How To Choose the Right Menu for Your Reception
Wedding Menu
As you design and send out the invitations for your wedding, consider requesting information about your guests’ dietary needs.
Your invitations can ask about whether guests have food allergies, need kosher meals, or eat meat and cheese. Once you have
received your wedding’s RSVPs and your guests’ information, create a spreadsheet to share with your wedding coordinator.
Once you know how many people have dietary restrictions, you, your spouse-to-be, and your on-site wedding coordinator can
work on creating a menu that accommodates everyone’s needs and meets your expectations. The most likely is all your guests
without food restrictions will have the same set menu and the ones with specifications on dietary will have a personalized menu.
Then you can notify your guests about what you plan to serve in advance.
Having this information beforehand will also help you plan your reception stationery, from the menus and programs down to everyone’s place cards.
How to Choose The Right Menu Style?
Plated Sit-Down Dinner
The most traditional reception style, a plated meal is the most formal of the reception options. This is when all the guests are
seated and served a formal dinner. Typically, it consists of three courses (an appetizer, salad, and an entrée), plus dessert &
wedding cake if it is served tableside. Everyone is usually served the same food options. If the group is small, then the main
course is handled a few different ways:
Guests are served the same entrée with a silent vegetarian or vegan alternative.
Guests pre-select their entrée choice when they submit their RSVP*.
*Only recommend for groups under 49 guests, otherwise dinner time can take longer, which means you will have less time to party. Please be aware there are a few details you will need to consider making this work.
Please see below:
• The rest of the dishes in the menu will be the same for all guests (appetizer, salad, dessert).
• 30 Days prior you will need to confirm the total amount per dishes.
• Couple will need to work on a Seating Chart with all guest names (including wedding couple), what dish are they having and which table are they seating at.
• Couple needs to bring name tags with the food selection on them. Make sure this is super clear for your resort service team.
• Meal choice stickers for place cards work perfectly for this and those are easy to find in Etsy or Amazon.
Pros
It immediately sets the tone for a more formal gathering.
You have the most control over the look and feel of the meal.
Cons
The limited variety can be challenging for guests with dietary restrictions.
It typically requires more manpower to help with serving and plating, so staffing fees tend to be higher.
Family-Style Dinner
A family-style meal is exactly as it sounds: Everyone is seated as big platters and bowls of food are passed around the table, just like you might do with your own family at home. This is a great option if you want to keep people seated at tables but do not want something as formal as a plated meal. The first course is typically served with about one or two options and the main course includes as few as a protein and two sides or multiple proteins with multiple sides.
Wondering how much food to order?
We suggest one or two different dishes for the first course and as few as a protein and two sides for the main course or as many as two proteins and four sides max.
Pros
It offers you variety—there are lots of choices, which can be easier to accommodate picky guests or guests with food allergies.
It makes the reception meal feel more casual and laid-back.
It is good for community building—when people are passing the food around their tables, they chat and engage with each other.
It is an efficient way to serve your meal—you do not have to wait for people to make it through buffet lines or the stations.
Everything lands at the table at roughly the same time and people can help themselves.
Is the perfect option when you are interested in Buffer but have less than 40 guests.
Cons
The platters and dishes take up delicate table real estate. If you want elaborate florals on your tables, this is not the option for you.
Expect to pay more than a plated dinner since you will likely have more menu items.
Buffet-Style Dinner
A buffet features long tables topped with a wide variety of food options. This meal style offers the most variety for your guests, making it particularly desirable if you want a wide range of cuisines or have picky eaters. The most important thing to consider here is how to get your guests through the food lines as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Pros
From a guest standpoint, buffets are great because they cannot only pick what they want but how much food they want.
Abundant buffets can be visually appealing and photogenic when executed well, with vibrant food and a talented design team.
Cons
The tremendous variety and quantities of food that you get with a buffet come at a price. Buffets are typically higher in price than many of the other reception meal styles.
*****Self-Serve Stations – came to replace buffets as part of our COVID 19 wedding protocols.
Stations are very similar to buffets in that they give your guests a nice variety of food options. Stations typically have tables or areas specifically dedicated to certain dishes or types of foods. These are often more interactive and involved than help yourself buffet, so you will need people to staff these stations. This is a great opportunity to get creative and inject your personality as a couple. For example, if you love Sushi, do a sushi shucking station. Love cheese? Put together an epic cheese bar!
Pros
Like buffets, stations offer up great opportunities to create stunning visual displays that lend themselves nicely to photos.
If there is a dish that would be challenging for guests at a buffet, attended stations are a good workaround.
Stations encourage guests to interact and engage with each other, particularly if they are chef-attended stations where they are picking from different options and consulting each other about their choices.
Cons
Rental costs and staff ratios could make stations quite costly.
The menu price is going to be like a buffet or family-style meal. The staff ratios and costs are typically on par with a buffet, but
keep in mind that if you have multiple stations, the cost of rentals will be much higher.