnic-style weddings, we have the flexibility to create any environment. Our fearless leader is enthusiastic about each of her brides and loves seeing their ideas, creating options and then putting together the details to make it a reality!
Until next time!
-Timber Rivers Team
