First off, I'm mother to the bride, not the bride. I'm planning it though because I'm not busy right now - I'm going through chemo which knocks me off my feet and onto the sofa most days, so planning a wedding is a distraction and something I can actually do while lying down.
A little back ground:
I'm a home chef, of sorts.
I've cooked since I was a small child and have always enjoyed it,
ventured into gourmet at times, currently we are whole food, mostly vegan (no
such thing as “mostly”, I know), and I have cooked all our meals for the past
25 years that I've been married (breakfast, packed lunches, dinners, all mostly
from scratch). I'm used to entertaining
large crowds - catered my daughter's graduation party of 125 in our backyard. I'm currently undergoing chemotherapy that
will end one month before the wedding (preventative only, they think it's gone
but want to make sure and this should be a 99% cure even if there were tiny
bits left). My point about the chemo
being that I’m spending lots of time on the sofa during infusion weeks, so I
have 90% of the wedding already planned and typed up and printed into a
binder. That includes menus, decoration
layout, DIY crafty stuff for the kids to do a few weeks in advance, shopping
lists, food prep steps, food serving steps, you name it.
So, she's getting married in 4 months, and we are planning
to self cater. I’ll cook the food ahead of time that needs it, while the rest
(which do not need prep) will be assembled the day of the event, such as
salads, cheese trays, etc.
We live in Texas, small town north of Houston, and most of
the weddings we’ve attended are more like pot luck, buffet style with the same
order of events and foods. We are in
the unwilling to pay for pricey catering category; although we can afford it we
would prefer to spend the money on helping our kids get set up (house
downpayment and so on.
I have lots and lots of helpers who will help with food
assembly at the site, serving, clean up.
And I have one who will oversee everything so that I can be mother of
the bride for most of the day; she does lots of weddings for friends. Because there are so many who’ve asked to
help, we can use them just briefly for 1-2 tasks each so that all will get to
enjoy the majority of the reception.
For instance, we have one gal assigned to the escort card area for the
first 15 – 20 minutes and then for cookie table setup near the end of
dinner. Another will do appetizer
layout and refreshing, and then she’s done for the evening. A big crew will help set up the site in the
early morning and then help with clean up at the end. The hope is that many hands make light work! Traditionally, we all help each other during
our kids’ events so this is the norm for us, and we often enjoy being behind
the scenes more. I’m willing to hire for
the evening if needed, but so far I have enough.
APPETIZERS:
Appetizers will be on tables in various locations around the
room to encourage spreading out of the crowd.
Our appetizers, so far:
Meatballs in a sauce of some sort. Swedish or another gravy. We will probably buy these frozen and just
reheat, but we’ll do a tasting first to make sure (I’ve never made frozen
meatballs before). Served with a bread of some sort, if I can find one I
like. (#300?)
Sliced smoked sausage on picks. Either served dry rub/smoked or with a small
amount of sauce. (#300?)
Chicken satay on small skewers with peanut sauce. (150 small, more if mini)
Cheese boards –
cheese, cured meats, grapes, olives, spreads with crackers, crostini,
grape tomatoes, bread sticks, and the like.
Mostly served on a large board with small bowls of the dips and olives
and bowls, trays, glass bucket type bowl for the crostini and breadsticks. We’ll have 2-3 of these spread out on the
various appetizer tables. Use
toothpicks not tongs.
Under consideration:
Champagne soaked, sugar sprinkled grapes; vegetables with dips; cheesecake
filling phylo cups topped with fresh berries.
Drinks:
2-3 kinds of punch (including a traditional light colored
punch and some specialty punches in carafes of a coffee/mocha punch, raspberry
lemonade, and so on.
Iced water
Entrée:
We’ll serve family style at each table – one big dish per 8
people from which they self serve. We’ll remove the centerpieces, serve the
salad first, then clear the salad bowl and serve the pasta and bread.
Salad – not sure yet of the type of salad and any
suggestions are appreciated. I’ve tossed
around a simple mixed greens with small shape tomatoes, sliced onions, olives,
bacon, and my champagne or other vinegar/olive oil dressing with croutons added last. Or a Caesar or greek salad. An antipasti with greens, onions, peppers,
marinated vegs, hard salami, cheeses. I’ve also considered a cold vegetable platter
of roasted vegetables served cold with a sauce or dry seasoned.
Next service is lightly garlic’d bread (served in individual
bread bags to each place setting, a grey chevron waxy paper bag with room for
¼-1/3 of a baguette) and pasta. Garlic bread is purchased as Italian loaf from
the bakery and treated with an olive oil, butter, garlic, herb spread.
A ziti type dish, cooked ahead of time and frozen (about 2
weeks) . Using a campanelle pasta, with
a tomato and cream based sauce, wild ground pork, garlic/onions/mushrooms, and
seasonings. Topped with various cheeses,
sliced tomatoes, and fresh chopped basil which will be browned. Alternative sauce is the Pasta alla Vodka
which basically just adds vodka to my cream tomato sauce and supposedly helps
with any cream/tomato separation issues.
·
we do not have ovens at the reception site so my
idea is to defrost the pasta in the refrigerator, transport in coolers with
ice, then reheat in microwaves (3 available), and move to covered chafer pans
to keep warm. We will top with the
cheeses while in the chafer pans and torch them to melt/brown the cheese. We’ll likely do the same with the garlic
bread, torch the top before serving.
Dinner drinks are iced tea and iced water.
DESSERTS:
After dinner, we’ll have coffee and hot tea, two kinds of
wedding cakes (bride cake and groom cake) plus a cookie station with 8-10
flavors of cookies (from chocolate chip to red velvet and so on) as well as
milk shooters. Cookies will be
purchased from a local bakery.
So, the only things I’m actually cooking ahead of time are
the pasta (minus the cheese) which I’ll cook and freeze, plus smoking the
sausage and chicken, slicing, then freezing.
The cheese and herb spreads and the cheesecake filling, I’ll
make a couple of days ahead of time.
Other than that, I’m mostly buying and assembling on site –
well, not me but my wonderful helper friends.
Nothing complicated other than the torching, but my husband’s friend is
very good at that sort of thing.
My biggest concerns:
The salad and whether to do a big salad or just a cold vegetable
dish. And which type of salad would go best with the pasta and also would be
worth it in the expense vs. enjoyment?
They are pricey but worth it to me, but on the other hand I don’t want
to spend a lot of money on a salad that no one enjoys, you know? I personally love them all! I’m willing to pay more to dress up a salad
with ingredients that the average person would appreciate (like bacon, meats,
cheeses).
Serving the pasta.
I’m hoping 3 microwaves will do the trick to reheat the defrosted pasta
without compromising taste. We will do a
trial run ahead of time with cooking, freezing, defrost and heating to test out
how it holds up. The torching should
help with getting the flavor and appearance of the broiled topping.
I’m removing the dirty dishes to the on site kitchen,
scraping the remains into the trash, and stacking them in separate Rubbermaid
tubs with lids (one for plates, one for glasses, one for flatware, one for
napkins and linens). We will rinse
the dishes outside once we get home by filling the tubs with dish soap and
water from the house and letting them drain through a few small holes in the
bottom of the tubs, then we will wash them the next day in the dishwashers.
Costing:
Budgeted $1000 for a wedding dress but she found one she
loved for $350 on sale. Accessories will
add another $100 since she’s ordering custom Converse sneakers (that say “Mrs”)
instead of pricey formal shoes and her grey with crystals sash, crystal
headband, necklance, earrings are fairly inexpensive.
Hair and makeup – I’d like to hire this done at our home
because I’d like one of our last memories of her living with us to be all her
girls and her getting ready for the wedding in her room. No
idea who we will use but I’m on the lookout.
Photography is crazy expensive but completely worth it. The usual for pros here is $2,000 for the
wedding day, but we will probably have my sister do it (she is an amateur
professional if that makes sense. She
has a photography business and does wonderful pictures but it isn’t full time
and she’s self trained.) We’ll probably end up paying about $1000 for the day
plus whatever the engagement shoot costs.
Video - we will probably ask a friend to video and later get
someone professional to edit it, unless we come across someone who is willing
to do it for less. She would rather
focus our money on photographs than video.
We’ll have two static video cameras for the ceremony itself and just
some random video from the reception mingling, plus the traditional events of
first dance, speeches, cake cutting, and so on.
We have the equipment already as my husband is a birder with quality
camera/video camera and tripods.
Ceremony is no cost and minister is the same. Some expense for flower arrangements, but we
will take them with us after the ceremony and use them at the reception as
well. We’re buying roses in bulk from
Costco ($79 per 100, getting 200) and having an elderly friend (former florist)
assemble the arrangements, supplementing with local florists greenery and other
flowers. The girls will assemble their
bouquets and the boutineers the day before from the roses, with her help.
Reception hall – we had a choice between two and chose the slightly
larger one for the same price $350, although both seat only 150. The other was in a nature preserve and
beautiful, but our kids love to dance, so the bigger one got the nod. Both are newly renovated and have a full
glassed wall overlooking nature preserve or green belt and river. The one we chose has faux marble tables,
both round and rectangle, with nice solid black chairs (not metal or folding). They
have patios with wooden full backed benches also. We paid an extra $100 for a smaller extra
room for the bride to hide out in when she needs it. If it were up to her, she’d have 20 people at
her wedding under a tree by the river with bare feet and daisies in her hair. My little hippie chick J
LINENS:
We will provide white tablecloths with grey runners (fabric
all). I was prepared to buy the table
coverings but my step mother had 18 round white ones left over from another
wedding that we borrowed, so we only have to supplement the remainder. Cost is around $5-7 each in bulk online.
DISHES AND SERVEWARE:
We’ll do stoneware white plates, glass stemware, real
flatware, and grey napkins (her colors are grey and white). Plates and glasses are $1 each to purchase,
flatware around $0.50 per set and napkins are also $0.50. Not much more cost
than quality plastic ($225 for quality plastic and $450 for the real thing),
and we’ve bought styles of glasses and flatware that we will use in our own
homes
White and silver roses.
Centerpieces are glass vases with spray glued on confetti glitter 1/3
from the bottom up, silver or natural
color branches that have crystals glued to some, tiny cherry blossom fabric
flowers to others, and the like. So, it’s not expensive but also hopefully not
cheap looking either. ().
Serving dishes we will borrow many things (punch bowls and
some platters) and other things we will buy dishes that my daughter or I will
use in our own homes. Extra large
cutting board for serving cheeses from Ikea for $10, beautiful glass carafes
for punch for around $15, and so on.
