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Of central
importance to the planning of your wedding day is the decision
on the “style of dining” for your wedding reception. After the
Cocktail Hour has ended, how do I want to approach the meal?
There are three basic reception styles to be considered:
Seated-Served, Buffet and “Stations” Menus. This choice may be
an easy one – you may have always imagined a seated-served
dinner, for example, and that’s the end of the matter – or your
choice might be influenced by the lay-out of that “perfect”
function facility. You’ve fallen in love with the place and
you’ll do whatever is necessary to hold your event there! Let’s
talk about the advantages and disadvantages of all three styles.
A Seated-Served Menu is a traditional plated meal offered
course by course at a dining table. Three courses are typical
at wedding receptions, a soup or salad, the main course and
dessert (wedding cake, petit fours). Each table should be fully
set with china, silverware, all necessary glassware, and linen
napkins. Floral arrangements or some other kind of decorative
table centerpiece is appropriate.
Pay particular attention to service when planning a
seated-served event. Your table attendants will be much in
evidence so they need to be professional, well-groomed and
properly attired. Service must also be thorough so make sure
the “guest to server” ratio is at least 15:1. Don’t hesitate
to cross-examine your caterer on points-of-service.
All of your guests must be seated, obviously, so the size of
the reception venue is of key importance. A hotel or country
club should pose no problem as space is rarely an issue.
Finding a “unique” location (old mill, mansion, historic
farmhouse) location for a seated-served reception for a guest
list of over 100 can be difficult if you require all of your
guests to dine in the same room. A magnificent mansion setting
can be enchanting but even turn-of-the-century titans of
industry didn’t build dining rooms that accommodated an entire
wedding party. In such instances tenting is usually offered to
accommodate your guests for the meal.
Buffets still represent a popular option for serving the meal
– particularly if you want your guests to have a variety of food
options. At a buffet the meal is spread out along a single
service line. Buffets should minimally feature a salad, a main
course, a vegetable, a starch and, of course, rolls and butter.
Most brides opt to include 2-3 entrees and, perhaps, pasta as
well. You can add to a buffet to whatever extent your budget
will permit.
By and large, buffets speed up service and give you more time
for dancing. Buffets are very flexible. You can still choose
to serve a course at the table, say, the salad course, and then
invite your guests to the buffet.
If you are working with a good caterer buffets can be
impressively beautiful. Buffets need not be flat and
unimaginative, veritable “food troughs”. They can have
movement. The can have “highs and lows”. You can continue
linen and floral table schemes onto the buffet and further
enhance the look with complementary linen accents. There can be
candlelight! Suffice it to say that the buffet style of dining
can be very, very special.
There are two ways to set guest tables should you choose the
buffet option. You may decide to set the table formally -- much
as you would for a seated-served reception (though it is
recommended to remove the first course silver). A less formal
approach would be to put linen and silverware “roll-ups” at the
buffet and limit the table setting to a floral centerpiece and
votive candles. Place cards then can be dispensed with and
guest seating becomes “casual”.
You will need slightly more venue space for the buffet
reception style of dining. Since full guest seating is usually
required additional space will be needed for the buffets.
Make sure your caterer supplies you with enough buffets to
serve your guests in a timely manner. One buffet line per
50/60 guests is recommended to ensure that all of your guests
have been served in fifteen minutes. One final tip: make sure
your party coordinator invites people to the buffet by table.
It is unnecessary to have your guests waiting in line when they
could be enjoying their champagne at the table while they wait.
A stations menu can bring tremendous energy and excitement to
a wedding reception. They are anything but “traditional” and,
of course, not for everyone.
In this style of reception the meal is broken up into
“stations”. A “carving station” may include tenderloin of beef
and a marinated breast of turkey. This station would have
various accompaniments such as sauces, perhaps crusty rolls, or
maybe even a potato. A salad station might offer an assortment
of salads and perhaps a cold vegetable. Raw bars and seafood
stations are extremely popular. Ditto for pasta stations.
(FYI: the pasta station becomes an “action station” if the pasta
is made-to-order.) Finally, stations may also be theme-based
incorporating the décor and cuisines of such traditions as
Polynesian, Caribbean, Southwestern or the Pacific Rim.
Stations menus are best appreciated if you throw the “book”
out the window when planning your reception. This reception
style is meant to promote mixing. The mood should be casually
elegant. You may want to consider casual or cocktail seating,
for example. Most stations should be set with smaller plates,
salad forks and cocktail napkins. Guests are invited to try
different stations at their leisure. Servers should move among
the guests providing information about the various stations,
removing dirty plates and suggesting that fresh ones can be
found at the next station.
It is important to give yourself over to the spirit of this
style of dining. An engaged couple may have been to a great
stations party and want very much to replicate the excitement --
then run into a brick wall when their family strongly “suggests”
a more traditional approach (“Your Uncle Harold will have a
stroke if he can’t figure out what’s going on!”) A “compromise”
is reached and the tables are set for dinner, the stations are
arranged a “little” closer together and large plates are placed
at every station. And on the evening of the event the walls are
lined with people going from station to station trying to fill
their plates. It bears repeating: it is important to give
yourself over to the spirit of this style of dining.
Since casual seating is recommended for a stations event a
time will have to be arranged for the “rituals” such as
introductions, toasting and the first dance. Usually, this can
be accomplished toward the end of the cocktail hour while people
are gathered together in one place.
There is no “best” reception style. As with the selection of
your venue, it’s a matter of personal taste. It is also a
popular misconception that one approach is less (or more)
expensive than another. There’s a notion that if you “go with a
buffet” you can save money. In fact, a simple seated-served
menu may be less expensive than a buffet, especially when you
begin to add multiple entrees to the buffet. When it comes time
to make menu decisions you just don’t find too may folks opting
for a single-entrée buffet. A stations menu, often considered
the priciest, could very well total less than a four-course
seated served dinner with a filet mignon entrée. It is quite
simply a matter of selection.
Choose the style that best suits your personal style and find
a caterer honestly willing to work within your budget! Have a
great reception!
This article was authored by Jerry Diehl of Perfect
Setting Catering and first appeared in the Philadelphia
Inquirer’s My Wedding magazine. Jerry Diehl and his wife
Deborah founded Perfect Setting Catering, a Berwyn, PA custom
catering company, in 1991. Together they bring over 45 years of
combined experience to their clients in Philadelphia and its
suburbs.
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