One of the major decisions you will have to make for your wedding are the wedding reception menus. This is what you will feed your wedding guests from hors d’oeuvres, drinks, appetizers, and the different courses of the meal.

When planning your menu, keep in mind the time of day that the reception or meal is being held. A morning meal may actually lend itself to a buffet, where an afternoon would be a light meal and an evening meal would be a more elaborate event.

Wedding Menu Ideas

Where do you get ideas for your wedding menu? If you are working with a wedding planner or caterer, they can help you with the reception menus based on your wedding theme, personal tastes and dietary concerns.

This is the time to specify if you require special meals for medical reasons or religious reasons. For medical reasons you may want to offer a menu choice that would be suitable for low salt/diabetic conditions.

If on the other hand you require a kosher meal or have to remove pork or caffeine, you need to request that early on.

For a traditional wedding, your meal goes from hors d’oeuvres to appetizers, to main course, to cake and dessert. What you serve here is entirely up to you.

Have a wide variety of foods available for the hors d’oeuvres and be sure to have at least 2 choices for the main course or allow substitutions.

If you are having a morning or afternoon wedding you can break from tradition. A breakfast buffet with a champagne fountain can be beautiful. An afternoon lends itself to a cookout or barbeque event.

Maybe even an afternoon tea/coffee or an early evening cocktail hour instead of a large traditional feast. Most of this will depend on your personal tastes and wedding budget.

Simple Wedding Reception Menus

When planning wedding receptions menus sometimes keeping it simple s the best way to go. If you are going casual, why not have a breakfast buffet consisting of fruits, Belgian Waffles, eggs, bacon and sausage, bagels and cream cheese.

Combine this with a champagne fountain, mimosas and bloody maries for alcoholic beverages and coffee, tea and juices for other drinks and you have a great wedding. This is something that you can even do in a backyard or at a friend’s home.

For the afternoon try a barbeque or luau. You can serve drinks from a rented tiki bar or for the barbeque maybe have something different like a beach theme.

Evening lend themselves to cocktail parties and larger events. For cocktails just serve finger foods and focus on a varied selection of food and drink.

This can be elegant but casual and for those on a budget it’s a great way to save big. Your friends and relatives can all mingle and you save by not having to serve a large meal.

When planning wedding reception menus keep in mind your personal tastes as well as your guest’s tastes. Always try to offer a choice, and if budget concerns arise, you can always simplify the meal. After all it’s not about the food; it’s about celebrating your new life together.