I spoke to a good friend (Dianne) about it and she was, first, not excited about my menu, and second, sure I was nuts for trying to do it all. Dianne offered to prepare all the food herself... she did enroll some help from her husband, daughter and another friend of mine and her daughter. What awesome friends I have!!
Let me share what we were planning to originally serve:
- pulled-pork sliders
- egg salad sliders
- chicken salad sliders
- large bowl of shrimp (to self-serve cocktails)
- 3 different cold salads
- spinach dip and fancy crackers
- chocolate dipped strawberries
- 3 spa waters
Yeah, my friend wasn't impressed. I was somewhat okay with the menu, but I was concerned about the amount of work it would take with everything else I had to do for the wedding.
I did end up making the chocolate dipped strawberries myself, which took most of the night before and morning of the reception (FYI, Cassie and LaMar got married the morning on Friday, March 8 and the reception was the evening of March 9th).
Dianne put together an amazing menu, created a detailed shopping list for me and then got to work. Let me also mention that all this happened about a week before the wedding! Dianne was also in the process of moving! Here's the amazing menu we ended up serving... I'll link to the recipes, when possible.
These are homemade sweet potato chips. She deep fried them in coconut oil so there wouldn't be that smell you get with vegetable oil. They were delicious and stayed crispy!
They put ranch at the bottom of the baguettes. We were trying to avoid having bowls of dips and things of the table. It worked well.
She found this on a members only site. But I think you get the point. They added a light dressing to this salad.
We used disposable wine goblets for the shrimp cocktails. She added mango salsa and cucumber under the cocktail sauce. I think these turned out beautiful and what a crowd pleaser these were!
A baguette slice with a slice of roast beef, cucumber, tomato, and cheese
Grapes dipped in caramel bits, then crushed nuts! Yes, these were another crowd pleaser!
I dipped about 300 strawberries. We used to do this for a fundraiser at church and I was mainly in charge of dipping. I don't know how I managed to forget how long it actually takes. One of the longest processes is cleaning and choosing the best ones to dip.
We used strawberries, kiwi, pineapple, grapes, and blueberries... I may be missing something but you get the point. We served them on a platter similar to this in this same way... only much taller!
We served water, lemon water and lemon and strawberry spa water. This photo was taken (by me) while we were still setting up, so it's not what the finished table looked liked.
It was difficult to get a great picture of our totally fun popcorn bar because it was in front of a window, but it was a HUGE hit with the kids! So much fun! I purchased the popcorn here. We had 6 flavors... a plain, caramel, cheese, chocolate, snicker doodle, and fruit. I purchased the little cups to hold the popcorn in at Oriental Trading. I found most the apothecary jars at Home Goods for around $13.00. I got the scoops at a local kitchen supple store.
I added a post about the wedding cake here.
The kids and we were thrilled with how the food turned out! What a blessing to have such amazing friends who will step up and lend you a hand when you really need it!
Photo credits, unless otherwise stated, are by kelly lynn photography.
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