The Wedding Reception

SO, I catered my first wedding reception tonight- I was in charge of planning and buying the food, and getting it all set up.  The wonderful bride found volunteers to run the kitchen during the reception, and more to do the chopping before hand for the cheese and produce, and she came herself the night before to set up the buffet to look all pretty and fancy.  I just had to fill in the platters, make sure everyone knew where stuff was, and that was it!  Since there were so many hands, I had time to do a few extra things, like sugared cranberries and oven-dried tomatoes.  (My wonderful sister baked the bread for us, 8 loaves!  My brain goes haywire if I try and do more than 4 loaves at a time.)

Purty.

Sugared cranberries- cranberries soaked in a hot simple syrup, drained, and tossed with sugar.




Brie


Funny story about brie.  The bride apparently REALLY loves brie, and wanted it at the reception.  I couldn't figure out how to have volunteers toting hot brie from the oven all night, with a reception held IN the kitchen.  The bride actually had no idea that brie should be served warm.  So, we scrapped the brie idea, but I needed a few more pounds of cheese when I was a the store and grabbed just one brie.  We'd serve it room-temperature, there would just be one, the bride would be happy, no biggie.  So almost everything was set up tonight, and a girl walks in with SIX brie cheeses, and maybe seven loaves of bread.  (I had 8 loaves of french bread already.)  I guess the bride REALLY wanted brie, she called this girl in at the last minute!  We had a lot of brie.  (And yes- that girl stayed all night, toting brie cheese from the oven to the buffet.)

Oven dried tomatoes.



So, I found a case of tomatoes for $13.  My oven was running from Saturday to Friday morning, drying sheet after sheet.  Did you know that a case of tomatoes, once dried, fills half a gallon-sized bag?  True story.

Swiss cheese


Butter and Olive Oil whip, for the french bread



(Sorry, that pictures blurry!)

Vegetable tray- broccoli, carrots, baby bell peppers, sliced zucchini, and white button mushrooms.  That tray was ENORMOUS.  Like, over two feet long.  Very, very cool.



Orange slices with pomegranate seeds, drizzled with cranberry syrup



Cheddar, pepperjack, and dill havarti cheese



The set up.  Those ladies did a great job making this look nice, and the home was gorgeous!


(Please note the CLEAR PLASTIC PLATES.  Having those was SO important to the bride, we had to order them from Amazon and pay $20 shipping!  The look beautiful on the buffet.)

Hot cocoa bar


We had milk chocolate and french vanilla Stephen's cocoa, plus hazelnut creamer, half and half, whipped cream, crushed starlight mints, andes mints, chocolate sauce, pumpkin spice syrup, and vanilla syrup.  This was a big hit tonight!

Simple lemon water.  This monster held about 4 gallons- I wish I had cupboard space to store something like this, it makes parties so much easier!   (This belonged to the hostess.)


We had a "little" pantry to work in.


I was pretty nervous when I found out that the buffet would be in the kitchen- all the prep work and supplies needed to refresh trays, etc. are NOT pretty and are NOT calm.  This little room was off to the side and worked really well.

Which is good, because I brought a lot of food!


Oh, and I didn't take pictures of the meatballs- just simple meatballs in marina sauce, easy as pie.

I am so glad this day is over!

But, you know...getting feedback is nice, too.  Someone said recently "No one cares how well you changed that diaper."  In the work force, and in public settings, there's always feed back.   You do a good job, people notice.  If you go the extra mile, people notice.  At home, with the kids??  No, not so much.  I would never trade what I do, but every once in a while it's so nice to put effort into something and listen to others admire it.  To dress up, and be told I look extra nice.