3 Tips for Choosing Your Wedding Reception Menu

Some brides seem to have a bit of trouble selecting the menu for their wedding reception.  Although on the surface this might seem relatively easy, it’s easy to get bogged down in the minutia.  And if that happens, then your relatively easy task of choosing the menu might suddenly seem a whole lot tougher.  What follows are some basic ideas to help you avoid overcomplicating this decision.


The first tip is to know your budget.  Hopefully you will already have developed an itemized wedding budget, so the task here essentially boils down to price shopping the various caterers available to see what options each one has that fall within your budget.  Once you’ve identified a short list of possible caterers, you can then delve deeper with each one by asking questions, checking references, and tasting some food samples.  The bottom line is that doing this budgetary screening process on the front end will help to narrow down your options, which in turn will help to simplify the overall decision process. Second, understand that you will not be able to please everybody.  Yes you should have some healthy and meat-free food options available, but don’t get bogged down trying to tweak the menu choices any more than that.  I mean, who cares if Aunt Jemima wants apricot-laced pancakes – it’s your wedding and hence you cannot afford to cater to every last guest’s whim.

Third, forget about the food you’ve had at previous weddings.  Trends are changing, and right now the trend is toward less is more.  Yes you might want to offer the standard choice of filet mignon, fish or chicken, but keep in mind that this is no longer mandatory or even expected.  For example, depending on your guest list and wedding theme, you might want to serve deluxe tavern burgers in lieu of steak, or trade the fish for a nice pasta dish.  Other non-traditional food items which are gaining in popularity include tacos and other Mexican delights, shish kabob items, and brick oven pizza. As you can see, the best way to simplify the process of choosing your wedding reception menu is to, well, keep it simple.  Know how much you can afford to spend per person, realize that you cannot please everybody, and stick with basic but trendy menu items.  If you can keep these 3 ideas in mind at all times, this process will be easy.  The bottom line: don’t over-think it!