What do most guests remember from a wedding? The Wedding entree choices of course! Approximately 3 months before the wedding you should sit down with your venue's Catering Manager and discuss your menu options. It is very hard to select that one main entree choice and hope that everyone likes it. More and more weddings are choosing to give their guests a choice of two entrees by selecting their meal in their RSVP card.
Is this a good idea? Absolutely it is, but you need to know the following before going this route: the most important thing is the reply card. If you are sending an invitation to a family of 2 or more, then you MUST have a line for each guest to fill out their name and what they would like to eat. This way you can make a spreadsheet with each guest's name and their order when you present it to the Manager at the venue. The last thing you want is a reply card with 3 chicken and 2 fish and not knowing who is having what. It makes it very difficult on the Chef and wait staff the night of the wedding and you can run into some embarrassing situations.
Here is where your organizational skills come into play. You will have the spreadsheet completed after all RSVPs are in. This spreadsheet is then sent to your Catering Manager. You will have the normal seating chart outside the room but you also need table cards at each guest seat identifying what their meal selection was. This will certainly help the wait staff when they first greet the guest table to take their food order. This will stop the guests who cannot remember what they ordered or who decide to change their mind at the last minute. You may ask.....what if the guests says his/her card is wrong? Well that's when your spreadsheet comes in handy. The wait staff will write down the guest name and go back into the kitchen, look up that person's name and order on your spreadsheet.
The table placecards can be identifyed by different color, ie. red for fish and blue for steak. You could also use coloured dots or coloured jewels to identify the food order. Whichever idea you choose make sure to share the coding with your venue's Food and Beverage staff.
This process is definitely more work for you but if it done properly the event will run very smoothly and all guests will receive their requested order. It's also nice to give the guests this choice since so many people are now becoming vegetarian. Guests really appreciate it when the bride take their feelings into consideration. What is the wedding all about but making your guests remember your wedding for years to come!
Ultimately, this can save you money because you don' t have to serve multiple meats trying to satisfy all palates. Adding a second entree can add a significant amount to you bill.
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