My big, fat, elaborate, lavish wedding feast ...

[KatieLoeb]

1987, we got married on ten days notice (the future ex husband was very anxious to get married RIGHT NOW, PLEASE!)... so, only 150 or so guests, mostly friends of my in laws, because that was who was in town on such short notice.  A local hotel closed their restaurant for us, and I do not remember one thing about the food. Well, my father and his wife flew in, and we had kosher meals brought in for them, and for some in laws of my future ex husband's father's future ex wife(got that?) but that is the extent of meal that I can recall. I can tell you this funny bit. As I got married on such short notice, and I was so skinny at the time I had to wear a bridesmaid's dress off the rack, got no invitations, had no wedding shower, etc.(boy was I irked by that! I mean, really, no bachelorette party even!) in compensation I ordered the most expensive cake that I could, at a local Coral Gables bakery, to the tune of $700 plus. I came home from shopping, and F.E.H. said "Darling, do whatever you girls want about anything for the wedding, but get me a cake from Publix, please!" I hastily changed my deposit at the bakery to cookies, and ran to Publix. I bought the most elaborate white pineapple layer cake that they could make me, with fresh flowers along each layer(thanks, cousin Laurie!), and after making a cake to feed hundreds still barely spent $200. The things that people remember about that wedding to this day are: the sun setting and the guitarist playing alongside the cantor while we were wed on the sand, the open bar, the cake and the open bar. I'd do it all the same, excepting the groom, if I ever do. Especially the open bar.  VERY conducive to happiness, until your drunk FIL sees the bill at the end of the night, and decides it's wrong, because 150 people just could NOT drink THAT much. Well, Dad, those Miami Beach socialites not only could, they did! I mean it, the bar cost more than the rest of the wedding. I am not exaggerating, we could have bought a used car instead. And, BTW, getting married on short notice? Excellent idea. Everyone assumed we were in a family way(although no one said anything to us), and gifted us accordingly(yup, $$$). We got to buy what we needed, and had very few unneccessary gifties! Of course, I was embarrassed a few months later when my MIL's friends were all checking me out in my bikini at the club, it turned out I was expected to be showing!

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This is undoubtedly one the finest tales I've ever read on eGullet. Love it!

Guess you showed them (or not!)

[ilively]

Wedding one: full catered meal, beautiful layered cake, big bucks ... his family didn't come (wonder why we divorced two years later)

Wedding two: lunch for 10 at our favorite Tex-Mex restaurant (he was/is a Texan), bride/groom teddybear cakes (I'm a collector). Divorced 4 years later, but remain friends.[Friends enough that when we (me and new hubby) go out west, or they (he and new wife) come east, we stay at each other's homes.]

Wedding three: Roy Rogers Burgers and fries. Got lost in the DC-burbs (Rock Creek area) on the way back to his parent's house from the JP in Virginia. Had to be back to our house (Central PA) so he could catch a flight out for a job interview in the morning. Just celebrated 8 happy years on 1/15.

[Gifted Gourmet]

Maybe the moral of this matrimonial tale is that one can find one's truest love over the simplicity of Roy Rogers Burgers and fries ... Not possible to predict what will be a success ... worked for Roy Rogers and Dale Evans and Trigger (an odd threesome but a success!)... they were (all) together for a very long time ....

[k43]

A whole ham and a couple of kovbasys from Kurowycky, the best hams and sausages in NYC -- maybe the world. http://sausagenyc.com/

A big smoked fish platter from Russ & Daughters, with the house-made no-gum cream cheese.

Bagels from The Bagel Hole in Brooklyn.

A half gallon of my Really Zingy Hummus (equal parts tahini, chickpeas and lemon juice, with a couple of heads of garlic), plus fresh pita from Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn.

Lots of fresh organic carrot slices, celery, zucchini, radishes, etc.

A 3-layer REALLY BIG sheet cake from the late, lamented Olsen's Bakery.

A case of Spanish champagne and apple cider from the greenmarket.

The 30 guests ate every morsel. We figured they ate about 3,000 calories per person.

We also bought the flowers, wrote the service and played some of the music.

[newbie]

The first time around was a church wedding and I can't remember for the life of me a whole lot of details about the day, let alone what (and if...) I ate. Blocking it from memory I guess.

I married my current husband in September 1998 and had a lovely outdoor wedding. We had around 100 guests of family, friends and co-workers and the reception was at a hall that allowed us to do our own catering. I made the majority of the meal which consisted of chicken cacciatore, lasagna, salads and rice. My husband's family made perogies and cabbage rolls. I was very proud of the food at the time and received rave reviews from the guests.

If I were to do it again, I wouldn't hesitate to cater it again, actually enjoyed the experience, However, I would definitely put a bit more thought and be more adventurous with the menu, especially since I've expanded my husband's eating repertoire beyond meat, potatoes and pasta.

[scordelia]

I loved the food at my wedding! And I am still married and would not change a thing.

My husband and I had a less traditional wedding. We were married in December in Chicago (6 years ago) at the Raquet Club. The Raquet Club has wonderful, very English food.

The wedding was smaller (75 guests). We were married by a minister at the club in front of the fireplace in the main lounge which is a two-storey panelled room with big red draperies and loads of evergreens at Christmas time. It was very pretty. The reception was the same room. We had a jazz quartet, and I wore a red velvet dress.

For hor d'oevres, we had wine glasses of vichychoisse passed in lieu of little canapes. The club makes the best vichychoisse and it was less expensive and more original than little canapes. Then we had a buffet of whole poached salmon, rabbit pies in pastry, green salad and a croquembouche for the cake. Again, the club was known for their croquembouche; they look very festive and holiday, and we got engaged in Paris.

[H. du Bois]

You know, I’m glad to see those entries above me that indicate that other people have had more than one wedding … I’m currently going through a divorce, so somehow I had felt it inappropriate to reply to this topic until now. Silly me – my marriage may have failed, but the celebration of it remains a happy memory, untarnished after all.

It was a lovely day – a summer wedding in the garden, the flowers all in bloom and children running about the lawn. The food was done by a friend of my parents’, and it was so delicious that it was talked about by my in-laws for years afterward.

Hors d’oeuvres were Lao egg rolls (similar to Thai) with a spicy peanut dipping sauce. The drinks flowed freely.

The main meal was salmon mousse with cucumber sauce, roulades of cold stuffed chicken breasts, wild rice salad, and garden fresh tomatoes with fresh basil en vinaigrette.

For dessert – a chocolate cake, the layers brushed with Chambord, filled with raspberry mousse, and iced with buttercream. Fresh flowers on the top (and champagne on the side!).

Ellen

Edited to correct the name of the liqueur. Shouldn't type when I'm tired!

Edited February 2, 2006 by H. du Bois (log)

[Blanche Davidian]

My wedding was so much fun and the food was one of the best parts. We got married at my husband's crunchy-granola Quaker boarding school, where we still have lots of friends on the staff. They offered to cook for us and made totally fantastic fresh baked bread (a Quaker thing), rare roast beef and grilled tahini portobello mushrooms for filling, baba ganoush and hummus for the avalanche of crudite, and a couple of salads I now have no memory of. Another staff member baked our strawberry-filled wedding cake and we ordered a vegan chocolate cake from the local Co-Op. Beer was from a local brewery, and I rented a margarita/daquiri machine because the reception was outside in July.

My husband and I have never been vegetarian/vegan, but a lot of our guests were and we wanted everyone to be full as a tick and drunk as a lord. My carnivore father/uncles fell on the mushrooms like they were t-bone steaks--I got so many compliments on them even though my midwestern family is kind of afraid of "hippie food."

Three years later, the food is still talked about amongst friends and family, especially since another family member recently married and served the traditional rubber chicken dinner...

[Portia_Smith]

Ellen - I hope your divorce works itself out in the most painless fashion imaginable. At least you have great food memories of your wedding!

My first marriage (NOT the one mentioned upthread!) took place 10 years ago last week. In Yuma Arizona. We eloped. He was a Marine and let's just say we really had no business tying the knot. Nothing in common, huge cultural differences, blah, blah, blah. In effect - a disaster waiting to happen.

No guests as he was on nuclear biological chemical training (!?!?!?) and we didn't know anyone in the area. No food or drink at the dry baptist wedding chapel.

Then he took me to Applebees (WARNING! ANNNOYING MUSIC ON SITE) and I probably paid.

He then had to report for duty.

Good lord I'd forgotten how crap it all was.

On the up side - when I finally got my divorce back home in Australia - because of various jurisdictional issues - I went out and got fabulously drunk at 10 am at The Yak Bar who were nice enough not to blink an eyelid at the laughing/crying/hysterical chick downing champagne cocktails at a completely inappropriate hour. I then decided I HAD to eat or I was going to be violently ill. So I went to Camy Shanghai Dumpling and Noodle and scarfed down two plates of peking pork dumplings.

Then got taken home by future husband number 2 and made to sleep it off!

I think we should start a divorce food thread!

[Gifted Gourmet]

I think we should start a divorce food thread!

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Dear God, no!

Like "what foods led to your divorce"??

"Did you cook all that badly??"

Wedding foods, for a first, second, or tenth wedding, are so much more appetizing ....

[Portia_Smith]

I was thinking more along the lines of 'how did you celebrate your divorce' ! And let me say that those pork dumplings were so much more satisfying than the al fredo I had at applebee's on the wedding night of marriage number 1!

But in the spirit of celebrating long and happy unions- my parents, still blissfully in love after 45 years of marriage - had a pre wedding drink at the Court House Hotel, Brunswick.

On reflection - maybe it was just my dad - pre wedding nerves being soothed.. with some mates. I think it was a VB. He was only 21 - bless!

[R.E. Turner]

Honestly, the only bit of my own first wedding "feast" I recall is the fresh melons... and maybe I only remember those so vividly because I helped prep the buffet line before climbing into my own ivory satin dress! If I recall correctly, though, my mother and I served our guests with lovely fresh fruits, Mom's special recipe meatballs, Grandmother's specialty turkey and dressing, my own special homemade breads, and so forth. As for true "specialties," I seem to recall being called to the carpet with the groom's cake: In my experience at the time, groom's cake's were typically arranged by the groom's family, or they were a pretty standard fruitcake. However, about 1 week before my own festivities, the groom's Mom mentioned that she wanted her sis-in-law to "keep" the groom's cake. I vividly recall a frantic call to my grandmother that evening, and asked (begged?) that Grandmother might deign to make a red velvet sheetcake for the following weekend: Don't cut it, we'll decorate with whatever fresh flowers we can snag, etc. Blessedly, my grandmother makes the best of the best possible showy red velvet cake, and my former boss offered thousands of dollars worth of fresh roses from her garden to decorate my wedding. No one with the least sense of fair play could possibly have denigrated the groom's cake we offered, based on taste or appearance. Unfortunately, though, that's absolutely the only thing I recall from my wedding menu!

(Actually, I'm lying. Even if I have no recollection of tasting these dishes, I have some memory of the menus from my rehearsal dinner and my wedding reception. Without being too much of an, um, unpleasant person, I'll just say that my mother-in-law did a journeyman's job of catering the rehearsal dinner. Regardless of the difficulties we may have had through the years, my former mom-in-law was quite a good cook. She only tried too hard that evening. And on the day of my wedding, my mother also tried too hard. Dishes that she normally did well showed a lack of attentiveness when it was her own daughter getting married... There was just so much going on! None of the food was bad, but it all tended toward indifferent, since the chefs were so focussed on other aspects of the wedding!)

If I may brag on a two-decade-old wedding, though, I'd like to say that the wedding cake was absolutely lovely. My best friend's mother presented said cake as a gift from the family, and Mrs. E. couldn't have done a lovlier job. The cake wasn't just beautiful to look at, but it tasted absolutely wonderful!

And, considering that I literally knew every bartender in town when it happened, I wouldn't begin to consider how I celebrated my divorce, even if I remembered the evening...

[SweetSide]

Ah, the memories -- or lack thereof.

I fall into the lack thereof category. It was an unusually warm December day 18 years ago, and we held the wedding outside instead of inside. The sun was warm and gorgeous. It was a close family only ceremony with 25 people. Simple and sweet.

Then we went to a beautiful old New England inn for the reception. I remember spending hours with the staff picking a buffet menu. And I remember the phrase coming out of my mouth that "everything was vegetarian except for the meat"

What I meant was that we had a carving station with a turkey and roast beef and if you didn't ask for something to be carved, no other dishes contained meat.

All I remember about the food was saying to the waiter to go ahead and take my plate since I would never get around to finishing it. The only thing I remember eating was the spice cake, and it was goooood.

Great comments from the guests, perfect attentiveness from the staff.

And 18 years later, I would do it bigger since we paid for it and have more money now. Same place for sure. Same food -- don't know; still don't know what we had other than the cake. But it would still be vegetarian except for the meat...

[kiliki]

This is such a wonderful thread. As the future mr. and I plan to run off and get hitched by ourselves, but maybe, MAYBE have some sort of party/celebration after, it has been great to read the range of things that people have done. Especially the celebrations that fall outside "standard" reception perameters-catering yourself, the picnic/bbq potlucks, the small restaurant dinners-I found some of these so touching and so much more special than any lavish cookie cutter wedding reception. Thanks for sharing.

[racheld]

What happens to pictures when there's just a little red "X" and "user posted image" in the slot? I remember seeing Wendy's pics at one time, but they don't show anymore and aren't clickable.

[suzilightning]

This is such a wonderful thread. As the future mr. and I plan to run off and get hitched by ourselves, but maybe, MAYBE have some sort of party/celebration after, it has been great to read the range of things that people have done. Especially the celebrations that fall outside "standard" reception perameters-catering yourself, the picnic/bbq potlucks, the small restaurant dinners-I found some of these so touching and so much more special than any lavish cookie cutter wedding reception. Thanks for sharing.

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i have a phrase for you - "EGULLET POT LUCK PARTY"

[Live It Up]

This is such a wonderful thread. As the future mr. and I plan to run off and get hitched by ourselves, but maybe, MAYBE have some sort of party/celebration after, it has been great to read the range of things that people have done. Especially the celebrations that fall outside "standard" reception perameters-catering yourself, the picnic/bbq potlucks, the small restaurant dinners-I found some of these so touching and so much more special than any lavish cookie cutter wedding reception. Thanks for sharing.

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This is exactly what my now husband and I did last summer--we were so repelled by the idea of having a "wedding" that we got married at City Hall and had a party for only our friends...didn't even tell our families until a month later. We had our party at a bar, which we rented for a sunday afternoon. I catered it myself, and it was all about what we wanted. We bought WAY too many oysters from the lobster place and hired an oyster shucker, which everyone agreed was the highlight of the party. I didn't get to eat as much as I would have liked, but I did eat. Here's what I made:

duck prosciutto with red onion marmelade (from the Babbo cookbook)

roasted wild mushrooms with truffle vinaigrette

roasted asparagus

spiced nuts

shrimp cocktail and a lot of sauces to go with raw oysters

wild rice salad with roasted pepper vinaigrette

spiced melon balls

Here's what I bought:

fresh mozzarella and heirloom tomatoes

prosciutto and capicolla

several beautiful cheeses

breads from Amy's

olives

no cake, but veniero's specially made mini chocolate dipped cannolis for me, and we also had some miniature raspberry tarts and my friend brought ridiculously beautiful strawberries from the farmer's market.

We had way too much food, but it was lots of fun. I know I wouldn't have been able to enjoy myself so much if I had to worry about my family's approval. Of course, my husband might not have gotten so embarassingly drunk if his family was there...

[racheld]

Well, Live It Up, it looks as if you did exactly that, to your guests' great enjoyment. Catering your own wedding is a BIG endeavor, and you seem to have carried it off with great aplomb and style.

Welcome!!

[kiliki]

We bought WAY too many oysters from the lobster place and hired an oyster shucker, which everyone agreed was the highlight of the party.

Oh my god. That is the best idea I've ever heard. The rest of your menu sounds fantastic too. At the moment we're so excited planning the honeymoon (Paris and somewhere else-French Alps? Provence?) that we've sort of forgotten about any party. In fact we even keep forgetting we should actually get married before the honeymoon. Clearly these things are less important that reading up on the best patisseries and markets in Paris.

[Kouign Aman]

Loved reading all these happy memories. Am smiling.

We had three parameters - a whole buncha friends who'd have been hopping mad not to see us get hitched, a tight budget, and a burning desire to make sure everyone had plenty to eat. I hate weddings where they run out of food. So... we debated lasagna but ended up with

quiche lorraine, broccoli quiche, crusty rolls, fresh strawberries, whipped cream, coffee, tea, sodas, beer, wine. 2 full sheet cakes = chocolate cake with raspberry filling and chocolate frosting - ivory and coffee colored frosting roses on it (Mr KA loves chocolate).

Outdoor wedding (our new backyard), RSVPs from 180 guests (of whom a whacking great 5 were relatives or friends of relatives). Tables set up in the garden, spaced so the two quiches were quite separate (several guests of the keep-kosher at home, dont eat meat outside the home persuasion, several vegetarians). Chairs for the ceremony, to be folded away and replaced with small tall tables for eating. Table clothes already doublesticky taped to the tables. Oven preheating for quiches. Bowls of whipped cream ready. 10 flats of strawberries brought in that morning from the fields; the vendor'd left them an extra day on the vine for us. Washed, piled in glass bowls and ready to go. Bottles opened and set in ice, glasses stacked neatly near by.

Garden is glorious - full of day lilies, mexican primrose, rosemary, potted flowers of all sorts, nasturtiums. The lawn is looking mighty fine. The day dawns clear and bright and glorious. 30 min before the ceremony was due to start, the clouds arrived.

It rained, cold hard rain, during the ceremony. Immediately we finished speaking our vows, ~ 150 people crammed into a 1400 sq ft house. I think it took less than a minute to get them all inside. They were motivated! Then we started wedging in a table from which to serve the food. I remember I ate a strawberry at one point. My BIL barricaded off the kitchen, removing some available squarefootage, but this let him keep the hot quiches coming. My dad made endless pots of hot coffee. Wine was consumed, the soda languished. People got to know each other really well, but it was so crowded, was hard to get to the food, and hard to find room to eat it. There were abundant leftovers which we spent the next day freezing.

Other than the rain, I wouldnt change a thing. Note to self: April is too early for outdoor weddings, even in SoCal.

[alanamoana]

i'm another one who didn't want to have a huge catered affair. we got married this past november in hawaii at my parents' house. my mother and her three sisters did all of the cooking. i don't even know if they got to eat, i know i didn't eat until everyone had left. i made the wedding cakes, yes, two cakes. actually three if you count the small dairy free one i made for one of my allergy ridden sisters-in-law.

let's see:

grilled cumin marinated beef skewers

chinese style cold noodle salad

spring rolls

shrimp with goat cheese wrapped in springroll wrappers and fried

won tons

char siu - chinese barbequed pork

a huge fruit platter

korean style bean sprout salad

ten pounds of poke (hawaiian style marinated raw ahi)

probably some other things i can't remember

the food just kept coming. i think the guests didn't know that there was more food coming so some got filled up on the first round and ran out of stomach space for the rest. we were disorganized so forgot to put out wine...i returned about 3 cases. everyone was happy with fresh passion fruit/lemonade we made with lemons from the yard, sodas, beers, water, etc.

cakes:

white cake with passion fruit curd filling and vanilla bean italian meringue buttercream

chocolate cake with chopped toasted macadamia nuts and macadamia nut paste flavored italian meringue buttercream

i was assembling cake until the guests started showing up, quickly showered and changed, said "i do" then changed again into shorts and a t-shirt and finished putting the cakes together! a little hectic, but it was actually fun and i ran out to socialize when i could.

the weather was great. sunny and warm with a quick pineapple shower at the end of the afternoon. only about 60 or so guests and i thought it was really relaxed and fun.

i think my mom still has some cake in the freezer!

now i hafta check out the rest of this thread...fun to see how other people get hitched.

[Katie Nell]

Love reading this topic... I'm sad I didn't see it until now!

My fiance and I are eloping to British Columbia in late August, and it will be just the two of us! So excited! We will eat dinner at a nice restaurant the night of and then there will be champagne in the room!

We will be back for a few weeks and then have a "reception" in early October. We're having about 80 people, and it will be very casual. We were really wanting to do all the food ourselves, but I'm not sure we can handle it. I really want to do a dessert party, but my fiance is not really as enamored about that idea. I also have Martha's hors d'ouerves book (sp? I can never get that one right!) and would love to duplicate some of those ideas. At first, I wanted to do a "British Columbian" dinner, but we decided it would be too complicated and too expensive. I'm sure we will end up having part of it catered and part of it we will do ourselves!

Geez... that sounds like a multiple personality post!! Yes, I'm indecisive!!

[Sunny Simmons Steincamp]

I'm late finding this thread, too, but it's very timely! I'm performing a marriage in mid-June, and besides hosting the entire event (reception & all) on our pretty, rural homestead, I'm doing the reception food for the couple as a wedding gift... and helping the bride's sister make the wedding cake. (Yes, the phrase glutton for punishment does occasionally leap to my mind!) So, reading all of these posts was really helpful, as I am trying to help the couple come up with a workable menu for 70 (inluding about a dozen of the groom's Mormon family & friends from Utah.)

My own wedding was held on the beach -- November 20, if you can believe the audacity -- and was beautiful. I made all the food myself (except the wedding cake, which my wonderfully talented cousin created,) and would change only ONE thing about the entire affair... it was a huge tactical error not to delegate the setting out of the food to several someones.. and I mean someone elses! By the time my husband and I went to our hotel rooms, got ready for the reception, and made our way to my cousin's house where it was held, the guests had been milling around for over half an hour without food, because nobody dared touch all the dishes, not knowing how to warm/serve/set them up!! My cousin was embarassed and I felt horrible! But... fortunately it was an easygoing group of about 80 people, and while I spent the entire first hour of my own wedding reception slaving away, it was a blast.

I would have thought I couldn't possibly forget anything on the menu, but I found it took some hard thinking. We had cold trays of Smithfield ham, rare roast beef, cheeses, etc., along with buns & biscuits for making sandwiches (with the usual condiments, of course.) There were also fruit & veggie trays. Then I made some of my dishes that family & friends love to eat most (because I am always happiest when I'm making someone go "Yum!" and who doesn't want to be happy at your wedding reception?) There was hot crab dip, spinach & artichoke & cheese dip, jalapeno chicken casserole, and 5 1/2 dozen stuffed eggs. There were pounds of potato salad, homemade macaroni & cheese, and broccoli & rice bake. Chips, crackers, and other things to dip, scoop, and otherwise handle the foods were abundant. A friend played bartender for us, pouring mixed drinks, wine, champagne, and mead, and coolers full of all different kinds of iced-down beer were strategically placed around the house & yard. Since most of our guests were from out of town (as we were; we got married in Virginia Beach,) everyone stayed late (after midnight!) and consumed almost 100 percent of the food & beverages, which was a good thing, considering we really didn't have room for all our stuff, plus wedding gifts, plus my kids, plus leftovers in our little Saturn!

[Sunny Simmons Steincamp]

I'm late finding this thread, too, but it's very timely! I'm performing a marriage in mid-June, and besides hosting the entire event (reception & all) on our pretty, rural homestead, I'm doing the reception food for the couple as a wedding gift... and helping the bride's sister make the wedding cake. (Yes, the phrase glutton for punishment does occasionally leap to my mind!) So, reading all of these posts was really helpful, as I am trying to help the couple come up with a workable menu for 70 (inluding about a dozen of the groom's Mormon family & friends from Utah.)

My own wedding was held on the beach -- November 20, if you can believe the audacity -- and was beautiful. I made all the food myself (except the wedding cake, which my wonderfully talented cousin created, and deli-bought stuff,) and would change only ONE thing about the entire affair... it was a huge tactical error not to delegate the setting out of the food to several someones.. and I mean someone elses! By the time my husband and I went to our hotel rooms, got ready for the reception, and made our way to my cousin's house where it was held, the guests had been milling around for over half an hour without food, because nobody dared touch all the dishes, not knowing how to warm/serve/set them up!! My cousin was embarassed and I felt horrible! But... fortunately it was an easygoing group of about 80 people, and while I spent the entire first hour of my own wedding reception slaving away, it was a blast.

I would have thought I couldn't possibly forget anything on the menu, but I found it took some hard thinking. We had cold trays of Smithfield ham, rare roast beef, cheeses, etc., along with buns & biscuits for making sandwiches (with the usual condiments, of course.) There were also fruit & veggie trays. Then I made some of my dishes that family & friends love to eat most (because I am always happiest when I'm making someone go "Yum!" and who doesn't want to be happy at your wedding reception?) There was hot crab dip, spinach & artichoke & cheese dip, jalapeno chicken casserole, and 5 1/2 dozen stuffed eggs. There were pounds of potato salad, homemade macaroni & cheese, and broccoli & rice bake. Chips, crackers, and other things to dip, scoop, and otherwise handle the foods were abundant. A friend played bartender for us, pouring mixed drinks, wine, champagne, and mead, and coolers full of all different kinds of iced-down beer were strategically placed around the house & yard. Since most of our guests were from out of town (as we were; we got married in Virginia Beach,) everyone stayed late (after midnight!) and consumed almost 100 percent of the food & beverages, which was a good thing, considering we really didn't have room for all our stuff, plus wedding gifts, plus my kids, plus leftovers in our little Saturn!

[Catriona]

I'm very much looking forward to our upcoming wedding (October 26). I've just got back from the post box where I mailed the invitations!

We're having exactly the wedding we wanted - registry office, followed by lunch at my parents' house. No fuss, no hoo-haa, no white gown. 26 people (including us). Just the closest of people, and good wine and food (after all, this is our wedding, we couldn't have had so-so food!)

When people arrive, there will be smoked salmon (from the Connemara Smokehouse) on blinis and champagne. (roederer nv)

Then foie gras just simply served with toast and a sprinkling of gros sel.

Lobster and basmati rice, and rare roast beef. (mostly lobster, just beef for the couple of people who won't want it... or for people that want something warm) and vegetables

Cheese (both Irish and french - I'm marrying a frenchman) and a huge green salad

Cakes: a Baba au Rhum (his favourite thing) and a fruit tart, and something gluten free.

Some of the delicious dragees that we tasted to nibble on with the coffee (we went for the totally traditional ones for people to bring home with them, but these ones were so good we had to figure out a way to get them into the proceedings - they've got a tiny layer of dark chocolate, and the sugar coating is coffee flavoured - delicious!)

Most of the meal will be served with champagne, but we have an amazing sauternes to go with the foie gras, and a red for anyone who wants that with their beef.