I've read many times that the most impressionable wedding elements on a guest are food and entertainment. Guests are going to remember if the food was bad and if they didn't have a good time no matter how heartfelt your ceremony was or how gorgeous your decor was. With this in mind, Patrick and I set out to create a relaxed jazzy brunch buffet reception. We set the mood at the reception with a four-piece speakeasy band that kept the mood light. We are not "party people" so we opted for this casual ambiance to reflect who we are as a couple. This reason also contributed to why we selected to have a daytime wedding.
Reception Food
Our venue, The Cotton Room, provides all couples with an in-house catering team. The Cotton Room hosts a quarterly open house for couples to come taste the food options (versus a private tasting). It's also nice to see the venue dressed up as it would be for your wedding. We attended two open houses and were pleased with everything! Here we are at the open houses:
For our cocktail hour we served more brunch-y items. Bloody Mary shrimp shooters, pimento cheeses sliders with fried green tomatoes, and mini tarts with mascarpone, asparagus, & ham were all passed around. For the buffet we selected a mixed greens salad with sweet tea vinaigrette, lemon orzo stuffed chicken, crabcakes, beef tenderloin carving station, garlic green beans, and macaroni and cheese.
Wedding cake & Dessert table
Our wedding cake was provided by the delicious Daisy Cakes bakery. We were originally introduced to this bakery through a Taste Carolina gourmet food tour. Patrick was probably leaning towards Daisy Cakes from the very beginning (we also tasted at Sugarland and Guglhupf). Daisy Cakes allowed us to have a tasting while Mom and Jimmy were in town (coincidentally for a Cotton Room open house). Their professionalism was outstanding and we couldn't have had a better cake tasting experience here. For our wedding cake we went traditional and selected a vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream filling and frosting. To round out the brunch buffet we added a dessert table. It was filled with chocolate cupcakes with mocha buttercream frosting, chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter buttercream frosting, lemon meringue tartlettes, raspberry almond bars, and vanilla raspberry bread pudding!
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| Mom thought the coffee mugs were extra cute. |
The Rehearsal Dinner
The rehearsal dinner was hosted by Patrick's mom and was in the dining room of the King's Daughters Inn, the bed and breakfast where everyone was staying. We contracted with Durham Catering Co. for the evening. They did a phenomenal job. For starters we had sesame crusted tuna seared rare with an avocado and chipotle mayonnaise and wild mushroom & goat cheese quiche passed around during the cocktail hour. The first course was an arugula salad with golden beets, ricotta salata, and pine nuts tossed in a citrus vinaigrette. Our guests were able to choose between peppercorn crusted beef tenderloin served with a potato-corn gratin & asparagus, grilled salmon served over tomato gazpacho accompanied by corn fritters, or hand-rolled pappardelle pasta with roasted summer peppers and tomatoes in a light herb butter sauce. The dessert was a buttermilk fruit skillet cake with peaches and seasonal fruit sauce.
We were pleased with everything. Although I will say looking back on the weekend I can't remember savoring much of the food. It's hard work being the bride and groom!
Everything was wonderful. All the choices were great.
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