The Essential Guide to Gay and Lesbian Weddings (69 page)

Chances are you'll end up with some combination of the following styles of food service.

At a buffet, guests serve themselves from one central food display. Buffet service pops up in one form or another at almost all parties because you can accommodate more people than at a sit-down dinner, and there are fewer hassles. Guests can munch, mingle, and choose what they wish to eat all at the same time. Your buffet can be casual or dressed up with theatrical displays, or it can feature international themes.

While they are often thought to be less expensive than more formal meals, buffets can be more costly than sit-down service because additional food is required for the displays to look fresh. (Also people can go back again and again, and you know what that means.
Cha-ching
!) Buffets can also be tricky and shouldn't be automatically thought of as the easiest way to go. After people have served themselves a plate of food, they have to eat it somewhere. Do you expect them to stand, holding the plate in one hand and a drink in the other? Probably not. With buffet service, make sure you have enough chairs (or room on your living-room sofa or elsewhere) for people to park themselves while they eat. It's also a great bonus if there are a number of small tables or even some preset larger tables for the guests to put their plates on so they won't have to use their laps.

If a buffet is sounding good to you, digest the following:

Every buffet service is different, but to give you a sense of organization, make sure there are enough designated helpers to serve the food and replenish the buffet, and one or two people working clean-up. We cannot stress how important it is to have responsible help whose sole purpose is to walk around and bus dishes; otherwise, at some point someone will put a foot down into a plateful of tuna salad that your cousin left on the floor.

Because guests at a buffet help themselves, “audience participation” foods work well—for example, taco bars, sandwich platters, create-your-own-dessert tables.

The perfect buffet food requires no cutting, but if cutting is necessary, it's vital that you not use paper plates. Visualize your beautifully attired aunt with a paper plate on her lap that has bent under the pressure of her trying to cut a bite of turkey. Not a pretty picture.

Ideally, buffet food should taste as good cold or lukewarm as it does hot (because that's how it's likely to be eaten). Similarly, it should also be able to withstand warm temperatures if you're having an outdoor wedding.

Buffets don't have to be full-meal deals. They can range from lox and bagels, to afternoon tea sandwiches, to the ever-popular dessert reception.

You don't want the buffet to turn into the steam table of your high school cafeteria, with guests waiting in line to get tired Salisbury steak, so ponder the following.

As guests will mostly be serving themselves, it is important that your food be easily handled. Some dishes, like chicken breasts and crepes, can be prepared in individual portions; others, such as quiches, should be presliced. The messier the food, the more you need to think about how to serve it. Finding proper serving utensils like large spoons and spatulas will help your three-cheese lasagna from turning into mushy noodles, tomato sauce, and runny ricotta. Each dish should have a designated serving utensil.

When setting up a buffet table, you want to stress ease of movement and avoid bottlenecks and long waits. To do this you really have to hand-feed (no pun intended) food options to guests. Guests should move down the line, see the attractively displayed food, get it easily on their plates, and move on.

Arrange the plates, eating utensils, and napkins at one end of the table. It helps if guests can hold all of this in one hand. (Rolling the utensils into the napkin is a big plus on that front.)

As they move down the buffet line, guests should encounter side dishes first—vegetables, pasta, potatoes. These are followed by the main dish—say, fish or chicken. You may want an attendant to help serve the main dish.

Condiments and sauces should be placed next to the food they're intended to accompany. Too often when you get to the end of a buffet table you see this off-white sauce and wonder what you're supposed to do with it.

THE DESSERT RECEPTION