Getting Ready for a Wedding: Mass Production

We made 150 heart-shaped cookies using sanding sugar and dragees, with a purple and lavendar theme to reflect the wedding colors

One of the first decisions we made about the wedding was to prepare the food ourselves. The task consisted largely of assembling the ingredients and all of the serving dishes and implements: We were completely confident of the recipes, which were all tried and true family favorites.

The menu we decided on was:

Appetizers

Assorted cheeses with fruit & crackers

Garlic rusk with goat cheese and sun-dried tomatoes
Miniature chicken kabobs

Baked brie en croute

Pesto dip with cherry tomatoes

Melon wrapped in prosciutto

Mixed nuts

Cheese straws

Main Course

Antipasto selection

Artichoke & caper lasagna with white sauce

Sausage and pepper lasagna with red sauce

Rosemary foccaccio with olive oil dipping sauce

Bread sticks

Home made rolls and butter

White wine

Red wine

Sweets course

Mexican wedding cookies

Iced butter cookies

Truffles & other chocolates

Dessert

Wedding cake

This was an ambitious project, as we were counting on 150 guests, but there was no way to serve a full meal with some elegant touches within our budget unless we took on the basic cooking ourselves. Over all, it took eight weekends for the preparation of 17 pans of lasagna, 400 cookies, and 600 cheese straws, all of which were safely tucked into the basement freezer, and the freezer of a used refrigerator we purchased and stashed in the garage, by mid-summer. All went extremely well--until the power went out for three days! (But that's another story, involving our friend Corky's generator and round-the-clock trips to the back yard to keep in going.)

All of our frozen foods were well received at the reception. I think it's fair to pronounce our recipes top-notch for advanced preparation and freezing. I would be happy to share any or all.

Plating the food and serving the guests were both separate tasks--requiring just as much preparation as the cooking, and also great adventures.