The Oblivious Bride – What’s for Dinner?

1 Written by jenny on June 21, 2010 – 5:00 am

I’ve been alluding to continuous conversations regarding our catering options for a few weeks.  While we have not yet found our caterer, I thought I could share what we would like to do.  And if anyone knows how we might be able to accomplish this, I’d love to hear!

Get on Your Feet

As one of our main wedding goals has been to get our friends and family to meet each other, we have made one major decision NOT to have a sit-down dinner.  We didn’t like the formality of a sit-down dinner and how our guests would mostly interact with only the people at their table.  Because we really enjoy growing our circle of friends, it is very important to us that the different circles meet and interact.

With our venue selection, it also makes more sense to spread the food around.  With such a large wedding guest list, we didn’t want all of our guests confined to one small area waiting in line for food.  As a result, what we think will work best is several food stations spread out around our venue.

We do recognize how difficult it can be to stand and eat.   That is why we are thinking that each of the food items should be easy to handle – things like heavy apps that do not require any cutting or the use of two hands.  We are also planning to place several cocktail tables around the venue so people can chat and eat at the same time.  Finally, we do also realize that some of our older family members will not want to stand for 4 hours.  We will be reserving a few tables for family to sit and enjoy their meals.  Other scattered seating will be available, but there won’t be any formal table assignments or numbers.

As for the food itself, we definitely want people to be well-fed.  We do not expect our guests to have eaten a meal beforehand.

Around the World in 80 Bites

When people ask me for an interesting fact about myself, I always like telling people about my multi-national family.  My father was born in Indonesia, my mother was born in China, my sister was born in Taiwan, and I was born in Canada.  My sister and I are now living in California while my parents moved to China a few years ago for my father’s job.  My sister and I grew up eating almost strictly Chinese food, knowing more ways to eat tofu than cheese.

Then I went to college in Berkeley and was introduced to the world of gastronomy!  I have been spoiled by the variety of food available in the San Francisco Bay Area ever since!  Luckily, my fiancé has an equal appreciation for a variety of foods.  We always have a hard time selecting where to go out to eat as we like: French, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Mexican, Indian, Spanish, Mediterranean, American, Italian, and even rarer selections like Indonesian, Burmese, Ethiopian, and more.

Our dream is to be able to provide this variety to our guests.  If we had stations of sushi, dim sum, kebabs, street tacos, and meatballs, that would be ideal.

But, alas, we are faced with reality.  With 250 guests and only a Camry-sized budget, this is going to be extremely tough to pull off.  We’re still looking for that caterer who can do it.  If you know anyone, please let me know!

Oh yeah, one additional challenge – our venue does NOT have a kitchen. 

Next Week: The Oblivious Bride’s Fiance – Who Officiates the Officiant?