Wedding Reception Food; Fun Ideas

fruit display for wedding receptions — Photo Courtesy of JarvieDigital.com

You’ve got to feed the guests at your wedding reception, and probably everything you think of has been done before at a million other weddings. Or is it? These unique wedding reception food ideas can help make the dinner a meal to remember.

Wedding Reception Food Stations

A classy, modern spin on the old wedding reception buffet is the invention of freestanding food stations or centers. At separate round tables, guests pick up different types of food fare. One table can be sushi and another chicken parmesan, another for drinks and another for salads. Food stations can be expensive or inexpensive, depending on the foods you choose.

Finger Foods Only Wedding Receptions

Not only are finger food receptions less messy, they are also less expensive! Finger foods tend to be cheaper, plus you don’t have to buy any cutlery. For starters, think about breads, crackers, veggies and dip, chips and salsa, cream puffs, pinwheel wraps, deviled eggs, mixed nuts, or fruit skewers. You’ll find that guests who have their hands free while eating are more likely to mingle and converse with each other.

Wedding Receptions with a Chocolate Fountain

unique and fun food ideas for LDS receptions — Photo Courtesy of JarvieDigital.com

The main attraction of your wedding reception could be an ornate chocolate fountain with liquid chocolate flowing down the sides. Provide a variety of foods for guests to dip in chocolate (or eat plain): pretzels rods, strawberries, cherries, pineapple slices, apple slices, Graham crackers, chocolate chip cookies, bananas, Nutter Butters, and mint Oreos. Practically anything tastes good in chocolate – just make sure to keep it off your dress!

Cultural Foods at your Wedding Reception

The standard “chicken or fish” option at wedding receptions doesn’t have to apply to your wedding reception if you go with cultural foods. Consider choosing foods from the culture of your heritage, feature an “around-the-world” type menu with everything from Chinese to Mexican food, or use Italian food to complement your old-world Italy wedding theme.

Wedding Reception Mini Foods

Almost anything can be made into a tasty bite-sized treat, from the main course (mini burgers) to dessert (mini muffins.) Other ideas for mini wedding reception foods include mini crab cakes, cocktail weenies, red potatoes, baby carrots (or other veggies), Jell-o cubes, or pizzas made on mini bagels. Soups, parfaits, or ice cream can be served in shot glasses.

Unique Wedding Reception Dessert Bars

fun and elegant food ideas for receptions — Photo Courtesy of Carly Daniel Photography

The standard wedding cake slice is only the size of a pack of cards – that’s why plenty of couples choose to provide an array of desserts in addition to (or even instead of) wedding cake. Old standards like brownies, cookies, pastries, and pies are great, but that’s just the beginning. What about a soft-serve ice cream bar with all the toppings, or a candy bar featuring suckers, mints, Jolly ranchers, taffy, M&Ms, and so on?

Wedding Reception Food Colors

Explore incorporating your wedding colors into your meal? Use food coloring sparingly, choosing foods that are naturally colored whenever you can. Vibrant fruits and vegetables can be used as toppings, garnishes, or chopped up and mixed in to naturally tint your recipe any color of the rainbow.

The wedding reception meal is traditional, but the food you serve doesn’t have to be. For a creative and unique twist, all you need to do is think of a “hook” or “angle” for your wedding reception food and run with it. These wedding food ideas should kick-start your creativity.

♥ Jenny Evans
Exclusively for WeddingLDS.info
Copyright © 2010 WeddingLDS.info. All rights reserved.

Catering for LDS weddings, LDS reception, LDS open houses — Back to RECEPTION CATERING

LDS weddings, LDS reception, LDS open houses — Back to LDS RECEPTION

Guide to Decorating Food Tables

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beautiful skirted food table — Photo Courtesy of Carly Daniel Photography

Having food stations, a buffet, or a dessert bar at your wedding reception is a great choice: both are economical, easy, and convenient. But you will need to worry about how to decorate your food tables, which inevitably become the focal point of the reception as the guests file past.

Wedding Buffet Tablecloths

Just because your caterer will cover the buffet tables with a boring white linen tablecloth for free doesn’t mean you have to go that route. Match the buffet tablecloths to the guests’ tablecloths, and incorporate your wedding colors.

Wedding Food Table Centerpieces

Pre-set table — Photo Courtesy of JarvieDigital.com

The food tables will look crowded with too much going on, but tasteful centerpieces placed at strategic locations can add just the right touch to the table. You have lots of options for centerpieces: balloons, mirrors, and floral arrangements, to name a few.

Just be careful about choosing fresh floral arrangements and stick with flowers that have a minimal scent. Super-aromatic flowers may not smell so good mixed in with the various food aromas on the buffet table.

Dress Up the Wedding Reception Food

Don’t forget what’s center stage at the food table: the food! Work with what you’ve got and concentrate on artful arrangement. Add colorful garnishes like slices of lemon or lime, sprigs of herbs like rosemary or parsley, or beds of lettuce leaves underneath your food. You might even consider edible flowers!

Decorating buffet tables for LDS receptions — Photo Courtesy of Whitney Lewis Photography

Stack items at various heights down the length of the table by using tiered trays and cake stands to display food items. Even placing a box underneath the tablecloth adds height and dimension to a flat platter.

Decorating your buffet tables doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming, but it makes a huge difference in the look and feel of your wedding. A little attention to tablecloths, simple centerpieces, and arrangement of the food goes a long way in your wedding reception buffet.

♥ Jenny Evans
Exclusively for WeddingLDS.info
Copyright © 2010 WeddingLDS.info. All rights reserved.

Unique Wedding Cakes for LDS Couples

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Unique Wedding Cakes for LDS wedding receptions — Photo Courtesy of Ravenberg Photography

If you don’t want the traditional white wedding cake with three perfectly stacked tiers, you’re not alone. Your wedding cake is the most special cake of your lifetime, so why not make it a cake your guests will remember? Try on some of these suggestions, or invent your own.

Round and square are the usual wedding cake shapes. Try mixing the two, so that your cake has some round and some square tiers. You can alternate – square, round, square, round – or you can have a truly random mix. If neither round nor square particularly appeals to you, pick a more unusual shape like hexagons or paisley drops for your wedding cake tiers.

unique wedding cakes for LDS receptions and open houses — Photo Courtesy of Effervescent Media Works

You can also experiment with color to make your wedding cake stand out. Colored wedding cakes are quickly becoming the norm, but usually all tiers are the same color. Frost each tier of your wedding cake in a different color, the bolder the better.

Stacking

A Unique LDS wedding cake — Photo Courtesy of Ravenberg Photography

Unique wedding cakes often mix up the usual stacked arrangement. If you go with square tiers, stack them on top of each other at interesting angles to make your cake more eye-catching. Square or round tiers can be stacked slightly off-center, or they can be flush at the back of the cake so the step between each tier is more pronounced. You could also reverse the traditional order of the tiers – use cake stands or dowels to stack tiers in order of ascending size with the smallest layer on the bottom.

Topsy Turvey Cakes

LDS reception unique wedding cakes — Cake by Granite Bakery, Photography by Photos by Wendy G.

Some unusual wedding cakes have round tiers that are tapered inward and slanted to one side at the top. The tiers look as if they are precariously balanced on top of each other (even though your decorator will make sure they are secure.) The unusual angles are usually emphasized by rigid geometric patterns in the icing such as stripes, diamonds, or checkers.

Choosing a wedding cake that is uniquely you can be difficult, but you don’t have to limit yourself in the shapes, colors, or arrangements that you choose. Feel free to experiment, run suggestions by your decorator, and above all pick something that you will enjoy seeing on the cake table during your wedding reception.

♥ Jenny Evans
Exclusively for WeddingLDS.info
Copyright © 2010 WeddingLDS.info. All rights reserved.

Pros and Cons of Hiring Wedding Professionals

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Wedding Service Professionals for LDS Receptions

Wedding Service Professionals for LDS wedding receptions — Photo Courtesy of Whitney Lewis Photography

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